Noor Ahmed Raaz
Faculty Member, Dept. of Textile Engineering,
Atish Dipankar University of Science & Technology
Email: raju.uttara105@gmail.com
Introduction: In the global competitive textile and clothing market, the cost and quality are playing major roles in the survival of the industries. This in turn is influenced by the adoption of the automated tools and equipment by the industries. The industries that are unable to adopt these technologies are thriving to survive. On the other hand, the industries that adopt automation are gaining competitive advantage. In a global market where the cost of labor is increasing, automation can help to keep the labor cost low.
Automation is the replacement of human activity by mechanization and electronic control. Automation is concerned with the application of machines to tasks once performed by humans or, increasingly, to tasks that would otherwise be impossible. Although the term mechanization is often used to refer to the simple replacement of human labor by machines, automation generally implies the integration of machines into a self-governing system. In most sectors of textile manufacturing, automation is one major key to quality improvement and cost competitiveness. Now automation is remarkably used in cotton picking, ginning etc.
Spinning industries provide yarn to the weaving industries, which provide fabric to the garment industries. The quality of yarn and fabrics greatly influences the quality of the garments. By the incorporation of automation from the preliminary stages can result in the production of good-quality raw materials for the subsequent stages. The automation in spinning mainly focuses on auto-doffing, automatic material handling, auto fault detection, and automatic bobbin replacement.
Automation in Fiber Manufacturing:
Nowadays automation is widely used in fiber manufacturing system. In case of increasing emphasis on product uniformity and adherence to quality standards continues to require fiber diameter monitoring, temperature and tension control, and monitoring of the solution properties of the polymer.
Today, it is possible to find commercial examples for spin draw- wind, spin- draw-warp and spin-draw textile processes. These technologies place a different emphasis on material handling requirements; robotic technologies for package doffing and transport are increasingly available and yet because of the linking of processes, need be placed only at critical points in the overall process. The emphasis on flexible manufacturing, even in the fiber industry, has led to the development by some fiber producers of robotic techniques for the rapid change and replacement of spin packs and spinnerets. In these examples, robots are called upon to do what humans cannot do – change hot parts before they have cooled.
Automated inspection of yarn packages for broken ends, poor package building, and improper tensions and misidentified packages is a goal being pursued by a number of fiber producers. The history of the man made fiber industry has emphasized process control more than any other segment of the textile operation. Increasing emphasis on product uniformity and adherence to quality standards continues to require fiber diameter monitoring, temperature and tension control, and monitoring of the solution properties of the polymer.
These requirements are especially critical in micro-denier fiber extrusion, a process that produces fibers and eventually fabrics of truly different properties.
Advantages of Automation in Fiber Manufacturing: Fundamentally, textile manufacturing is a labor-intensive operation. An improvement in the textile technology is mainly confined to increase in productivity, cost reduction, quality upgradation, and product development. One of the main upgradations in the textile industry is the introduction of various control systems in almost all the processes.
Advantages of automation in fiber manufacturing are:
Smooth running, increased production, and improved quality
Savings in plant cost
Savings in raw material
Increased safety
Improved working conditions
Saving in manpower
Improved plant management and supervision
References:
Automation in Textile Machinery: Instrumentation and Control System Design Principles By L. Ashok Kumar, M Senthil kumar
Automation in Garment Manufacturing by by Rajkishore Nayak Rajiv Padhye
Process Management in Spinning by R. Senthil Kumar
Garment Manufacturing Technology by Rajkishore Nayak Rajiv Padhye
Founder & Editor of Textile Learner. He is a Textile Consultant, Blogger & Entrepreneur. He is working as a textile consultant in several local and international companies. He is also a contributor of Wikipedia.
