Artificial Intelligence is the talk of the town, thanks to Open AI’s ChatGPT. While this interesting chatbot doesn’t have much to offer to the textile industry, it doesn’t mean AI has no impact on fabric manufacturers in India . Artificial Intelligence has been increasingly used in different stages of fabric manufacturing, such as design, deployment, quality control, and supply chain stages.
In this blog, learn where fabric companies in India can apply AI to improve their operations.
Artificial Intelligence Applications in Textiles
Textile automation like TEXchange Globaland AI can be used to reduce manufacturing costs, modify and upgrade textile production, and reduce manual labor. Let’s find out the most prominent AI applications below:
Identify Defects in Fabrics
Any defect in yarn or fiber production is passed on to the final product, which can lead to rejection or low-priced products. Fabric manufacturers in India use manual inspection processes performed by skilled labor to detect defects in fiber, yarn, or fabric. This process is generally slow and may not be 100% accurate.
AI-based process automation can perform fabric inspection faster with better accuracy, and zero fatigue. AI can even predict the properties of yarn before the fabric is created.
Color Matching
Cotton suppliers determine the quality of fabric by its appearance. And that’s why color is an important factor in textile production. Color is generally judged by acceptable range orunsatisfactory and can be furtherbroken down into ‘too dark,’ ‘too light,’ ‘too red,’ or ‘too black.’AI can effectively streamline this manual color-matchingprocess with smart detection technology. This not only improves color coordination but also boosts production.
Detect Sew-ability of Different Fabrics
In fabric manufacturing, seams, and stitches are used to join two or more pieces of fabric. The ease and performance of the seam and stitch formation are important factors in determining a textile product’s quality. Fabric companies in India commonly referto this as the Sew-ability of fabrics.
Various mechanical and external factors, like tensile, shear, bending, etc., can be detected early in fabric production through Artificial Intelligence.
Pattern Making
Computer Aided Design or CAD technology is extremely useful in textile production for generating fabric designs and patterns. In the process, Fabric companies in India make the basic design or pattern by hand and then digitize it to the computer through CAD software for grading, marker planning, pattern making, and digitizing, which essentially improves production and product quality.
Inspect Fabric Pattern
A fabric may have multiple properties and characteristics – it could be greige, RFD, woven, knitted, braided, printed, and more. Inspection of fabric patterns is currently performed manually through visual inspection. Working 60 hours a week can lead to human fatigue and manual errors in inspecting novelty fabrics. Vision-based technology powered by AI, such as the ANN system, can help fabric manufacturers in India eliminate this discrepancy.
These systems learn weaving patterns, yarn properties, colors, and other tolerable and intolerable imperfections by training and analyzing images obtained from image acquisition systems.
Production Planning and Control (PPC)
PPC executives collaborate with different production departments of textile companies in India so that everything is executed on time, delivery dates are met, and orders are shipped on time. AI can replace human beings for communication and collaboration between inter-departments and achieve the ultimate goal of PPC.
Supply Chain Management
No matter how great the quality is, if the supply chain of the cotton supplier isn’tup to the level, it can affect customer acquisition and retention. Supply Chain Management (SCM) in textiles is the planning and control of the flow of products from different points to the destination. Example: From cotton supplier to yarn manufacturer to garment producer to wholesaler, and finally, to the retailer. The SCMincludes various process steps, actions, information, labor, and resources. AI in supply chain management can automate the entire process, making it more secure and real-time.
The textile industry is one such sector where AI and ML can be applied to different operations to streamline the process, provide fresh designs and patterns, and make zero fabric manufacturing. The possibilities are huge, and as modern textile companies in India, if you aren’t using AI, you are already late.
