Dr. S. K. Chattopadhyay retired from CIRCOT in 2020 after having worked for nearly four decades in various capacities in mills. Presently, he is a freelancer in academics, research journal publication and machine learning application in factory automation.
Dr. Chattopadhyay replied exclusively to a` Questionnaire sent by the Textile Value Chain. (E-mail: [email protected]).
Excerpts:
- Share your Education and Professional Journey
I passed West Bengal Higher Secondary Examination in first division in 1974 and was awarded a National Scholarship. I opted for a professional engineering degree course in Textile Technology under Calcutta University and passed the same with a first class in 1978. I joined Kesoram Cotton Mills Limited (now, KesoramIndustries Limited) Kolkata and started my professional career. Thereafter, I worked in HindoostanSpinning and Weaving Mills Limited (Thackersey Group) Mumbai in the years 1979-81. I did my full-time Master degree in Textile Engineering from IIT Delhi in 1983 and joined the Raebareli unit of U. P. State Spinning Mills Co No.1 as the Quality Control Incharge. Thereafter, I cleared the Agricultural Research Services (ARS) examination and joinedCentral Institute for Research on Cotton Technology (CIRCOT), then known as Cotton Technological Research Laboratory (CTRL), Mumbai,under the control ofIndian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). I worked there in various capacities such as, Scientist, Senior Scientist, Principal Scientist, Head of the Mechanical Processing Division and Director, before retiring in February 2020.Presently, I am working as a freelancer in academics, research journal publication and machine learning application in factory automation.
- Being a researcher and educationist, tellyour journey in industry and research, and theinteraction
The 40-year full time professional journey was challenging, but engrossing and interesting. The feeling was exhilarating, as throughout the journey for about four decades, the technology was constantly churning and upgrading. I was witnessing innovations more often in the industry, and there wasurgency to adapt quickly to the changes and bring out more innovations to be relevant in the industry. It was indeed a roller coaster ride, which was immensely satisfyingthen. I presume that the same was thefeelingof my contemporaries.
When I joined the industry,the basic calculators were not available in the shop floor and the very first lesson of the training was to remember square roots ofall thread numbers and intermediate roving hank numbers by-heart to facilitate quick twist setting on the spinning machines. In the quality control lab, the most prized equipment was Filden-Walker first generation yarn evenness tester, which is now a prized collection inthe London Science Museum and Bradford Industrial Museum (UK).During the period, thoughmanyspinning millswere aggressively modernising their machines with Top Arm Drafting system replacing the iconicCasablanca system, the mill owners in general were not convinced with the replacement of old and lengthy blowroom line with a shorter version equipped with modern beaters and cleaners, due to high cost associated with such a replacement. This was the time when the organised sector was slowly losing the grip on fabric productionto the rising decentralisedpowerloom sector. The wet processing of textiles was the real woe, depending fully on the dyeing masters’ experience and bereft of any concern for the environment.
After joining CIRCOT in 1985, I initiated a research programme on causes and control of faults in Indian cotton yarns,which was then a burning problem of the spinning industry, regularly receiving complaintsfrom thegrowing export markets. We procured an electronic fault classifying equipment which was quite expensive in those days, and therefore, only two other machines were available in Mumbai then. My institute also, under my initiative and supervision,monetised this gap in the industry, and allowed mills to take advantage of the facility for assessing their yarns, conducted a number of diagnostic mill vs. laboratory trials, androped in students of the textile institutes to do their dissertationsto investigate the problem and suggested measures to contain faults in Indian yarn.It is hearting to note that Indian spinning industry is now producing the best of the yarn quality, particularly in terms of evenness, imperfections and faults. Even many mills are achieving a quality better than the Uster 5% world standard, compared to 25% or even poorer quality yarns, which many mills were producing before the 1990s. I think this isto be regarded as the single most significantachievement in which I was fully involved, and was collectively brought in by the joint efforts of the industry, research, and educational institutions.
My field of research broadly included post-harvest processing and blending of fibres, development of machines for small sample spinning, modern spinning systems (rotor, air-jet and DREF friction), yarn splicing,poly lactic acid (PLA)fibres,technical textiles, and composites. In mid-1990s, through some market study, my team found that though there was a good demand for miniature spinning machines for producing yarn from small fibre samples, such machines were not available in India. The option was to import machines with a pretty old design, and ata veryhigh price, which was not desirable. Therefore, me and my team, took up developing entirely miniature modern spinning machines, initially controlled by microprocessor, then by programmable logic control (PLC) and finally, by personal computer (PC).Though the designing of the miniature machines was a technically challenging task which we could successfully do, thefurther major challenge wasto convince anentrepreneur to replicate the machines and manufacture them at one fourth the cost of the imported one. This challenge was also resolved by us and it gives me immense satisfaction that, the licensee who collaborated with us has produced and sold more than hundreds of such machinesto various stakeholders, who found the system/machineshandy, useful and economical.
Further, the research done by my team on utilisation of indigenous short and fine wool including Angora rabbit-hairs in blends with cotton for production of finer quality of woven and knitted fabrics, and for production of finer cotton-ramie blended yarns by adopting commercial cotton spinning system were unprecedented, and attracted much attention from the peers.
We compared the performance of Indian cottons and their blends on ring, rotor and air-jet spinning systemsas early as in the 1990s, shortly after commercialization of the air-jet spinning machines.My doctorate thesis has dealt with the formulation of a theoretical model to predict the fibre twistinghappening inside a rotating rotor that is inaccessible and cannot be seen in our view during the rotor spinning process.The model has emphasised the need of fibre engineering for quality yarn spinning and has experimentally validated.
Then, under funding from the National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP), I was the Co-Consortium Project Investigator (CCPI) in two subprojects. Under the Basic and Strategic Research subproject of NAIP, I notably participated in the design and development of textile reinforced rubber dams for regulating water flow in a watershed for its storage, ground recharging and assured water supply in lean times. The development hasmade possibleto enhance crop productivity and cropping intensity in the project area, and many units have been installed in watersheds across the country, benefitting the farmers. In the other subproject on value chain for coconut fibre and its by-products, basic machines for extraction,segregation of coarse and fine fibres, scientific fibre grading, product diversification have been achieved.
Besides conducting many industry sponsored studies, I, along with my colleagues have publishedin national and international journalsand presented in seminars and conferencesabout 300 research and technical papers, book chapters and leafletsemanating from our various research studies.I have received a number of recognitions and awards for my contribution in research. In the last leg of my active research career, I inspired two bright young scientiststo join me in groundbreaking research using plant waste bio-macromolecule extractsfor preparation of sustainableflame resisting and UV protective cellulosic textiles that has now received wide international attention. The Latest Science (Abraham Thomas Foundation, USA) has acknowledged our contributionfor making an impact on scientific knowledge in Material Science and as a mark of recognition, displayed on their website, thesurface topography of the char residue of fire retardant cellulose reported by us for the first time.
- As a Mentor, what qualities and capabilities you looked for in your post-graduate studentsand young scientist colleagues while involving them into research projects and what qualities you inculcate in them, when they work with you?
For a good number of years, I co-guided many textile technologypost-graduate students from reputed engineering institute like VJTI, Mumbai.Besides, from time to time, I,as the lead investigator, was guiding those research fellows and associates recruited in various time-bound externally funded projects, including two subprojects of National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP) of ICAR, funded by the WorldBank. In my long service in CIRCOT, I chose from time to time many younger colleague scientists and technical officers to be associated in the investigation of the projects formulated by me and mentored them. Particularly, when I was the Director of the institute, I could get about eight new young scientists to join CIRCOT and mentor them for research career.
In a young researcher,I always looked for their thorough involvement in the investigation of the problem, inclination to be involved in painstaking experimentations, integrity in data collection and recording and logical thinking. My mentoring involves not only in guiding them in conducting a fair investigation, but also in the analysis of collected data, modification of experiments, repeatand confirmation study, participation in draft report preparation and publication in a reputed/standard journal. Often, I have observed that though the technical and scientific content of research is excellent, but the paper is denied publication because of its poor presentation, obscure language and avoidable errors. Colleges do not teach how to write a good scientific paper.This task requiresmentoring to the young researchers onhow to write an error-less and fluid paperthat will impress upon and convey the science behind the experiment effectively to the reviewersand the readers.
With the availability of online ‘Editorial Manager’ and publication software, most international journals engage the services of 3 to 10 peer reviewers to review a submission, for publication. Often, a manuscript is rejected due to its poor readability. This was not much of a problem earlier, as the journal used to get it improved by itslanguage editor without any charge. But many journals have now discontinued the service, and instead, ask the author to avail a paid language service. A researcher based in the third world countries may not find it easy to pay the charge in dollars of his own. Therefore, as a mentor, while critically reviewing the technical content in their papers, Iused to polish and rectify my juniors’ written English language, stressing the need of writing a research paper in simple sentences, so that the readability of the manuscript improves.
- What are the latest trends and futuristic developments in the spinning industry?
Ring frame is the oldest and versatile yarn spinning machine, came into market ever since Whitin Machine Works started manufacturing it in the 1840s.Even though the basic technology of ring spinning remain largely unchanged, the machine design has undergone significant developments over the years for improved performance, as the industry still prefers it for its capacity to spin a wide range of yarn count (linear density) from almost any type of staple fibres. Ring frame producesa unique, superior quality of yarn compared to those yarns produced by the newer spinning systems like rotor, air-jet/ air vortex spinning systems, which are available in the market for the last 30-50 years. This is despite the restricted rate of yarn production due to limitations in spindle speed, high-power consumption, traveller wear, heat generation and yarn tension.As such, the productivity of each ring spindle is about 1/10th of a rotor spinning and 1/20th of the air jet spinning machines. While the rotor spinning is mostly limited to coarse yarn production, and the vortex spinning to polyester blended yarns in the medium to fine count range, thering spinning can traverse in allareas of spun yarn production. In fact, its latest commercially successfulvariant, the compact ring spinning, introduced by a couple of manufacturers at ITMA 1999 Paris exhibitionis the preferred machine nowadays.Presently, with about 230 million installed spindles world over, ring spinning is producing thethree-quarter of the total staple yarn of around 45 million tons produced. So, one can safely deduce that the ring spinning will remain the undisputed leader in the staple yarn production and continue to dominate the restin this century too.
The maximum spindle speed of themost advanced spinning frame is currently about 25,000 rpm limited by the ring-traveller speed of about 45 m/s, beyond which the traveller gets burnt due to excessive friction while moving on the ring. Efforts are in full force in the R&D labs of various machine manufacturers and institutions to tackle the criticality of the process andmake a breakthrough in productivity. Research is mainly directed in three sensitive design issues of the ring frame, (i) reduction of friction between the ring and the traveller, like using the Orbit technology, where the contact surface between the ring and traveller has been enlarged by 4~5times for better heatdissipation (ii)modifying the ring-traveller system altogether, say by using a superconducting magnetic bearing (SMB) system to create a frictionless twisting during spinning, and (iii) reduction of yarn twist to increase the productivity, like in Nu-Torque technology, which incorporates a false twister to lower twisting rate during spinning. The big question is whether in future anyone or more such futuristic technology will succeed and double the ring spindle speed to 50,000 rpm, say by the year 2050.
Concerning the developments of the preparatory machines to yarn spinning, the past tendency was to keep on increasing the production speeds and simultaneously improving, or at least maintainingthestatus quo in the processed material quality.Besides a great deal of effortswere put to achieve a near perfect opening and cleaning, and removing undesirable short fibres from cotton, auto control of material uniformity, increasingcapacities of intermediate packages, their auto-doffingand auto transport to the next machine. It appears that spinning preparatory machines have already reached to an admirable level of technology and the fact that the production capacity of preparatory section is higher than the actual spinning need, will deter the developments to continue in the similar fashion. In near future,manyapplications of computer science is expected. The machines themselves will decide how to adjust and run optimally based on the analysis of big past data (machine learning and artificial intelligence) without any interference of the technical supervisors, as is in the vogue now. Remote supervision and servicing of machines (Internet of Thing) will get significant importance. I will elaborate these terms in the later part of my interview. The advent of robots in large scale is also not ruled out, as the absolute purity of fibre processing to spin yarns can be best preserved, if human beings refrain from touching fibres and manipulating them.
- How has the textile industry technologically evolved in the last few years?
The industry needs enormous drivingforce to equip itself with the latest technologies and upgrades, as the action is highly capital intensive. The sector has become the most severely affected among manufacturing sectors due to the novel Coronavirus pandemic, prevailing for last two years. Before that also, the industry was experiencing sluggish demand in export markets and rising competitionfrom countries such as Vietnam, Bangladesh, China, andTurkey. The cascading effect of external demand shock along with domestic demand slack has resulted in lower production in all sectors of the industry. However, government initiatives to bolster the industry have raised hopes. At the forefront of the industryis the relativelymodernisedspinning sectorthathas gained global eminence with 30% market share for being a dependable supplier of quality yarns. India hasthe second-largest staple yarn spinning capacity withabout 48 million installed ring spindles, and producing approximately 6 billion kilograms of yarn.Under the prevailing situation, a large-scale further capacity augmentation, which we have witnessed in the past, cannot be expected. Mostly the spinningmills are upgrading technology, like replacing conventional ring frames with compact spinning, selectivelyacquiringrotor spinning for coarser yarn production and air-vortex machines for polyester blended yarn spinning. Acquisition of key technologies, like contamination detector, modern carding and combing machines, auto-doffing and other automation systems,including the latest generation of link winder with yarn cleaning system etc.,continues in the priority list, mainly aimed at maintaining the competitive edge in the yarn export market.The spinning industry still has older machines with about 15 million spindle capacity,which areproducing yarn inefficiently and need to be discarded or replaced with modern machines, so the sector is labelled as the fully modernized industry.
Coming to weaving sector, 97% ofabout 76 thousand million square meters of fabrics (excluding Khadi, Wool, and Silk), are producedannually in the country by the decentralisedpowerloomsector. However, this sector intrinsically lacks modernisation, and is believed to have only 4% modern shuttleless looms out of about 25 lakhs installed capacity. As oftoday, most of the production is made with semi-automatic looms. But, thanks to the various policy interventions by the Governmentperiodically, the situation is improvingwith the sector adopting more and more automatic and shuttleless looms. The recent thrust of GOI to augment production of indigenous technical textile will also encourage the sector for weaving more of synthetics,heavier and higher width fabrics, that will invariably force the industryto adopt more modern looms.
The Indian textile wet processing sector is on the course of erasing the infamous label on it being one of the most polluting industries, thanks to the growing public awareness and concerns related to global warming, climate change, green-house-gas emission, carbon footprint, water scarcity, sustainability, etc.The sector has about 2500 units, out of which about 200 is in the organised sector, and the rest as micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) manufacturers, making the modernisation a challenging task. The sector is slowly adopting or considering proactive measures, like combined scouring and bleaching,ultra-low liquor ratio machines, supercritical CO2 dyeing,combined dyeing and finishing,enzyme based biodegradable chemicals, low foam surfactants, bio-scouring, non-fluoro water repellents, zero discharge of hazardous chemicals (ZDHC),halogen free flame retardants, micro-encapsulated coatings, one bath one-step dyeing for polyester-cotton blended fabrics,high fixative dyes,digital printing, sublimation printing, efficient solvent recovery, etc.
In the garmenting sector, out of about one lakh units in the country, 80% are in micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) manufacturers, rest 20% in the organised sector that mainly caters to the export markets. The garment production was at about 22 billion pieces in 2019-20, while made-ups stood at approx. 2.4 billion kg. India exported garments worth US$15,509 million and made-ups of about US$6,941 million in the said year.The sector is equipping with or considering adoption of new technologies such as,high-speed sewing machines, laser-cutting machines, new pressing and fusing machines, buttonhole machines, seam bonding machines, seamless garment, digital and 3Dprinting, computer-aided design CAD), assembly line automation, computer-aided manufacturing (CAM).
Across the board, the Indian textile industry is experiencing a tremendous growth potential due to various technological advancements, automation and artificial intelligence in machinery and processes, data-driven customer operations, application of data analytics in decision-making, besides eco-consciousness and increasing concern on manufacturing circularity.In testimony thereof, the industry has become an attractive destination for FDI, thanks to the recent policyinitiatives of the GOI.
- Sustainability, Carbon footprint, Waste management how it’s relevant and important? It’s just a talk of the town or any fruitful measures taken by industry?
These are the trending terms nowadays in everybody’s mind, as the world, including India, bolsters its effort towards achieving net-zerocarbon emission to protect the earthand make it eternallyliveable for our future generation.Sustainability is a system or practice that should be adhered in our life, profession, business, service, collective and co-operative actions, so that we take from the earth only those resources that are easily renewable. This will do no harm to the environment and allow meeting the needs of the current generation without affecting the potential needs of the future generations.Waste control and management including using energy and water efficiently, are important means to attain and maintain the wheel of sustainability, On the other hand, carbon footprint is an indicator or a measure of sustainability. It is the total amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including carbon dioxide and methane which are generated by us and by our actions, and expressed as carbon-dioxide equivalent (CO2e). Needless to say, lower is the carbon footprint, the better we are doing for the sustainability of the earth.
These terms may appear new to the textile industry, but it is many times resorting to discrete measures on an incremental basis to reduce their adverse impact.I give a few examples.
Installation of variable frequency drive (VFD) system, soft-starter along with energy-efficient motors, improving power factor, use of lighter-weight yarn and fabric package, lighter spindle, efficient spindle oil in bolsters, sandwich jointless tape, lighter-weight pulley in place of drum driving the ring spindles, use of false-ceiling and return hot-air from pneumafils in spinning shop floor, optimum ring diameter relative to yarn package and balloon setting, intermittent movement of empty conveyor, use of steam heating in place of electric heating, use of mist nozzles for yarn conditioning, FRP impellers in fans replacing aluminum ones, combined treatments in wet processing, bath recovery system, counter-flow current washing, cold treatments, continuous washing, heat recovery unit, HTHP machines, enzymatic scouring and washing, use of sensors and control system, less water and less temperature wet processing, treatment of dye house effluents to recover chemicals and water for reuse, etc. Since 1980s, Indian textile industries are adopting various suchmeasures to reduce the cost of production by saving raw materials, chemicals, energy, water, compressed air, and adopting waste recovery and reuse measures.Thus,even when the sustainability issue was not of much concern world-over, the textile industry adopted measures which have acted beneficially in improving the sustainability of the industry. Needless to say, much is desired to be done, particularly in extending the coverage to the medium and small sectors of the industry.
The point to be noted is that when we are in textile production business, it is just not feasible notto harm anything. We cannot adhere to the very basic definitions of sustainability stated aboveas a whole. What is possible and important in this juncture is that we go on reducing consumption of non-renewable raw materials for textile production, hunt for alternate source of renewable inputs including energy, stop using harmful chemicals, not drain them in the environment, and go extra-miles to ensure that whatever we produce or discard during the manufacture, is reused to the maximal. In this context, the definition given by K. Fletcher (2009) is more practical and should be the policy guideline for the textile industry. He stated, “A sustainable product is one that is manufactured in such a way that it has the lowest possible adverse effect on the environment. e.g., by making the most efficient use of resources such as water and energy and which goes the extra mile to recover raw materials, e.g., by the recycling of as much water as possible or by recovering the heat from wastewater discharges”.
What is more important is that the industry must include a sustainability agenda in the business policy and ensure an acceptable auditing.It should periodicallyself-declare the various indicators of sustainability it has attained, and the time-bound goal it has set for the organisation. The industry association like CITI should come forward and take the lead in setting the quantitative and qualitative norms for each segment of the textile industryfor a positive environmental impact, rather than the government set norms by legislation or foreign buyers insist on certain norms as a pre-condition to buy Indian textiles. This apart, another essential concern for the textile industry is the circularity of production of both goods and wastes throughout the value chain. If nothing is thrown out as rubbish for landfills in the earth and emissions released in the environment are controlled, and ifthe remnants of the product at the end of their lifecycles,as well as the discards are reprocessed and reused, much will be done to improve the sustainability. Indeed, Panipat’s textile recycling units in the decentralised sector are doing an impressive job by processing textile wastes collected through their network and turning the waste into useful products for reuse. Various actions for circularity of the economy should be in-built in the quest for attaining the sustainability goal of the production unit.Today’s Indian textile industry economy is mostly of a linear nature, Take–Make–Waste. It must be turned into a circular withthe order of using the non-sustainable raw materials and chemicals as, Avoid—Alternative—Reduce—Reuse—Recycle.The earlier we transform, the better is the sustainability of the nation.
- How Data Analysis, Machine Learning, AI, Block Chain is important for the industry and how we can implement in textile and apparel industry?
These are emerging developments in the field of computer science, but not limited to only companies dealing with information technology. They are being increasingly used by other industries as well to optimize the resources, bring post-production and customer experience in a seamless loop, and run the business intelligently empowered by improved data analytics. In fact, these are some important components of the Fourth Industrial Revolution that has poised to redefine traditional boundaries of the present industries, not only to change the way we work and relate to one another, butalso, to createmany new opportunities.The textile industry cannot remain insulated from such spectacular developments. In the past, the industry has adopted all significant developments made inthe first to third industrial revolutions, got enriched technologically and reached to the present height of phenomenal success. In the same way, sooner or letter, the textile and apparel industry is going to adopt and implement all the beneficial technologies of the present industrial revolution to empower itself and convert every production unit as a ‘smart’ factory.
As such, big data and machine learning are different from each other, but these two hot trending technologies are used in combination for a successful business. The input to the machine learning algorithms is the information extracted by analysis of big data. This input is then learned by the machine learning models to predict the desired outputs.We all use data in our profession as well as in daily life for better understanding of events, and for decision-making. But these are relatively ‘small’ data, and often we may use Excel like spreadsheet or other dedicated computer programmes for analysis of the data and its interpretation. But as the world turns more and more into digital, we areoften fed with huge amount of data, better known as big data that cannotbe handled the way we are handling small data.Giving example from the textile field say, visualinspection of fabric defects post-weaving is traditionally done on an illuminated inspection frame, where only a limited number of defects on a restrictive scale per unit time can be recorded, and classification of defects is done manually. However, if the inspection can be performed by capturing images of the portions of the fabric continually with a high-speed camera during the manufacturing process itself, it is possible to gather a massive data on fabric defects rapidly and perform anerrorless classification based on the algorithm. In this case, we will be dealing with big data on non-conformities in our fabric production. Big data is typically characterisedby ‘5V’s namely, Volume (of data), Variety (different types of data), Velocity (speed at which the datais gathered and processed), Veracity (quality and consistency of data), and Value (usefulness of the data after extraction of information and interpretation).
Machine learning (ML) on the other hand, enables machines/computers to learn from experiences (i.e., from information provided by big data) to find out patterns, insights, learn more and make decisions without human intervention (i.e., without explicitly doing the programming). Thus, instead of writing code, we just feed big data to the generic algorithm, and the algorithm itself builds the logic based on the given input data.Big data analytics is all about collecting and transforming raw data into extracted information, and this data information is then used by the machine learning algorithms to predict better results or future without or with minimal human intervention. The machine learning is a subset of AI (artificial intelligence). In our example of capturing big data on fabric defects, ML can do numerous classifications of defects, including identification of source and cause of defects based on its algorithms and continuous learning fromthe extracted information.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is also known as machine intelligence, since it mimics the human thought process and enables machines to function on their own similar to human intelligence, like the ability to perceive, learn, reason, and act. It concerns development of intelligent or smart machines, those can think and work like humans. In our cited example on fabric defect detection, at present a trained ‘human being’ working on the inspection tableapplies his logic and decides whether a fabric with a particular defect is to be altogether rejected or it is to be allowed after mending the defect manually with a hand tool. In future, this job of the human being is likely to be simulated by an AI-powered robot that will apply logic more rationally and accurately, and mend the defects precisely and tirelessly.
Thus, when acting in fusion, these three technologies, namely Big Data Analytics, ML and AI are likely to bring disruptive changes in textile productions and businesses.
A blockchain is essentially a digital ledgeror record of transactions that allow digital information or transaction to be recorded and distributed, but not edited.Every time a new transaction occurs on the blockchain, a record of that transaction is added to every participant’s ledger. Itbeing an immutable ledger, the said transaction cannot be altered, deleted, or destroyed. As the decentralised database is managed by multiple participants in a blockchain, it is also known as Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT).Currently the blockchain is used for management of complex textile/apparel supply chain characterised by a vast network of manufacturers, warehouses, transport depots, communication channels and logistic providers, each managing own databases and logistics. In a blockchain, flow of data happens continuously in a real time and the same is visible to all permitted parties, as it is a single immutable ledger, in contrast to commonly adopted conventional mutable multiple ledgers with fragmented data. Thus, the blockchain allows a retailer to build more customer-centric supply chains that prioritize authentication and trust. The other likelyapplications of blockchain will be comparing daily productivity of different textile units, may be located in different places by a single converted yarn count or fabric sort. It can also provide insight on short fall in production, digital provenance of apparel brands to prevent counterfeiting, displaying of sustainable and ethical credentials, tracking of lifecycle of a textile product from raw material to design and sale, use and then resale and recycling.
The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to numerousmachines (physical devices) around the world that are now connected to the Internet, all collecting and sharing data. An example of IoT application that is getting faster application in textile industry is theremote machine servicing platform that also includes electronic hardware, embedded sensors, production process monitoring system, predictive maintenance algorithms, etc. In case of a breakdown, the machines can be serviced remotely, without needing the physical presence of an expert service engineer in the production site. If needed, even the corrupted machine programme can be replaced by uploading a fresh programmeremotelythrough the internet only. This will reduce the downtime of the machine and servicing cost, thereby improving the productivity of the unit.
We can expect exciting developments to happen in the textile sector by adopting these new technologies.No doubt, it is a long way for the Indian textile manufacturing units before they get transformed into smart factories.
- How Research and Development is a part of important process in the industry, industry adoption, investment of same.
R&D should be an integral agenda of the innovation led textile industry. Since the industry is operating in the private sector, handsome private funding particularly for conducting applied and strategic research to meet the organisation’s specific short-termrequirements is to be ensured. For long-term researches, which are of basic in nature and require multidisciplinary expertise, the industry should sponsor the problem-solving to educational and research institute. While most of the units in the organisedtextile sector have their own in-house R&D setups, often recognised by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and are doing what is necessary for their requirements, the same is not the case for the units in the decentralised sectors. Good researchdemands significant funding. It is suggested that a national level fund for textile education and research be created by levying a suitable cess on trade of textile materials, besides ensuring active industry participation in textile education and research. Such fund to be allocated to the institutes on competitive basis, judging the novelty, strength, and industry participation in the submitted proposal. This is vital for the growth of innovations in the sector that is structurally fragmented anddecentralised in nature.
- Educationist research hardly applied on commercial production of the industry, what is the reasons, setbacks and how we can integrate industry with educationist to get maximum productivity of research
The statement is not fully true. Incremental research and the knowledge generated therein has reached the industry and are adopted by it. Unlike in the agricultural field, where the beneficial outputs of the research need to carried to the small and marginal farmers (i.e., the stakeholders) in a positive mode for obvious reason of their poor capability in accessing information of their own, the textile industry is fairly equipped with qualified personnel, who themselves gather the various technical developments around them and from the world. I have already given the example of the period of 1990s, when the spinning industry was pressured from the export market to improve yarn quality, various institutions provided the necessary research support. Today, the industry is producing the best quality of yarn. The annual Joint Technological Conference and other seminars do a good job of research disseminations from the research and educational institutes.However, the weak link between the educational/research institute and the textile industry is not a denying fact. Often, the average student quality and also, the research emanating from the institutes are not meeting the expectations of the industry.One biggest lacuna is the absence of an exclusive university on textile sciences in the country, that can oversee the standard of education and research to maintain them not only to the desired quality, but also keep them comparable with the best in the world.It is to be borne in mind that today’s textile technology is highly diverse and complex, dealing with not only a few natural fibres, but a host of synthetic fibres of different origin, using varied yarn making systemsandwoven, nonwoven, knitting and braided fabric making machines,colouring and finishing processes, garmenting or otherwise, for both apparels and technical applications. Anotherlacuna isthe lack of information on how the Indian industry is technologically moving. Presently, we get some broad information on installed machinery capacity and production figures. But for a better insight on the technological strength of the industry, to format textile education and research and policy formulation, detailed technology wise information on installed capacity and production data are desired. Hopefully, the Office of the Textile Commissioner, Ministry of Textiles (MOT, GOI) is in the process of collecting such valuable statistics regularly, via their web based Online Return System.
Since time immemorial, India is known for textiles, for its innovativeness, uniqueness, as well as diversity. Now, we may be experiencing disadvantage in terms of cost of production and discomfort in export market. But these are not difficult to overcome. What is needed is a will to change and adapt and assimilate the technologies for the betterment of the textile industry.
