The Study of Fabric Drape & Measurement: An overview

The paper intended to make a survey of existing research in fabric drape. To understand drape behaviour it is essential to know measurement of drape. This paper reviews research related to drape characteristics of fabric, different types of instruments developed to measure drape and properties influencing.

Key Words: Fabric drape, Fabric Testing, Garment drape

Drape and drapeablity are terms for that property of textile materials, which allows a fabric to orient it self in to graceful folds or pleats when acted upon by force of gravity. Hence a fabric is said to have good draping qualities when configuration is pleasing to the eye [Chu et al (1950)]. Fabric drape also refers to the manner in which fabric falls, shapes, flows with a model or human body as well as on furniture and wall hanging when only part of it directly supported. This is a very important mechanical property due to its influence on appearance of clothing. Drape is defined as the "extent to which a fabric will deform when it is allowed to hang under its own weight" [BS Handbook (1974)]. This unique characteristic provides a sense of fullness and graceful appearance, which distinguish fabric from other sheet materials.

When material is draped it can bend in one or more directions, curtains and draperies usually bend in one direction, where as garments and upholstery exhibits a complex three dimensional form with double curvature. Thus fabric drape is a complex mathematical problem involving large deformations under low stress. Initially fabric is draped rapidly based on its weight overcoming the resistance associated with its stiffness, after which the stiffness of fabric structure resists further deformation. Fabrics may drape in dramatically different ways depending upon fibre, type of yarn, fabric structure and type of finish.

Studies on the Utilization of Hybrid Energy in Domestic Silk Reeling Basin

Abstract: Energy consumption for cooking and reeling operation in a domestic reeling unit of 6-basin was calculated. It is found that on an average 1000 kg firewood is required for production of 60 kg raw silk in conventional energy management. A new modified energy management process with solar water heating system and a mini-steam boiler yields a saving of 54% firewood consumption compared to conventional process.

Key words: Silk reeling, Sericin, Firewood, Deforestation, Energy

Introduction

Silk reeling industry is energy intensive in all stages of production like, cocoon drying, cooking, reeling and re-reeling. Being cottage industry located mostly in villages and towns, the industry depends on firewood and other different sources of agriculture residues for energy needs_. It is estimated that 1,45,000MT/year of fuel wood and 1,70,000MT/ year of other biomass consumed for production of raw silk in India as other commercial fuel sources (e.g. coal and LPG) are not favoured due to limitation of price and environmental pollution.

Rfid In The Fashion Apparel / Textile Industry

Technology Test / Adaptation: Companies implement a simulated store environment and test accuracy and reliability in boxes, on shelves, and on hangers. This step lasts for a period of a few months. 

Real-size test: Companies implement a live test in one or several stores to prove the business case and check applicability of store-level processes in a live environment. Assessment metrics are those of the business case (additional sales and cost reduction). This step lasts about six months. 

Deployment / Rollout: Rolling out to the network. It is envisioned that rollout should be as fast as possible in order to realize a quicker Return on Investment. A critical preoccupation is also to avoid the coexistence of several processes and to drop legacy processes as soon as possible. V 

Building the business case: Network size is the multiplier 

A quasi consensus emerges in the Fashion Apparel & Textile Industry: With tag prices at about 10 cents per unit, and reading accuracy at 98-99%, RFID applications in the store offer a compelling business case. 

Better inventory management and better re-stocking generates additional revenues, reduced % of missed sales, and lower shrinkage. 

Cost savings are mainly generated in the Warehouses / Distribution Centers. 

Initiative related costs include: Investment in hardware facilities, middleware, integration, RFID tags, and roll out costs (training, implementation, etc) 

Obviously, the larger the network the higher the return. Proactive companies are considering rolling out to their whole network as quickly as possible. 

Other potential benefits not covered in the analysis are: Better staff time allocation in the stores, reduction of transportation costs, and specific processes automation at the DC level (such as increased automatic picking). 

Taking the RFID issue from the boardroom to reality 

Moving from market observation to development of a business case is typically a Management Team initiative. 

Typically, the role of the CEO is to initiate the business case, to assess the results with the Management Team in terms of competitive advantage and created value, and to decide whether or not to launch a pilot. 

Senior Executives involved are most often the Chief Operating Officer, the Logistics Manager, the CTO or IT Manager, and the CFO. In the case where a Network Manager is in the organizational matrix (the person who manages the stores network) this individual is also involved. 

Most often, Fashion Apparel and Textile industries have built lean organizations, based on an intimate knowledge and control of their processes and metrics. They therefore tend to develop their business cases internally, with limited or no help from external parties such as consultants.

Rfid In The Fashion Apparel / Textile Industry

From the boardroom to reality: RFID in the fashion apparel / textile industry 

Many Fashion Apparel / Textile companies - particularly those with a large network of stores - are well underway in terms of streamlining their supply chain and optimizing sales forecasts and distribution. They are now looking for ways to enhance revenues and market share by adopting modern ways of managing stores and inventory. RFID has now become a centerpiece in their strategic thinking. Some companies are also stepping up the process into actual implementation. 

A new business model for Fashion Apparel and Textile chains 

Leading Fashion Apparel / Textile companies have significantly modified their business model. Shifting away from manufacturing, Fashion Apparel & Textile companies have built competitive advantage, based on new ways of delivering value to their consumers. 

A new business model has developed and stabilized based on a centralized approach to design and logistics. A typical business model now includes central design, hundreds of external suppliers, (most often in Asia), and one or two central warehouses that serve as a logistical hub for stocking a large networks of retail outlets. 

The new frontier is in the retail store .The cost cutting side of supply chain management is to a large extent behind us. It has already yielded most of its benefits. 

The time is coming for additional revenue generation. Today, most large network Fashion Apparel & Textile companies focus on improving the "store side" of their supply chain and distribution operations.

Active Fashion Apparel & Textile chains are absolutely confident that the first benefits of RFID implementation will come from store-level applications such as real and/or near real time inventory linked to stock management systems and store re-stocking processes. 

Typically, industries go through 5 steps in implementing a store-level RFID initiative: 

Market Observation: Talking to business specialists, they gather information on technology accuracy and reliability, costs, and future trends. 

Business Case: Metrics are designed and implemented on core store-level and DC-level processes. Consumer behavior is assessed. 

The upper line of the business case is built upon additional sales related issues, improved inventory, stock management, and store re-stocking refinements. 

Costs savings include staff time allocations, counting / checking, shrink reduction. 

Costs include hardware and software technology (tags, readers, software & middleware), integration, training, roll-out and systems operation.

From The Boardroom To Reality Rfid In The Fashion Apparel Textile Industry

Deployment / Rollout: Rolling out to the network. It is envisioned that rollout should be as fast as possible in order to realize a quicker Return on Investment. A critical preoccupation is also to avoid the coexistence of several processes and to drop legacy processes as soon as possible.

Building the business case: Network size is the multiplier 

A quasi consensus emerges in the Fashion Apparel & Textile Industry: With tag prices at about 10 cents per unit, and reading accuracy at 98-99%, RFID applications in the store offer a compelling business case.

Better inventory management and better re-stocking generates additional revenues, reduced % of missed sales, and lower shrinkage.

Cost savings are mainly generated in the Warehouses / Distribution Centers.

Initiative related costs include: Investment in hardware facilities, middleware, integration, RFID tags, and roll out costs (training, implementation, etc)

Obviously, the larger the network the higher the return. Proactive companies are considering rolling out to their whole network as quickly as possible.

Other potential benefits not covered in the analysis are: Better staff time allocation in the stores, reduction of transportation costs, and specific processes automation at the DC level (such as increased automatic picking).

Taking the RFID issue from the boardroom to reality 

Moving from market observation to development of a business case is typically a Management Team initiative.

Typically, the role of the CEO is to initiate the business case, to assess the results with the Management Team in terms of competitive advantage and created value, and to decide whether or not to launch a pilot.

Senior Executives involved are most often the Chief Operating Officer, the Logistics Manager, the CTO or IT Manager, and the CFO. In the case where a Network Manager is in the organizational matrix (the person who manages the stores network) this individual is also involved.

Most often, Fashion Apparel and Textile industries have built lean organizations, based on an intimate knowledge and control of their processes and metrics. They therefore tend to develop their business cases internally, with limited or no help from external parties such as consultants.

Conclusions: RFID at the turning point 

The Fashion Apparel / Textile Industry is at a crossroad in terms of RFID applications.

Obviously, in the short term, store-level applications are seen as the most promising ones mainly because of their direct impact on customer satisfaction and revenues.

RFID represents a new opportunity for delivering value to both customers and shareholders. They try to maximize value by adopting an end-to-end approach to RFID adoption.

From The Boardroom To Reality Rfid In The Fashion Apparel Textile Industry

Many Fashion Apparel / Textile companies - particularly those with a large network of stores - are well underway in terms of streamlining their supply chain and optimizing sales forecasts and distribution. They are now looking for ways to enhance revenues and market share by adopting modern ways of managing stores and inventory. RFID has now become a centrepiece in their strategic thinking. Some companies are also stepping up the process into actual implementation.

A new business model for Fashion Apparel and Textile chains 
Leading Fashion Apparel / Textile companies have significantly modified ttheir business model. Shifting away from manufacturing, Fashion Apparel t& Textile companies have built competitive advantage, based on new tways of delivering value to their consumers.

tA new business model has developed and stabilized based on a tcentralized approach to design and logistics. A typical business model tnow includes central design, hundreds of external suppliers, (most often tin Asia), and one or two central warehouses that serve as a logistical hub tfor stocking a large networks of retail outlets.

The new frontier is in the retail store 

The cost cutting side of supply chain management is to a large extent behind us. It has already yielded most of its benefits.

The time is coming for additional revenue generation. Today, most large network Fashion Apparel & Textile companies focus on improving the "store side" of their supply chain and distribution operations.

Active Fashion Apparel & Textile chains are absolutely confident that the first benefits of RFID implementation will come from store-level applications such as real and/or near real time inventory linked to stock management systems and store re-stocking processes.

Typically, industries go through 5 steps in implementing a store-level RFID initiative:
Market Observation: Talking to business specialists, they gather information on technology accuracy and reliability, costs, and future trends.

Business Case: Metrics are designed and implemented on core store-level and DC-level processes. Consumer behavior is assessed.

The upper line of the business case is built upon additional sales related issues, improved inventory, stock management, and store re-stocking refinements.

Costs savings include staff time allocations, counting / checking, shrink reduction.

Costs include hardware and software technology (tags, readers, software & middleware), integration, training, roll-out and systems operation.
Technology Test / Adaptation: Companies implement a simulated store environment and test accuracy and reliability in boxes, on shelves, and on hangers. This step lasts for a period of a few months.

Real-size test: Companies implement a live test in one or several stores to prove the business case and check applicability of store-level processes in a live environment. Assessment metrics are those of the business case (additional sales and cost reduction). This step lasts about six months.

Recent Trends in Utilization of Fiber, Yarn, Fabrics

Recent trends in fiber, yarn and fabric management in Textile-Apparel-Distribution network require a very accurate estimation of consumption pattern and sourcing management to minimize their costs and satisfy their customers. For such strategy, fashion designers rely more on fashion forecasting system to respond to the versatile textile market. However, the specific constraints of the textile consumption and sales (numerous and new items, short lifetime) complicate the forecasting procedure and distributors prefer to use intuitive estimation methods of the sales rather than the existing forecasting models. In this paper we firstly discuss the different aspects used for improving the accuracy of fashion product development and forecasting process, use of computer technology in management of fiber, yarn and fabrics for estimation of their consumption. We also demonstrate a decision aid system, based on neural networks, which automatically performs item sales forecasting of textile items with two models being demonstrated for silk fabric consumption and cotton-textiles fabric consumption. Performances of our model are evaluated using real data released by authorized agencies. Network forecasted results show excellent correlation with real data emphasizing the its advantages over traditionally, statistical time series methods like moving average, auto-regression or combinations of them used for forecasting apparel and fashion product sales.

Keywords: Fashion forecasting, 2-D and 3-D cad system, Neural Network forecasting model, time series, Texture mapping.

Introduction

Introducing new products of Apparels made from different variations of fibers, yarns and fabrics can provide a competitive advantage as well as a long-term financial return on investment. New product development is thus vitally linked to a company's competitive strategy and consequently to the new product sales forecasting of apparels and textiles that provides quantitative information on the expected return from development efforts. Sales forecasting of apparels and textiles attempts to decrease uncertainty, providing input for the decisions made about introducing of new products and offering feedback for the new product development process. The significant correlation between new product development and new product sales forecasts makes new product forecasting extremely important.

Traditionally, statistical time series methods like moving average, auto-regression or combinations of them are used for forecasting fashion trends and sales of fashion products. Since these models predict future sales only on the basis of previous sales, they fail in environments where sales are heavily influenced by exogenous variables, such as economic conditions, climatic conditions, competitive activities, advertising and several factors. Although traditional statistical models characterize the above mentioned factors, they are essentially linear in nature and don't characterize the nonlinear nature of apparel sales and analyse fibre, yarn, fabric consumption trends. Fuzzy logic, artificial neural networks coupled with latest applications of computer technology for fashion design and management and genetic algorithms(Gas) offer an alternative approach by taking into account both endogenous and exogenous variables and allowing arbitrary non-linear approximation functions derived(learned directly from the previous data).