Development of Potential Woven Fabric Designs with Existing Loom-Set up

Abstract

Weaving factories in Ethiopia are sticking to limited types of product categories. It is analyzed that production of bed-sheeting and  sheeting material covers more than 50% of the total product varieties. Besides, production of shirting, blankets & suiting in total covers  only about 40%. Due to this, demands for basic product categories of shirting, suiting, dress materials, curtains and towels are not  fulfilled with local factories product mix. Thus, the country is forced to import such products from different countries like: China, Italy,  Turkey, India, Netherlands, United States, Taiwan, etc. for assessing the majorly imported product mix, three month import data has been  taken from Ethiopian customs revenue authority and analyzed that for this 3-month period, a total cost of USD 566,329 has been  withdrawn for purchasing the products. So, this paper tries to assess the machinery and loom conditions of the selected representative factories with main parameters of shedding mechanisms, make & model of the looms and active/working number of harness frames.  Shedding contributes about 50%, 40% & 10% for tappet, dobby and jacquard mechanisms respectively & the number of harness frames in  the looms ranges from 6 to 20 for both tappet and dobby looms respectively. Accordingly, with this machine set-up the potential  woven fabric designs, which have application areas of shirting, dresses, suiting, towels & home furnishings have been studied in detail  and more than 15 product designs have been suggested with details of required heald shafts, drafting procedures, lifting plans and  specific application areas.