About the Diecutting Process

We call the diecutting process the invisible industry. It affects almost every aspect of our daily lives. It is a key part of the manufacturing process of most of the products that we wear or use. Your mother most likely make cookies and cut hem out into various shapes, a Christmas tree, a dog, a heart or other shape using a cookie cutter. You mother performed a very basic form of diecutting.

The first industries to embrace diecutting ware the shoe industry and the printing industry in the mid to late 1880's. Today many soft to semi-rigid materials used to make component parts of many products are diecut. Materials from soft foam plastic and rubbers to hard materials such as contoured plywood seats or Lexan® nameplates for instrument panels are diecut. Dashboards of automobiles are diecut trimmed from many angles to trim the flashing to opening all the openings in a dashboard. Shoes, brassieres, baseball covers, folding cartons for cereal boxes, gaskets, labels, flexible printed circuit boards, surgical operation gowns, life vests, apparel and a multitude of other products are diecut on a daily basis.

Flat bed, multi-contour and rotary diecutting systems along with their respective cutting die tooling provide solutions for cutting and trimming a wide array of component parts of products and materials. Diecutting systems vary from simple hand operated arbor type presses for cutting out rubber test specimens to sophisticated automatic platen presses for cutting out folding cartons. From 3 dimensional multi-contour trim presses to cut and trim thermoformed parts to high-speed hard anvil rotary die presses to cut out labels.

The sixty four-dollar question is selecting the best combination of diecutting equipment; cutting die tooling with a cutting surface to best cut a particular material to a desired shape and tolerance. There are many possibilities of combinations of diecutting equipment and tooling. The length of the run also has an influence on the type of equipment and tooling needed to produce parts. Producing die cut parts at a cost per piece that is competitive and profitable is often a challenge of many diecutters, either in commercial or in-plant diecutting operations. Diecutting does not require the mind of a rocket scientist. The process is simple and basic of individuals understand the basics of cutting through different materials. Unfortunately, many diecutting operations are not operating to their maximum potential to the lack of personnel training or education or the mis-match of diecutting equipment and tooling.

Larson WorldWide, Inc. is dedicated to providing information resources to assist companies diecutting component parts of their products more efficiently and economically. We strive to provide educational opportunities to both diecutters and diemakers to assist them in their quest to be competitive leaders in their many diverse areas of diecutting and diemaking.

For a Never Complete list of materials that can be diecut - click here
For a Never Complete list of products that can be diecut - click here
For a list of products by U.S. Government SIC Codes that can be die cut - click here
To contact the International Association of Diecutting and Diemaking (IADD) click here