Textile Testing and Quality Control-Part A

What is textile testing?

Textile testing is checking the quality and suitability of raw material and selection of material. It is an important part for textile production, distribution, and consumption. Though it is an expensive business but essential too. There are some reasons for textile testing; such as, checking raw materials, monitoring production, assessing the Final Product, investigation of faulty material, product development and research.

What is quality control?

Quality controls is a process by which entities review the quality of all products in an industry. It refers to ways of ensuring the quality of a service or product. Actually quality control is a system for verifying and maintaining a desired level of quality in an existing product or service by careful planning, use of proper equipment, continued inspection, and corrective action as required.

Testing: Testing means checking, examine and verification of some items. On the other way we can define testing as; it is the process or procedure to determine the quality of a product.

Object of testing:

• Research
• Selection of raw material
• Process control
• Process development
• Product testing
• Specification test
• Testing is governed by 5M, which are: Man, Machine, Material, Method and Measurement.

Quality: The term quality refers the excellence of a product. When we say the quality of a product is good. We mean that the product is good for the purpose for which it has been made.

Control: To check or verify and hence to regulate.

Quality Control: Quality control is the synthetic and regular control of the variable which affect the quality of a product. It is the checking, verification and regulation of the degree of excellence of an attribute or property of something.

The operational techniques and activities that sustain the quality of a product or service in order to satisfy given requirements. It consists of quality planning, data collection, data analysis and implementation and is applicable to all phases of product life cycle; design, manufacturing, delivery and installation, operation and maintenance.

• Objects of Quality Control: To produce required quality product.
• To fulfill the customer’s demand.
• To reduce the production cost.
• To reduce wastage.
• To earn maximum profit at minimum cost.

Quality Control in Home textile Manufacturing Process

Quality is a relative term. It means customer needs is to be satisfied. Quality is of prime importance in any aspect of business. Customers demand and expect value for money. As producers of apparel there must be a constant endeavor to produce work of good quality. In previous article, I discuss about quality control system in Home textile industry. Now I will give a short description of Quality Control in Home textile Manufacturing Process.

The various Steps of Home textiles manufacturing where in-process inspection and quality control are done are mentioned below-

1. In Sample making section
2. In- Marker making section
3. Inspection in fabric spreading section
4. Inspection in fabric cutting section
5. Inspection in fabric sewn section
6. Inspection in pressing & Finishing section

Quality Control in Sample Section:

1. Maintaining buyer Specification standard
2. Checking the sample and its different issues
3. Measurements checking
4. Fabric color, gsm, Fastness etc properties required checking
5. Spi and other parameter checking

Quality Control in Marker Making:

1. To check notch or drill mark
2. Fabric width must be higher than marker width
3. Fabric length must be higher than marker length
4. Matching of green line
5. Check pattern size and dimension
6. Matching of check and stripe taking into consideration
7. Considering Home textiles production plan
8. Cutting table length consideration
9. Pattern direction consideration

Quality Control in Fabric Spreading:

1. Fabric spreading according to correct alignment with marker length and width
2. Maintain requirements of spreading
3. Matching of check and stripe
4. Lay contains correct number of fabric ply
5. Correct Ply direction
6. To control the fabric splicing
7. Tension control

Quality Control in Fabric Cutting:

1. The dimension of the pattern and the cut piece should be same and accurate
2. Cut edge should be smooth and clean
3. Notch should be cut finely
4. Drill hole should made at proper place
5. No yarn fraying should occur at cut edge
6. Avoid blade deflection
7. Maintain cutting angle
8. More skilled operator using

Quality Control in Sewing Section:

1. Input material checking
2. Cut panel and accessories checking
3. Machine is in well condition
4. Thread count check
5. Special work like embroidery, printing panel check
6. Needle size checking
7. Stitching fault should be checked
8. Home textiles measurement check
9. Seam fault check
10. Size mistake check
11. Mismatching matching of trimming
12. Shade variation within the cloth
13. Wrong placement of interlining
14. Creased or wrinkle appearance control

Quality Control in Finishing Section:

1. Proper inspection of the Home textiles including measurement, spot, dirt, impurities
2. Water spot
3. Shading variation check
4. Smooth and unfold in pocket
5. In secured or broken chain or button
6. Wrong fold
7. Proper shape in Home textiles
8. Properly dried in after pressing
9. Wanted wrinkle or fold in lining
10. Get up checking
11. Collar closing
12. Side seam
13. Sleeve placket attach
14. Cuff attach
15. Bottom hem
16. Back yoke
17. Every parts of a body

Quality Control of Sewing Thread and Zipper

Quality Control of Sewing Thread:

A slender, strong strand or cord, especially one designed for sewing or other needlework. Most threads are made by plying and twisting yarns. A wide variety of thread types are in use today, e.g., spun cotton and spun polyester, core-spun cotton with a polyester filament core, polyester or nylon filaments (often bonded), and mono filament threads.

Sewing thread

Following Features of Sewing Thread are considered:

1. Thread Construction/Ticket number
2. Thread count
3. Thread Ply
4. Number of twist
5. Thread balance
6. Thread Tenacity
7. Thread Elongation
8. Sew ability
9. Imperfection
10. Thread finish
11. Thread color
12. Package Density
13. Winding
14. Yardage

Quality Control in Zipper:

A zipper, zip, or zip fastener, is a commonly used device for temporarily joining two edges of fabric. It is used in clothing (e.g., jackets and jeans), luggage and other bags, sporting goods, camping gear (e.g. tents and sleeping bags), and other items.

Zipper

Following Factors are considered in Zipper:

1. Proper dimension of zipper
2. The top and bottom end should correctly sewn
3. The tape and color of zipper should be uniform
4. Slider has to be locked properly
5. The slider should move properly

Quality Control System:

1. On- line quality control system
2. Off-line quality control system

On Line Quality control System:

This type of quality control is carried out without stopping the production process. During the running of production process a setup is automatically performs and detect the fault and also takes corrective action.Online quality control comprises with the raw material quality control and the process control.

Raw Material Control:

As the quality product depends on the raw material quality so we must be provided with the best quality raw material with an economical consideration. The fabric must be without fault, with proper absorbency, whiteness as per requirement of the subsequent process. The Grey inspection report gives the condition of the raw fabric.

Process Control:

The method chosen for the process must be provided with the necessary accurate parameters. Here the specific gravity, water level, residual hydrogen per oxide etc. at each stage is checked.

Laboratory:

Lab is the head of the textile industries. Higher precision lab can aid easily to achieve the goal of the organization. Before bulk production a sample for the approval from industry is sent to the buyer. As per the requirement of the buyer the shade is prepared in a lab considering the economic aspects.

 Lab Line:

1. Standard sample: The buyer to the industry gives the standard sample. The sample is measured by the CCM to get the recipe.
2. Lab trial: Getting the recipe the lab officer produce lab trial and match with standard according to buyer requirement. Lab trial is made by the AHIBA dyeing machine. There are some programs for dyeing. The programs are given below.

 Off-line Quality Control System:

Performed in the laboratory and other production area by stopping the production process consisting of fabric inspection and laboratory and other test. Correction steps are taken according to the test result.

Off-line Tests: All the Off-line tests for finished fabrics can be grouped as follows:

1. Physical tests
2. Chemical tests

Physical Tests:

1. GSM test
2. Shrinkage test
3. Spiraled test
4. Tensile strength
5. Abrasion resistance
6. Pilling resistance
7. Button Strength Testing
8. Crease resistance
9. Dimensional stability
10. Bursting strength test

Chemical Tests:

1. Color Fastness to washing.
2. Color Fastness to light.
3. Color Fastness to heat.
4. Color Fastness to Chlorinated water.
5. Color Fastness to water spotting.
6. Color Fastness to perspiration.
7. Color Fastness to Seawater.
8. Fiber analysis.
9. PH test.
10. Repellency

(to be continued)