Development of a comprehensive fabric quality grading system for selected end uses

Abstract

This study focuses on the development of a comprehensive fabric quality grading system for selected end uses. This system goes beyond currently existing methods by reflecting the suitability of a candidate fabric for a specific end use, by evaluating its key properties and grading the fabric with respect to its overall quality level and has been developed by studying the retailer fabric specification standards. A set of fabric parameters was selected for each of four retailer customers who were identified by an industrial survey. The selected fabric parameters were transformed into a sub-index value calculated by an equation for each parameter using test values obtained from the considered fabric. Weights were assigned to the parameters considering the level of importance identified by the survey for each fabric parameter. A weighted arithmetic mean function was used as the aggregation function in which the aggregate of the products of sub index value and the weighting for each arameter were taken as the overall fabric quality value on a scale of zero to hundred. This system is designed to assist decision makers in selecting a suitable fabric material for a specific end use by comparing the overall quality of several fabrics. A computer application was developed as the user interface to evaluate fabrics using the developed system. The results obtained from this system compared favourably with those obtained through manual evaluation of the fabric