It’s All About The Cotton!
February 2, 2009 Over the past 15 years, the world has seen the bulk of the textile production base shift towards Asia. During this time, new, modern equipment has been purchased at an unprecedented pace and placed in new factory buildings in the hopes that it will bring the owners a quality product and prosperity. The strange thing is, while much scrutiny was given to the quality and capability of that new equipment in upgrading the mills, the same degree of scrutiny was not given to the cotton fiber necessary to successfully produce a quality product on that new equipment.
The quality requirements placed on cotton fiber are now greater than ever because it is increasingly utilized in products where consumer preferences are becoming more demanding with respect to product performance, quality, and aesthetics. In addition, production technology has made great improvements in output rates, thus placing greater demands on cotton fibers relative to their ability to process and perform efficiently at the higher production rates. Spinning technology has increased in speed by approximately 50-80% in the past 10 years. These higher spinning speeds place new stresses and demands on cotton fiber. High-speed, high-draft spinning systems require fibers that are fine, long, uniform, strong and clean.
In order to benefit from large capital investments in new equipment, the single largest driver of yarn manufacturing cost, fiber, should be up to the task. Raw material costs account for 50-70% of the total yarn manufacturing cost. With such a large investment at stake, it is clear that decisions in the choice of cotton fiber can make or break a spinning operation.
When it comes to cotton fiber, cost is only one consideration. It is alright to consider cost of the cotton fiber; cost effects whether a mill is able to make margins or not. Then there is a quality factor. The quality of cotton plays a major role not only in the quality of the end product, but also the productivity and efficiency of the spinning mill. Fine, long, and strong fibers allow a mill to produce finer, stronger, and uniform yarn, and additionally results in higher spinning efficiencies.
Being able to choose the right quality cotton at the right price becomes crucial to a textile mill’s profitability. In order to select the right cotton, it is vital to know precisely what the quality characteristics of the cotton are. This cannot be left to subjective, human judgment because preconceptions about different growth areas cannot be ignored. This weakness in human judgment leads to the need for objective methods that leave prejudice and emotion out of the equation in the quality classification of cotton.
One of the watershed moments in the history of the cotton industry has been the development and adoption of High Volume Instruments (HVI), now manufactured by USTER® Technologies, in the classification and marketing of cotton. U.S. cotton enjoys a reputation of consistency around the world due to the use of HVI quality parameters to further develop and/or improve new varieties, production systems, ginning processes and, where possible, give greater transparency to the valuation and marketability of cotton. Many efforts are underway to make HVI data the common language of cotton marketing worldwide. The availability of the HVI data in the global cotton marketing system will allow a producer to get fair value for their cotton and a mill to give scrutiny to the cotton fiber purchased to gain the maximum benefit of that capital investment in new spinning equipment.
New and modern equipment is nice, but in the end, it is all about the cotton.
Photo:
David D. McAlister, III
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