Archive: Jan 2016

“Ground Hog Day” in the Textile Industry

Leave a Comment

In the movie, “Groundhog Day”, Bill Murray is caught in a time warp of sorts where every day is the same thing. The same routine. The same greetings. The same weather. He is doomed to repeat, with certitude, the same conversations, motions, movements and happenings that occurred the previous day.

This redundancy, in life, would make an average man or woman quickly insane. But when developing a process for production and quality, sameness is actually something to be embraced. This is the way it is in textile production.

Please consider for a moment the average piece of fabric. Let’s say you are on a plane, and you pull a magazine from the mesh pouch that’s hooked to the seat in front of you. The pouch has the same color as the leather on the seat. How does that happen?

A simple piece of mesh netting is comprised of the following:

Filament

Yarn

Knitting

Dyeing

Finishing

Any variation in the above can cause a deviation in your finished product. The process of production and quality must adhere to a routine: spec certification for your filament count and yarn; knitting quality assurance- sampling, counting stitches, hole size repeats; dyeing- have there been chemical changes, appearance changes? Is the shade correct? Finishing- does the fabric feel correct (too hard, too soft?). It’s going in a plane. Is it fire resistant? (Again, have there been chemical changes that could adversely affect this?). Do we have a confirmation that all of the above criteria have been met?

So consider the simple piece of fabric, and the steps that a quality control manager takes to insure that all of these criteria are met. This is what we do every day at Jason Mills- for every fabric.

And remember, all of our products are knit, dyed and finished in the U.S.A.