Cost effective online colour monitoring system for real time inspection of patterned textiles

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~1-6% of textiles are rejected due to colour variance resulting in costly production delays, customer claims and limiting access to the emerging & rapidly developing retailer market for dynamic stock management. Existing quality control methods are primarily off-line inspection of physical samples which are slow, inspect <0.25% of the textile and result in costly product waste. Whilst online spectrophotometer inspection systems exist, they are not widely adopted due to cost and inability to process patterned textiles. Building on a recently launched MEMS sensor technology and through the adoption of a novel digital technology approach, the project will develop a market first solution for real time online continuous and complete colour inspection of patterned textiles. The system will result in colour data roll maps enabling quality assurance, grouping of rolls based on similarity of colour, and advanced production planning. System development and testing will be undertaken in collaboration with two UK textile manufacturers. The new solution will lead to step changes in competitiveness and productivity for UK manufacturing: i) competitive advantage against discounted bulk manufacture abroad through the offer of ‘fast, small batch production with minimal errors’ addressing emerging retailer needs; and ii) enhanced productivity through application for mid-process quality control ensuring value is only added to correctly coloured materials thereby increasing first time yield (manufacturing capacity) and reducing process costs. The technology is also transferable to other sectors including plastics, packaging films & coatings