TEXTILE PRODUCTION AND CONTROL: AN OVERVIEW 3 The raw material for manufacturing fabric (Textile) is yarn and yarn is made (spun) from fibre, which belongs to various categories -either natural or man-made or regenerated fibre Natural fibre: cotton, silk, wool, jute etc Man made fibre: polyester, nylon, and polypropylene etc Regenerated fibre: viscose, rayon etc As per the Industry sources, most of the fabrics are produced from the fibres mentioned above and /or in the combination thereof. There are the various stages in Textile manufacturing A) In India:- Ginning: (only in case of cotton fibre): Cotton is a natural fibre & cultivated in the Field hence it contains lint & seeds, which are to be separated from cotton. It is done through a process called ginning. To have good result in ginning i.e. so as fibre is not ruptured, good machinery with proper setting are used. The importance of Cotton fibre can be well understood in case of India as it 9| is second biggest consumer after China. It is also second biggest cotton | exporter next to USA and is the Second biggest producer of cotton next to China ' As cotton contains natural moisture so to facilitate ginning operation the cotton first goes through dryers to reduce moisture content and then through cleaning equipment to remove foreign matter. Their operations facilitate processing and improve fibre Quality. The cotton is then air conveyed to gin stands where revolving circular saws pull the lint through closcly spaced ribs that prevent the seed from passing through. The lint is removed from the saw teeth by air blasts or rotating brushes, and then Compressed into bales weighing approximately 500 pounds. Cotton is then moved to a warehouse for storage until it is shipped to a Textile mill for further use 7 The various properties of cotton fibre are important in further process for example the fibre’s fineness is important for determining the type (coarse or fine) of yarns that can be made from the fibre-the finer the cotton fibres, the finer the yarns can be made as there are the requirement of minimum number of fibres in a cross sectional of the yarn. Color or brightness of the fibres is important factor. Cotton that is very white generally is of higher value than cottons whose color may have yellowed with exposure because one looks for white or without colour more suitable in dyeing at yarn or fabrics stage. The amount of trash also influences the cotton’s value since the Textile mill must remove trash before processing. The fibre’s strength also is an important 50measurement that ultimately influences the fabrics made from these fibres as stronger the fibre, stronger will be the yarn made of and so will be fabrics ultimately produced from the yarn. A.!)Control: The control has mainly two aspects over here —one is quality and other one is productivity. For quality aspect at the ginning Samples taken from each bale are classed according to fibre strength, length, length uniformity, color, non — fibre content and fineness using high volume instrumentation (HVJ). The aid of an expert (Classer) is taken who has his experience in checking vatious quality parameters like fibre length and strength colour etc manually. Scientific quality control checks are made periodically to ensure that instrument and Classer accuracy is maintained. Cotton of a given variety produces fibres of approximately the same length. Since the fibres may vary within a bale, length uniformity allows a determination of the variability within that bale. To maintain good quality some companies uses the practice of hand picking of cotton in the cotton growing field so that filre is not damaged and employ selectors in various cotton stations for kapas (seed cotton) buying. Kapas is checked by visual graders, hand classers and tested by electronic machines in lab to determine post ginning fibre attributes. Moisture is controlled at every stage and various measures are taken to avoid contamination like only cloth brooms are used for cleaning, Kapas and final cotton is kept on cemented floor and not on mud/dust. Human handling is minimized during ginning, Workers 31