What Die Cutters And How Do They Work?

Most people you meet are under the mistaken impression that everything that they buy is made by the company who sells that final product. They think that the company gets all of the pieces that are needed to build a product and then the product goes through an assembly line in the one factory to have each piece of the product built. They envision something where piece A is created and send down the line so piece B can be added. Then it continues down the line until it is complete. However, the truth is that many pieces of the end product are produced by contract die cutting businesses. OEM die cutting operations may also be involved.

Basically, companies that specialize in die cutting focus on creating pieces that the other company needs in order to build their product. These are usually pieces that need to be cut in specific pieces or shapes and need to be done thousands and thousands of times each day. The problem is that the machines that have the ability to handle this process are very expensive and also very technical. Every company who produces their own products does not have either the money or the expertise to be able to handle the machines. This is the reason that they contract with die cutting companies to provide these materials for them.

A really great example of how this process is handles is to follow along with how shoes are made. The shoe company needs thousands of pieces of leather each day to construct a pair of shoes. The first part of the process is to start with a piece of leather that needs to be cut to the exact size. That piece of leather is then shaped and sewn together based upon the specifications needed to produce the final shoe.

The knowledge and skill of the people at the shoe company is to know how to design the shoe and knowing the best and most efficient way to get it built. Their expertise is not about how to get thousands of pieces of leather cut in exactly the same way every day. Because of this, they hire a die cutting company to provide these leather pieces for them.

Leather is just an example. Die cutting companies can also cut wood, plastic or even metal if that is what is needed by the company hiring them. These huge and specialized machines have the ability to cut almost anything because of the type of blades that are used. The blades are similar to a razor that is both extra sharp and extra strong. The reason that these machines can work so effectively is that they do not just cut out one shoe pattern at a time, they cut 10 or more depending upon the specifics of each job. Really, the only limitation of these machines is that they can only cut flat objects. However, most things that needs to be cut start flat anyway. When the flat product is then delivered to the shoe business or whoever else has hired the die cutting company that is usually when the flat piece gets stretched, layered and molded into the shape that is needed.