Fabric Inspection

Jimmy K.C. Lam

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Fabric Inspection

• Why, when and where• Inspection Systems

o Four-Point Systemo Ten-Point System

• Inspection Condition• Sampling• Acceptance Level

Fabric Inspection (I)When, why, where

• Producer likes to know the quality of his products (says quality for 500,000 yds fabric)

• Buyer wants to assure the product quality he ordered.

• 10% check will give buyer some ideas of his product quality

• 25% check maybe necessary for new supplier

• 3% check maybe enough for a proven record supplier

Fabric Inspection (II)

• Fabric inspection must be selected randomly

• The fabric sample must be selected from different place, different lot and different time

• Inspector must use a packing list and select different bales on different place

• The samples should be selected from early, middle and late production.

Inspection Standards

• Ten Point Systemo Oldest and most used in woven finished

fabric• Four point System

o Widely adopted and used in knitted fabric• The Graniteville’78 System

o major and minor types, used in garment pieces

Ten Point System

Ten Point System

• The earliest inspection system and is designed to identify defects and to assign each defect a value based on severity of defect

• Published in 1955 by Textile Distributors Institute and National Federation of Textiles

Ten Points System(Woven)

• Warp Defectso 10-36 inches 10 pointso 5-10 inches 5 pointso 1-5 inches 3 pointso up to 1 inch 1 point

• Weft Defectso Full width 10 pointso 5 inches to half width 5 pointso 1-5 inches 3 pointso up to 1 inch 1 point

Ten Point System

• Standards for examination of finished goods (woven mainly)

• Penalties to be assigned for imperfection of warp and weft defects

• Grading is designed to apply to every imperfection according to size, regardless of type.

• For print cloth, any piece of grey which contains less than 50% more penalty points than yardage may be passed for printed fabric.

Ten Point System(Note)

• No one yard should be penalized more than 10 points

• Any warp or weft defect occurring repeatedly throughout the entire piece makes it “second”

• A combination of both warp and weft defects when occurring in one yarn should not be penalized more than 10 points

Ten Point SystemGrading

• “First Quality”o A piece is graded as “first” if the total quality points

do not exceed the total yardage of the piece. Eg. 100 yard piece got the penalized of 70.

• “Second Quality”o A piece is graded a “second” if the total

penalty points exceed the total yardage of the piece.

Four Point System

Four Point System

• It was published in 1959 by the National Association of Shirt Pajama Sportswear Manufacturers

• It got the biggest support for American Society for Quality Control.

• It was endorsed by federal government for military inspection and American Apparel Manufacturers Association

Four Point SystemsKnitted Fabric

• Grading of fabric quality according to penalty points

• Penalty points are based on the length of defects measured in inch.

• Fabric inspection is only on one side of fabric and is based on fabric width of 64-66 inches (knitted fabric)

• Four penalty points per linear yarn up to 64/66 inches in width

• The quality shall be expressed in the number of penalty points per 100 yarn length

Four Point Systems(others)

• All products sold must be have the following properties:

• Grey Goods:o constructiono blendo widtho weight

• Finished Goods• Buyer must inform seller on any

particular condition of goods

Calculation

• Points per 100 square yards = o (Total points scored X 3600)/ (Cloth width in

inches X yards examined)• e.g inspected 100 yards fabric and got

100 penalty points,fabric width is 72 inches, the points per 100 square yards is : o (100X3600)/(72X100) =50

The Graniteville ‘78 System

Graniteville’78 System

• It was introduced in 1975 for the field of fabric grading.

• The system divided defects into major and minor types

• The major defect was one which was very obvious and lead the goods to second quality

• The minor defect was one may or may not have caused garment to second, depending on its location in the end use item

78 System Point

• Penalty Point Assignment of Graniteville’78

• Defect Length Penalty Pointso 9” 1o 9”-18” 2o 18”-27” 3o 27”-36” 4

78 Points- Notes• The principle was established in garment

cutting piece, which the short length defects (less than 9”) will normally be removed.

• The system tries to balance the importance of longer defects (over 9”) and put less weight on 1-10” defects such as slubs

• The system also suggests the viewing distance of 9 foot instead of normal 3-foot viewing distance.

• The system tend to eliminate very small defects from the total penalty score.