In-Process Inspection in Garment Industry
Mayedul Islam
Merchandiser at Fashion Xpress Buying House.
Badda, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Email: mayedul.islam66@gmail.com
In-Process Inspection
From the starting point of garment manufacturing up to garments ready to shipment, the inspection done is called in-process inspection. At least 65 to 80% faults can be checked and controlled through in-process inspection in garment industry.
Benefits or results of in process inspection:
- Reduction of major ‘surprises’ from the customers due to bad quality.
- Decrease in labor cost due to decrease in repair rates.
In process inspection includes:
Spreading inspection or Spreading defects
- Not enough plies to cover the quantity of garments required.
- Narrow fabric or wide fabric; alignment of one side should be accurate.
- Plies all are not facing in the correct direction i.e. not all the plies are spread face down, face up, or face to face as required.
- Mismatching of checks i.e. plies not spread accurately one above another for cutting.
- Spreading tension to each ply should be uniform and optimum.
- Splicing or bowing
- Overlapping should be in proper length and width.
Pattern and marker making inspection or defects
- Pattern parts missing; correct number of parts for all sizes not included by the marker maker.
- Mixed parts; parts are not correctly labeled in marker, so a marriage of wrong size parts.
- Patterns not facing the correct direction or napped fabrics.
- Patterns not facing the same direction on a one-way fabric.
- Patterns not aligned with respect to grain line of fabric. As a result, garments may not drape or fit properly.
- Line deflections poor (e.g. chalk-too thick, indistinctly printed line, perforated lay not fully powdered), leading to inaccurate cutting.
- Inadequate marking; either the marker did not use outside edge of the pattern or the pattern was moved or swung after partial marking to squeeze the pattern into a smaller space in the interest of fabric economy. Alternatively, the pattern is wound around the edges and should be replaced.
- Adequate marking; a combination of points 7 and 8 results in components being sewn together with puckering or pleating.
- Marker too wide; garment parts at the edge of the lay are cut with bits missing.
- Not enough knife clearance freedom.
- Mismatched check and strips.
- Notches and drill make omitted, indistinct or misplaced.
Cutting inspection or cutting defects
- Frayed edge; the amount of fraying depends on fabric finish and construction, improper cutting tools or blunt knives.
- Fuzzy; ragged or serrated edges; may come due to faulty knives edges such as burrs, chips or dullness.
- Ply to ply fusion; single ply whose cut yarn ends are fused to form a hard brittle rim on the cut edge.
- Pattern precision; misshape of the patterns perimeter as cut also top, bottom and middle plies part should be checked against the patterns.
- Notches; notch size should not be too large (more depth large notch).
- Drilling; the drill holes should be in optimum size and no fusion problem along the plies.
Sewing inspection or sewing defects
In sewing section, the in-process inspection is divided into three defects by Lowe and Low Coke as sewing defects:
Sewing defects:
Needle damage: evidenced by holes, picked threads, ruptured threads or damage to the fabric; caused by wrong size or types of needle, blunt needle, needle heat, machine feed difficulty.
- Skipped stitches
- Thread breaks
- Broken stitches
- Seam grin
- Seam pucker
- Pleated seams
- Wrong stitch density
- Uneven stitch density
- Staggered stitch
- Improperly formed stitches
Seam defects:
- Mismatched of adjacent part
- Wrong seam or stitch type used
- Wrong shade of thread used.
Assembly defects:
- Finished components not correct to size or shape or not symmetrical
- Finished garments not to size due to from incorrect patterns, inaccurate marking or cutting, shrinkage and stretching fabric, incorrect seam width.
- Parts, components, closures or features omitted, caused by bad work flow, parts omitted in cutting, careless operator.
- Components of features wrongly positioned or misaligned arising from incorrect marking or sewing not following the mark.
- Interlining incorrectly positioned, twisted, too full, too light, cockling.
- Lining too full, too tight, showing below the bottom of the garments, twisted, incorrectly pleated and so on.
- Garments parts cockling, pleated, twisted, showing bubbles and fullness.
- Garment parts shaded due to being mixed after cutting.
- Parts- in one-way fabric in wrong direction
- Mismatching trimmings
Finishing inspection or finishing defects
- Spots/burn/melt at the time of ironing
- Broken button, zipper and so on.
- Flattened nap or surface
- Change in color
- Crease not correctly formed
- Garments not thoroughly dried
- Stretching in fabric during pressing
- Pocket and collar incorrectly aligned at the time of pressing and ironing.
- Lining showing pleats, creases, wrinkles, shines, etc.
- Shrinkage due to heat and moisture.
- Incorrectly folding
- Mismatched trimmings
- Incorrectly packing (not as per packing instruction).
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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.
