Industrial Engineering
Doubling the machine speed removes half of a quarter of the cycle. A better folder often beats it.
— %
Share of the cycle actually spent stitching
Speed realised is the number that decides whether a fast machine is worth anything, and on short seams with corners it can fall below half the rating — measure it from stitch count and observed sewing time rather than trusting the plate. The comparison offered here treats handling as freely reducible, which it is not: some of it is inherent to the part and only a fixture, folder or method change reaches the rest. Output per hour is the bare cycle rate before allowances and line balance losses, so it will always exceed what the line delivers.
Sewing Needle-Time vs Material Handling Ratio Optimizer — free, with the formula and a worked example, at Textile School.