Always looking to provide solutions to the garment industry, Contact Communications, the publishers of Apparel Online, StitchWorld and Apparel Online (Hindi) recently launched consultwho.com, a web portal designed and hosted by Contact Communications to search apparel industry consultants from both India and abroad in 56 different areas of operations.

The ultimate aim of every production unit is to minimize the unproductive activities and invest on productive ones. ‘Caffeine’, a software solution developed by Shlok Hariramani, Undergraduate Fashion Technology student from NIFT, New Delhi, as a part of an internship project is a step towards making the processes much simpler by mapping few of the I.E. department activities. Team StitchWorld analyses the high points of the solution.

Stretchline UK, part of a group which is the world’s largest manufacturer of stretch narrow fabrics and which is a joint venture with the Sri Lankan giant apparel and garment conglomerate, MAS Holdings, Lanka, manufactures close to 17 million metres of elastic every week. The company has come out with an exclusive and dramatic new elastic called ‘Locksafe’ (Patents Pending) that has become the benchmark worldwide. Elastics invariably have a high rate of rejection and return from the market due to poor quality. Of these garment returns, 40% are due to runback and unravelling of inadequately performing elastics. With the introduction of Locksafe the user industry claims that garment returns have now been eliminated. Among its properties are no frilling, fraying or unraveling. It provides more stretch, softness, durability and value. This results in reduction in cost of manufacture, greater payback and higher productivity with a claimed AQL of almost Zero. Team StitchWorld interviews Barry Head, a product specialist from Stretchline.

Circular knitting machines face a vexing problem in the form of undesirable lint. It contaminates the stitch forming parts of the knitting machine, is responsible for needle lines, needle breakage, bending and holes in the fabric being knitted. It migrates to adjacent machines and contaminates fabrics being produced there. It also causes oil stains on the fabric. As a result of these drawbacks, up to 10% of all fabric produced by a circular knitting plant is defective or are 2nd grade. This represents a huge loss for any circular knitting plant. Moreover, as an environmental issue, it is a serious health risk to workers. Manufacturers of circular knitting machines have failed to solve this vexatious problem over the many years that the machine has been in operation. Mukesh Gupta explains...

Textilmaschinen recently held a demonstration week at its technical centre in Mönchengladbach, Germany to show customers its new dyeing and finishing ranges in actual working conditions. Above & above right: Before and After - these two pictures show just how quickly the greige fabric can be dyed and fixed on the Thermex system - within minutes. One of the major technology talking points was the company’s impressive new continuous dyeing process for knitted fabrics, which the company says is the first of its kind in the industry. Knitted fabrics are traditionally dyed in tubular form, but Monforts new process means that even lightweight single jersey fabrics can be go through the continuous dye route in open width - just like woven fabrics.

Monforts, Germany recognised for quality machines for industrial textiles, contract textiles and haute couture, have now set a global standard. As the standard, Monforts provides the signet MONFORIZED in logo form for manufacturers who finish their fabrics on machines from Monforts. With the MONFORIZED tag, customers can provide official proof that they have undertaken a commitment to the very highest quality standards, granting it the distinction which translates into higher market price. However, the MONFORIZED label will be granted free of cost only to companies which use modern Monforts equipment, maintained and operated to the highest standards.

Seeing the potential and interest generated in medical and hygiene disposable products such as baby and adult diapers, sanitary napkins, etc., Business Co-ordination House (BCH), together with a consortium of International Companies organised a one day symposium on ‘Medical and Hygiene Disposable Textile Products’ on March 8, 2006 in New Delhi. Renowned world leaders in this field such as BBA Fiberweb Group, 3M, GDM, Henkel, Fulflex, Huhtamaki and some others came together to disseminate information regarding raw material, technology and basic elements needed to establish the know-how for positive feeling for new investment in this field was provided.

A number of reasons are attributed to a skipped stitch which is a common quality defect. The major ones are wrong thread for the application or improper threading, improper needle / thread size relationship, worn or defective thread guides or eyelets, excessive machine thread tension or needle heat, defective needle or improper positioning of the needle, improper feeding or improper operator handling and flagging.

Nanotechnology is no longer a world of mystique, with products utilising its properties hitting the market everyday. It is the fastest growing segment of clothing with maximum R&D, primarily for military use, the offshoots of which find ready acceptance among customers. The prognosis for Germany is for the share of technical textiles and innovative apparel textiles to climb to 40 to 45% of total textile sales. Avantex and Techtextil are two fairs that run concurrently in June at Frankfurt. Some award winning inventions are described in brief below:

Entire Clothing has looked at the onerous job of shifting machines during various stitching operations and devised contrivances that not only facilitate easier shifting of machines during change of layout, but also work as cost and time savers. While, on the one hand, these gadgets ask for less number of labourers to operate and ensure better safety of machines, they, on the other, help accomplish the task smoothly in a relatively shorter duration. Their Sewing Machine Trolley and Roll Stand are good examples.