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2.2 PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT
This department deals with the production of yarn. The entire production and
process controls is directly under the control of production manager. The spin plan or the
counts to be manufactured will be decided well in advance according to the market demand
or the demands of the customer. Again it depends upon the raw material availability and
balancing of the process in each department. Production Manager in consultation with the
quality control manager has decided the process parameter for the counts to be produced.
This is the activity which converts raw materials into finished goods. The works manager will
make decisions on the form of production.
Job production - meeting the requirements of the individual customer.
Mass production - large scale production of a standard product.
Small batch production - large production of a good which is modified to meet demand.
PROCESS FLOWCHART
BLOW ROOM
CARDING
SIMPLEX
SPINNING
CONE WINDING
PACKING
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GINNING
The seed cotton goes in to a Cotton Gin. The cotton gin separates the seeds and
removes the "trash" (dirt, stems and leaves) from the fibre. In a saw gin, circular saw grabs
the fibre and pulls it through a grating that is too narrow for the seeds to pass. A roller gin is
used with longer staple cotton. Here a leather roller captures the cotton. A knife blade, set
close to the roller detaches the seed. By drawing them through teeth in circular saws and
revolving brushes which clean them away.
The ginned cotton fibre, known as lint, is then compressed into bales which are
about 1.5m tall and weigh almost 220 kg. Only 33% of the crop is usable lint. Commercial
cotton is priced by quality, and that broadly relates to the average length of the staple, and
the variety of the plant. Longer staple cotton (2 1/2 in to 1 1/4 in) is called Egyptian, medium
staple (1 1/4 in to 3/4 in) is called American upland and short staple (less than 3/4 in) is
called Indian.
The cotton seed is pressed into cooking oil. The husks and meal are processed into
animal feed, and the stems into paper.
BLOW ROOM
With all harvesting methods, however, the cotton seed, together with the
fibers, always gets into the ginning plant where it is broken up into trash and seed-coat
fragments. This means that ginned cotton is always contaminated with trash and dust
particles and that an intensive cleaning is only possible in the spinning mill.
Nep content increases drastically with mechanical harvesting, ginning and
subsequent cleaning process. The reduction of the trash content which is necessary
for improving cotton grade and apperance unfortunately results in a higher nep content
level.
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The basic purpose of Blow room is to supply
Small fibre tufts
clean fibre tufts
Homogeneously blended tufts if more than one variety of fibre is used to
carding machine without increasing fibre rupture, fibre neps, and broken seed
particles, without removing more good fibres.
The raw cotton arrives in the form of large bales. These are broken open and
a worker feeds the cotton into a machine called a "breaker" which gets rid of some of
the dirt. The cotton may not be consistent in quality from bale to bale and samples will
be taken. This machine cleans the cotton of the remaining dirt and separates the
fibres. The cotton emerges in the form of thin "blanket" called the "lap". An important
quantity is called the "tex"which basically measures the mass per metre. Ideally the
tex of the emerging lap should stay more or less the same. The final end product of the
mill, the yarn, needs to be of constant quality and character and this is achieved by
checking the cotton through all the preceding stages.
The above is achieved by the following processes in the blow room
1. Pre opening
2. pre cleaning
3. mixing or blending
4. fine opening
5. dedusting
Tex is the weight in grams of 1 km of yarn
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BLOW ROOM
CARDING
Historian of science Joseph Needham ascribes the invention of bow-
instruments used in textile technology to India. The earliest evidence for using bow-
instruments for carding comes from India (2nd century CE). These carding devices,
called kaman and dhunaki would loosen the texture of the fiber by the means of a
vibrating string.
Carding, process by which fibers are opened, cleaned, and straightened
in preparation for spinning. The fingers were first used, then a tool of wood or bone
shaped like a hand, then two flat pieces of wood (cards) covered with skin set with
thorns or teeth. Primitive cards are rubber-covered and toothed with bent wires, are
still employed by some countries. Modern carding dates from the use of revolving
cylinders patented in 1748 by Lewis Paul. A mechanical apron feed was devised in
1772, and Richard Arkwright added a funnel that contracted the carded fiber into a
continuous sliver. Cotton and wool are probably the most common fibers to be carded.
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MODERN CARDING MACHINE
In simple terms, Carding is the processing of brushing raw or washed
fibers to prepare them as textiles. Carding is used to take unordered fibers and
prepare them for spinning by either the worsted or woolen process or to produce webs
of fiber to go into nonwoven products depending on the mechanism at the output from
the card. It can also be used to create blends of different fibers or different colors. The
process of carding involves mixing up different fibers, thus creating a homogeneous
mix of the various types of fibers, at the same time as it orders them and gets rid of the
tangles. Machine cards for carding wool also have rollers and systems designed to
remove some vegetable contaminants from the wool.
The two main ways to card fibers are by
Hand
Machine
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HAND CARDING
To card by hand, the person carding holds a carder in each hand. The carder
in their non-dominant hand rests on their leg. They place a small amount of fiber on
this card and pull the other carder through, while taking care to catch some of the
fibers. By catching some fibers on the moving card, the fibers are separated, which
allows vegetable matter to fall out, and they are aligned. Once all the wool has been
transferred, the person carding repeats this process until all the fibers are aligned and
the fiber is satisfactorily clean of debris. They then roll up their carded wool into a neat
rolag.
HANDCARDS
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MACHINE CARDING
Machine carding is done on a device called a drum carder. These devices
vary in size from small to large. Depending on the size of the carder, the number of
rollers varies. In Kitchen type carders, they have two drums, or rollers. One is small,
and used to catch the fibers and feed them in. The other drum takes the fibers from the
first drum, and, in the process of transferring them from one drum to another, the fibers
are straightened out and made more orderly.
SMALL DRUM CARDER
In Carding the fibres are separated and then assembled into a loose strand
called sliver or tow. The carders line up the fibres nicely to make them easier to spin.
The cotton leaves the carding machine in the form of a sliver; a large rope of fibres.
Carding can refer to these four processes:
Willowing - loosening the fibres
Lapping - removing the dust to create a flat sheet or lap of cotton
Combing - the tangled lap is made into a thick rope of 1/2 inch in diameter, a
sliver.
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Combing is optional, but is used to remove the shorter fibres, creating a stronger yarn.
Drawing - a drawing frame combines 4 slivers into one- repeated for
increased quality.
COMBING MACHINE
Several slivers are combined. Each sliver will have thin and thick spots, and
by combining several slivers together a more consistent size can be reached. Since
combining several slivers produces a very thick rope of cotton fibres, directly after
being combined the slivers are separated into rovings. These rovings (or slubbings)
are then what are used in the spinning process.
SIMPLEX
In this process the output of drawing is drafted, twisted to make roving bobbin
form.
SPINNING
The spinning machines take the roving thins it and twists it, creating yarn which it
winds onto a bobbin. The term "spinning" is sometimes used to denote this final
process in the production of the yarn. This involves attenuating (stretching) the yarn to
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the required tex. There by giving the thread strength by adding twist and winding it on
to a bobbin.
There are two main methods
Mule spinning
Ring spinning
MULE SPINNING
The MULE was originally developed by Samuel Crompton from the "jenny". In
mule spinning the roving is pulled off a bobbin and fed through some rollers, which are
feeding at several different speeds. This thins the roving at a consistent rate. If the
roving was not a consistent size, then this step could cause a break in the yarn, or
could jam the machine. The yarn is twisted through the spinning of the bobbin as the
carriage moves out, and is rolled onto a cop as the carriage returns. Mule spinning
produces a finer thread than the less skilled ring spinning. The mule operated in two
stages. In one stage the whole 'front' of the machine is moved away from the back part
stretching and twisting the thread as it did so. It would move several feet (say 5 feet).
In stage two the front carriage moved back and at the same time wound the stretched
yarn on to a bobbin (orcop).
Mules would be placed in lines so that the front of one faced the front of
the next. As the carriages moved forward, towards each other, only a narrow gap
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would be left between them for the spinner to walk between. The mules were tended
by spinners, piecers, doffers.
Piecers would mend broken threads and
doffers would remove the full cops
Doffing is a separate process. The attendant winds down the ring rails to the
bottom. The machine stops. The thread guides are hinged up. Removing the bobbin
coils thread around the spindle, and placing the new bobbin on the spindle firmly traps
the thread between it and the cup in the wharf of the spindle. This done, the thread
guides are lowered and the machine restarted.
MULE SPINNING
RING SPINNING
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Ring spinning is a method of spinning fibres, such as cotton, flax or wool, to
make a yarn. The ring frame developed from the throstle frame. Ring spinning is a
continuous process, unlike mule spinning which uses an intermittent action. In ring spinning,
the roving is first attenuated by using drawing rollers, then spun and wound around a
rotating spindle which in its turn is contained within an independently rotating ring flyer.
Traditionally ring frames could only be used for the coarser counts- but they could be
attended by semi-skilled labour.
The ring was a descendant of the Arkwright water Frame 1769. It was a
continuous process; the yard was coarser, had a greater twist and was stronger so
was suited to be warp. Ring spinning is slow due to the distance the thread must pass
around the ring, other methods have been introduced. These are collectively known as
Break or Open-end spinning.
MODERN RING SPINNING ERAME
1 Draughting
rollers
2 Spindle
3 Attenuated
roving
4 Thread
guides
5 Anti-ballooning
ring
6 Traveller
7 Rings
8 Thread on
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A ring frame was constructed from cast iron, and later pressed steel. On each
side of the frame are the spindles, above them are the draughting (drafting) rollers and
on top is a creel loaded with bobbins of roving. The roving (unspun thread) passed
downwards from the bobbins to the draughting rollers. Here the back roller steadied the
incoming thread, while the front roller which was moving much faster pulled thread out
(attenuated) forcing the fibres to mesh together. The rollers are individually adjustable,
originally by mean of levers and weights. The attenuated roving now passes through a
thread guide that is adjusted to be exactly above the spindle. Thread guides are on a
thread rail which allows them to be hinged out of the way for doffing or piecing a broken
thread. The attenuated roving passes down to the spindle assembly, where it is threaded
though a small ring called the traveller. It is this that gives the ring frame its name. From here
it is attached to the existing thread on the spindle.
Like the hour and minute hands on a mechanical clock, the traveller, and the
spindle share the same axis but travel at different speeds. The spindle travels faster. The
bobbin is fixed on the spindle. In a ring a frame, the different speed was achieved by drag
caused by air resistance and friction. The spindles rotate at 7000 to 8000 rpm, this spins the
yarn. The traveller, winds the yarn on the bobbin. The ring on the traveller is fixed on a lifting
ring rail which guides the thread onto the bobbin in the shape required: ie a cop. The
lifting must be adjusted for different cotton counts.
CONE WINDING
The yarn which emerges from the spinning process cannot usually be woven
directly and needs some preparation. Winding is the process of transferring the yarn to
larger bobbins or cones. The idea is to get a long continuous length. Weft-winding
involves winding on to smaller bobbins that will go into a shuttle. Racks of bobbins are
set up to hold the thread while it is rolled onto the warp bar of a loom. Because the
thread is fine, often three of these would be combined to get the desired thread count.
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Spinned yarn is brought into this process to make into cone yarn at the
required weight (say 1.275/ cone). The cone yarn of 1.275 weights is then transferred
to packing and bundling department.
BEAMING
The beam is a long cylinder with flanges and perhaps 600 threads are wound
on to it side-by-side. The machine is watched over by a "beamer". The full beam is
very heavy. In early days beaming was often done in the weaving mill but then tended
to be transferred to the spinning mill which would send the full beams to the weavers.
Note that this is more specifically called a "warper's beam"
SIZING
The yarn is a little fragile for the rough treatment imposed by the weaving
process and a "size" is applied to make it more robust. A number of warper's beams
(as above) are placed at the back of the sizing machine and the yarn is drawn through
and wound on to a "weaver's beam". If the machine is fed by 8 warper's beams of 500
threads each then the weaver's beam will have 4000 parallel threads. Generally the
set of warper's beams will produce up to 20 weaver's beams each of 1000 yards or
more. The operative is called a "tape sizer" or a "taper". This was a skilled job to get
the right degree of dryness.
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UNITS IN TEXTILE MEASUREMENT
Cotton Counts: The number of pieces of thread, 840 yards long needed to
make up 1 lb weight. 10 count cotton means that 10x840 yds weighs 1lb.
Hank: A length of 7 leas or 840 yards
Thread: A length of 54 in (the circumference of a warp beam)
Bundle: Usually 10 lbs
Lea: A length of 80 threads or 120 yards
Denier: this is an alternative method. It is defined as a number that is
equivalent to the weight in grams of 9000m of a single yarn.15 denier is finer than 30
denier.
Tex: is the weight in grams of 1 km of yarn.
The Worsted hank is only 560yd.
PACKING AND BUNDLING
Yarn Twist
The amount of twist is an important factor in finished consumers goods. It
determines the appearance as well as the durability and serviceability of a fabric.
Fine yarns require more twist than coarse yarns. Warp yarns, which are used for the
lengthwise threads in woven fabrics, are given more twist than are filling yarns,
which are used for the crosswise threads.
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Here the cone yarn produced is measured to confirm its weight and the cone
yarn is individually covered with poly pack and its packed to form a bundle weighing
51 kgs per bag or bundle. On the average 85 bags are produced per day, but this has
been drastically reduced to 55 bags per day due to the recent power-cut in Tamilnadu.
1 bundle = 50 cones
20 bundles = one bale