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When speaking about the importance of machinery in manufacturing, go no further than the textile industry. There are many steps in between the acquisition of raw materials and the sale of a piece of clothing. For argument’s sake, we’ll use the example of cotton since it is by far the most utilized textile fibre at 7.3 billion pounds harvested annually in the United States. From the farm until retail, cotton goes through five stages where machinery’s value is truly exemplified. The cultivation, preparation, spinning, looming, and refinery.
Cultivation
The cotton is harvested using large tractors called stripper harvesters. The goal for the harvester is to remove the cotton bolls in one piece and safely set them aside. Once the cotton is harvested, the cultivation process must begin. The most common form of cultivating cotton is by method of the Cotton Gin, invented by Eli Whitney in 1794. The gin cleans and separates the cotton seeds and once the process is completely, the cotton lint is what is left over. The lint is packaged into bales and is sent to a Cotton Mill.
Preparation
When the mills receive the bales, they must use heavy machinery in order to open and clean these extremely dense packages of cotton. Once opened, the cotton goes through a carding process in which a parallel web of cotton strands are made in a carding machine. This web must then go through a combing machine that further purifies the cotton and makes the web ready for spinning.
Spinning
During this process, the yarn is fed into machinery that spins the cotton onto spools. This is not the average spool of thread that one would think of. The strands of cotton spun around are several times thinner than typical sewing thread. Depending on the type of thread that is desired, the spools of cotton then go through a twisting process. During this, two adjacent spools have their strands twisted together. The technique and amount twisted is what determines the type of thread that is created.
Looming
The looming process is when the threads of cotton are turned into pieces of cloth. During the spinning process warp and weft yarn was created. The warp yarn refers to the strands running vertically on a piece of cloth and the weft runs horizontally. The loom weaves the yarns correctly to create pieces of cloth. The type of weave and the types of yarns determine what cloth it will be. Denim and twill are two common pieces of cloth.
Refinery
There are many different refinery processes that vary depending on the desired piece of cloth. Some of these methods are shrinking, singeing, and bleaching. The last part is the actually making it a piece of clothing. Sewing machinery is used to quickly sew together cotton cloths to create clothing. Button machines put buttons on the clothing and the last machine cuts off any loose threads.
From the farm to retail is a long process but certainly an important one. Cotton is in almost all of our clothing and is the dominant force in the textile industry. It is easily harvested and is expected to continue to be the industry’s powerhouse.
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