At 120 panels a day over 26 working days, a month runs about 620 tonnes of panel steel through the nest. About two per cent less steel than a manual layout of the same list consumes — some 12 tonnes that stays in stock instead of being cut off the end of a panel and weighed in as scrap.
Go deeper · the arithmetic →Savings · Measured 10 June to 5 September 2026
What grating nesting saves, measured.
Two things come back from a nesting run: steel that a manual layout would have cut into offcut, and the days somebody would have spent laying panels out by hand. Both are countable. Below is the count, taken from 1,071 tonnes of panel steel nested on a live production line — with every assumption behind it written down.
Per month, at one estimator’s workload
Steel back in stock. A month back in the office.
One person nesting by hand covers about 120 panels a day. That is the workload these two figures describe — what Grate Nesting returns for every person-month of manual layout it replaces.
A run finishes in one to three minutes and several can be queued, so the manual layout it replaces is not reduced — it is removed. Twenty-six person-days a month go back to the estimator, who was previously drawing panels rather than checking prices, chasing drawings or quoting the next job.
Go deeper · what was measured →Raw material is the biggest line on a grating order. The cutting layout decides how much of it you keep.
The basis
Counted, not projected.
These are counts from a production database, not a model: every panel a nesting run actually produced on a working grating line between June and September 2026.
- Panel steel nested
- 1,071 t
- Panels produced by nesting
- 5,391
- Batches
- 46
- Completed nesting runs
- 61
- Gratings cut across those runs
- 37,455
- Average panel
- 198.8 kg
Weights are the stamped measurements of 5,066 panels totalling 1,007,222 kg. The remaining 325 panels come from two June batches produced before weights were recorded, and are estimated by area at the observed 38.95 kg/m². The line is Flocra’s own — Grate Nesting is the same optimisation engine, sold as a product.
The arithmetic
Every step, in the open.
Three numbers turn tonnes into rupees. None of them is ours to assert on your behalf, so each one is stated rather than buried.
- 01
About two per cent material saved, over manual nesting
The margin between a nested layout and a competent manual one on the same list — an end strip planned into the next piece instead of cut off and thrown away. It is approximate, and it is a floor rather than a ceiling: the batches behind it average about 23 tonnes, which is a size one person can still lay out well. Past roughly 50 tonnes — some 250 panels held as a single problem — a person’s pairing falls away as the combinations multiply, and the solver’s does not. That larger case is not measured here, so none of it is claimed below.
- 02
₹50 per kilogram of raw material
Your delivered bar price, before fabrication. Two per cent of ₹50 is ₹1, which makes the shortcut easy to carry: roughly every kilogram of panel steel you nest is a rupee saved. Nest a thousand tonnes, save ten lakh.
- 03
120 panels per person per day
What one estimator gets through laying panels out by hand. It sets the effort saving and the monthly volume both, so a shop that works faster or slower scales the two figures together.
| Item | Per working day | Per month · 26 working days |
|---|---|---|
| Panels nested | 120 | 3,120 |
| Panel steel nested | ~23,900 kg | ~620,000 kg |
| Steel saved vs manual, at about 2% | ~480 kg | ~12,400 kg |
| Raw material saved | ~₹23,900 (US$270) | ~₹6,20,000 (US$7,050) |
| Manual layout avoided | 1 person-day | 1 person-month |
Every figure in this table is the arithmetic of the three assumptions above, not a measurement, and the two per cent is approximate — so they are rounded rather than exact. A 30-day month with Sundays off is 26 working days; a month with five Sundays is 25, which brings the material figure to about ₹5,96,000 (US$6,780). Dollar figures are converted at ₹88 to US$1 and are indicative only.
Three months of live use
What it has already returned.
The same three assumptions, applied to the 1,071 tonnes actually nested between 10 June and 5 September 2026.
| Basis | Steel saved vs manual | Raw material saved | Manual layout avoided |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5,066 weighed panels | ~20,100 kg | ~₹10,07,000 (US$11,450) | 42.2 person-days |
| All 5,391 panels | ~21,400 kg | ~₹10,71,000 (US$12,170) | 44.9 person-days |
Roughly ₹10.7 lakh of steel and forty-five person-days of layout, on one line, in under three months.
Before you quote these upward
What these figures are not.
The honest limits of the numbers above, so you can judge what they are worth on your own floor.
Is the two per cent saving measured or assumed?
Assumed. The tonnage, the panel count and the run count are measured; the two per cent margin over manual nesting is an approximate estimate applied to them, and it is the figure to challenge first. Nest one real batch on the free trial and compare the utilisation against what your own layout achieves on the same list.
Whose production line do these numbers come from?
Flocra’s. Grate Nesting is the same optimisation engine that plans panels on Flocra’s own grating line, packaged and sold as a standalone product, so the volumes above are what it has done in production rather than what it managed in a test.
Does the saving grow with batch size?
It should, and this is where the figures are deliberately conservative. The 46 batches behind them average about 23 tonnes, roughly 117 panels, which is about a day of manual layout and a size a person can still hold in their head. A 50-tonne batch is nearer 250 panels that have to be paired as one problem, and human efficiency drops away sharply as the combinations multiply while the solver’s does not. We have not measured that larger case, so it is not in the two per cent — it sits on top of it.
Does the saving depend on my panel mix?
Yes. The rupee figure scales with the weight of steel you nest, and the average panel here is 198.8 kg over 5.1 square metres. Heavier panels move the monthly figure up and lighter ones move it down, which is why the shortcut is worth remembering: at about two per cent over manual and ₹50 a kilogram, you save a rupee for every kilogram you nest.
Does the effort saving assume nobody checks the result?
No. It assumes nobody draws the layout. Reviewing a result, adjusting a configuration and re-running are all still work, and they are why the output shows waste by cause and delivered width per piece rather than a single utilisation percentage.
Your list · Your machine · Your own number
Nest one real batch and check it.
Optimise a job — freeThree runs, no card. Compare the utilisation against your own layout on the same list · See how it works or the product overview