'Recent Trends in Utilization of Fiber, Yarn, Fabrics and Computer Technology in Fashion Designing and Management'

'Recent Trends in Utilization of Fiber, Yarn, Fabrics and Computer Technology in Fashion Designing and Management'

Recent trends in fiber, yarn and fabric management in Textile-Apparel-Distribution network require a very accurate estimation of consumption pattern and sourcing management to minimize their costs and satisfy their customers. For such strategy, fashion designers rely more on fashion forecasting system to respond to the versatile textile market. However, the specific constraints of the textile consumption and sales (numerous and new items, short lifetime) complicate the forecasting procedure and distributors prefer to use intuitive estimation methods of the sales rather than the existing forecasting models.

In this paper we firstly discuss the different aspects used for improving the accuracy of fashion product development and forecasting process, use of computer technology in management of fiber, yarn and fabrics for estimation of their consumption. We also demonstrate a decision aid system, based on neural networks, which automatically performs item sales forecasting of textile items with two models being demonstrated for silk fabric consumption and cotton-textiles fabric consumption. Performances of our model are evaluated using real data released by authorized agencies. Network forecasted results show excellent correlation with real data emphasizing the its advantages over traditionally, statistical time series methods like moving average, auto-regression or combinations of them used for forecasting apparel and fashion product sales.
Keywords: Fashion forecasting, 2-D and 3-D cad system, Neural Network forecasting model, time series, Texture mapping.

Introduction
Introducing new products of Apparels made from different variations of fibers, yarns and fabrics can provide a competitive advantage as well as a long-term financial return on investment. New product development is thus vitally linked to a company's competitive strategy and consequently to the new product sales forecasting of apparels and textiles that provides quantitative information on the expected return from development efforts. Sales forecasting of apparels and textiles attempts to decrease uncertainty, providing input for the decisions made about introducing of new products and offering feedback for the new product development process. The significant correlation between new product development and new product sales forecasts makes new product forecasting extremely important.

Traditionally, statistical time series methods like moving average, auto-regression or combinations of them are used for forecasting fashion trends and sales of fashion products. Since these models predict future sales only on the basis of previous sales, they fail in environments where sales are heavily influenced by exogenous variables, such as economic conditions, climatic conditions, competitive activities, advertising and several factors. Although traditional statistical models characterize the above mentioned factors, they are essentially linear in nature and don't characterize the nonlinear nature of apparel sales and analyse fibre, yarn, fabric consumption trends.

Fuzzy logic, artificial neural networks coupled with latest applications of computer technology for fashion design and management and genetic algorithms(Gas) offer an alternative approach by taking into account both endogenous and exogenous variables and allowing arbitrary non-linear approximation functions derived(learned directly from the previous data).

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

In the obscure town of Bethlehem in the desolate province of Judea in the great empire of Rome, a baby was born in about 4 B.C. to a young woman named Mary and her fiance, Joseph. The child's mother, Mary was a young virgin who had conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Joseph was a carpenter and a man of great integrity. When Joseph found out that Mary was pregnant prior to their marriage, he decided quietly to break the engagement. In a dream he was told by an angel that the child was from God and that he should proceed with the marriage. IncarnationMary's baby was born at night in the stable. Mary and Joseph named him Jesus.

There was no cradle for him, so they wrapped him in strips of cloth and he slept in a manger. Though there is controversy on the real date of Jesus birth, but world over people celebrate Jesus's birthday on 25th December every year. The night when Jesus was born, some shepherds were looking after their sheep on the hills when suddenly an angel appeared.

The shepherds were terrified, but the angel said, "I bring good news. God's Savior has been born tonight. You will find the baby lying in a manger". Soon the shepherds arrived at the stable in Bethlehem - Jesus birth place, to see the baby and told Mary and Joseph about the angel's message. She knew this was a very special baby. The Wise MenAfter the birth of Christ some wise men from eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem, asking the place where the newborn king of the Jews has arrived. They have seen the star as it arose, and had come to worship him. These men were probably astronomers from Mesopotamia.

The "star" they followed may have been a comet or a supernova. Gold, Frankincense, And MyrrhThe gifts the wise men, or Magi, brought to Jesus were of such value in the ancient world that a poor family would have considered them treasures. Gold, of course, continues to be a consistently valuable commodity.

The practical use of myrrh and frankincense, processed from aromatic plants are used to make perfumes, incense, and other scented products. Frankincense was sometimes used for religious ceremonies and myrrh for funerals, so some have seen symbolic meanings in the gifts.

Textile Fibres

Food, shelter and clothing are the basic needs of everyone. All clothing is made from Textiles and our shelters are made more comfortable and attractive by the use of textiles. Textiles have such an important bearing on our daily lives that everyone needs to know something about them. From earliest times, people have used textiles of various types for covering or modesty, warmth, personal adornment, to display personal wealth and even for biomedical and technical purposes.
A study of textiles will show, for example why certain fabrics are more durable and serviceable for specific purposes. Complete knowledge of textiles will facilitate an intelligent appraisal of standards and different qualities of textile products.

The word "textiles" comes from the Latin term textere, "woven". Today the word textile is more generalized to refer to product made from fibres.

A "fibre" is defined as any product capable of being woven or otherwise made into a fabric. It may be thought of as the smallest visible unit of textile production 'or' a fibre can be defined as a pliable hair like strand that is very small in diameter in relation to its length. Fibres are the fundamental units or the building blocks used in the making of textile yarns and fabrics.
Where as "yarns" are produced by twisting or spinning of the textile fibres and in turn a fabric is a planar structure produced by interlacing or interloping of yarns.

The textile industry uses many fibres as its raw materials. As a result of the development of new fibres, difficulties arise in textile industry in terms of identification, classification. Hence, classification of textile fibres was compounded by the trained manufactures to identify each of the fibres with the different trademarks. Textile fibres are classified according to the source and the length of the fibres.

Fabric used in EDEN totes

Fabric used in EDEN totes

EDEN is one U.S. company striving to reduce the number of plastic bottles tossed in our landfills. Just launched in November, each of their tote bags uses recycled plastic bottle fabric produced here in the U.S. Eco-fi is a high-quality polyester fiber made from post –consumer recycled plastic bottles. EDEN’s Mission: Act Today. Impact Tomorrow. TM They trust action today will impact our environment tomorrow. Every ten minutes in the U.S., two million plastic bottles are used. Scientists have shown it will take 700 years before these plastic containers start to decompose.

EDEN committed to using the USA recycled plastic bottle fabric in their bags.The American-made fabric used in EDEN totes starts as plastic PET containers saved after use and routed to community recycling centers. These bottles are then sorted by color and type and stripped of their labels and caps. Next, the bottles are washed, crushed, and chopped into small flakes. This flake is melted and forced through a nozzle similar to a shower head to create the fiber.

The fiber is crimped to add body and stretched for strength. This yarn is then ready to be processed into fabric for a wide array of uses. “We’re introducing this line of tote bags for two reasons,” states Jan Verploeg Petsch, founder of EDEN bags. “Our primary goal was to impact our environment by using recycled fabric. Our next desire was to help our economy by using U.S. labor and materials.” EDEN bags are the only American-made bags of their type based completely on the use of USA recycled PET plastic.

Petsch found when searching for U.S. textile mills that many had closed their doors, unable to compete any longer with imported goods. This strengthened the company’s desire to use domestic fabrics. Not only is the Eco-fi fabric produced here in the U.S., but the cotton prints used are created here as well. The bags are manufactured in Michigan. “We could have reduced our production costs substantially if we had gone overseas, but then we’d be part of our country’s problem. We committed to investing into our own labor force,” states Petsch. Unlike many of the tote bags currently on the market, the EDEN tote bags are large and roomy, with the ability to hold up to 7 two-liter bottles or the equivalent of three standard plastic bags.

The totes roll up and secure for easy storage and are lightweight enough to carry in a handbag or backpack. Each bag states the number of plastic bottles recycled to create the fabric used in the tote. The names of the EDEN bags conjure up feelings of playful beauty such as Tango and Box Step in the Rhythm collection or Onyx Moon and Midnight Topiary in the Black and White Nights collection. The impact of EDEN goes further than our environment and supporting our economy.

The company has committed to donating a portion of their profits to “Feeding America's Hungry Children”, a charity that distributes food and grocery products to over 100 charitable hunger relief agencies. EDEN bags use U.S. recycled plastic bottle fabric, along with USA cotton prints to create colorful and eco-friendly totes. These totes collapse, fold and roll making it possible to always have one at hand ready for any use.

Cotton prices threaten global economy

Cotton prices threaten global economy

Cotton is quickly getting added up to the list of scarce commodities. Cotton is the basic raw material for many value added products in the textile sector. The recent past has seen a drastic increase in the prices of raw cotton. International cotton scenario witnessed an upturn during the past few months. Due to this unprecedented hike in cotton prices, farmers have suffered huge losses, which resulted in a lower acreage of cotton. While US continues to move higher in a steady manner, local markets in China, Pakistan, and India prices exploded and traders are trying to cover short positions.

Mr. A. Sakthivel, President, FIEO/TEA proposes the Indian Government to strike a balance between the volume of raw cotton to be exported, and availability of the same to fabric, and garment exporters. The Government may consider allowing 50 lakh bales for exports in a year with monthly ceiling of 4 lakh bales so that raw cotton exporters ensure regular export supply to maintain their markets and simultaneously ensuring adequate supply of raw cotton at reasonable price to end user domestic industry. He speculates a further increase in the prices of cotton as the exporters have purchased nearly 20 lakh bales of cotton.

Textile exports of Pakistan saw a remarkable improvement due to the shipments of raw cotton and cotton yarn.
However, these products have become a matter of concern for the value-added textile products due to elevated prices of these items. In the Chinese market, future contracts for May 2010 surged by RMB 210 per ton to RMB 15,620 per ton. According to cotton experts of China, cotton crop in the country is expected to reduce by 10 % during the current year, which is approximately 7 million ton less. Despite releasing 500,000 tons of cotton from its state reserves, the dragon nation was not able to suppress the bullish price rally in the cotton markets

Farmers from Bangladesh expect good results for their cotton crop with new varieties introduced in this season.Rupali HSC and Lalteer cotton varieties, which are less susceptible to pests, have the capacity to produce two times more volume of cotton than the CB-9 and CB-10 varieties. These varieties can produce maximum 7 tons per hectare, or 7 to 8 maunds per bigha, while high-yield Rupali HSC and Lalteer varieties can produce 18 to 20 maunds. Bangladeshi farmers are optimistic about an increase in price between Tk 2,200 and Tk 2,400 per maund, this year, which is comparatively higher than the Tk 1,800 to Tk 2,000 per maund of the previous years. They are expecting to generate a profit of Tk 15,000 per bigha, during current season.

In Zimbabwe, soaring prices of cotton lint and high duty imposed on imported raw materials and other inputs have caused many textile companies to collapse. This poses a threat of massive job losses and a failure in tapping the export market.