Inkjet Decorative Workpiece Nesting to Reduce Material Waste
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Solution Overview
Problem
The manufacturing of decorative panels using inkjet printing often results in increased waste due to varying dimensions and shapes of decorative patterns, which existing methods fail to efficiently address, leading to inefficiencies and environmental impact.
Innovation Solution
A nesting method that optimally arranges decorative patterns on a decoration layer, taking into account their shapes and sizes, to minimize waste, and includes features like bleed areas and connect areas to compensate for inaccuracies in the printing and finishing processes, ensuring efficient use of materials and quick response to market demands.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If digital printing is used to print decorative patterns on decoration layers, then flexibility and adaptability are improved, but material waste increases due to varying dimensions and shapes of patterns
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies nesting by arranging multiple decorative patterns of varying dimensions and shapes on a single decoration layer in an optimized configuration. Patterns are nested and positioned to maximize space utilization, allowing efficient use of the decoration layer material while accommodating diverse pattern sizes and shapes, thus reducing material waste while maintaining printing flexibility
2Ease of manufacture
If arbitrary arrangement of decorative patterns is used, then ease of manufacture is improved, but material waste increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by pre-calculating and optimizing the arrangement of decorative patterns on the decoration layer before the actual printing process. The system determines the optimal positions and orientations of multiple patterns in advance, creating a nested arrangement plan that minimizes material waste while maintaining ease of manufacture through automated planning
3Manufacturing precision
If bleed areas and connect areas are added to compensate for printing inaccuracies, then manufacturing precision is improved, but material usage increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by adding bleed areas and connect areas only at specific locations where needed to compensate for printing and cutting inaccuracies. Rather than uniformly increasing material across the entire decoration layer, the system strategically places these compensation zones at critical boundaries and connection points, minimizing overall material consumption while ensuring manufacturing precision
Data Source
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AI summary
A method for manufacturing decorative workpieces including the step of nesting (100) a set of decorative patterns (201-206), digital printed on a decoration layer (301) to reduce the waste of decoration layer. To perform a corresponding relief for the nested decorative patterns on a nested decorative workpiece, the relief provided by a digital relief apparatus is in a correct match with the nested decorative workpiece. If the printing zone of the digital printer has a failure zone, the nesting method prevents arranging of the decorative patterns in this failure zone.