Classify the fault Defects in garment manufacturing

In our defects article series, we have so far covered the defects occurring in knitted and woven fabrics and also in embroidery. Now, we are going to take up the defects that occur in our final garments, and how can we control or correct them.

Garment defects can be caused due to the use of defective fabric, workmanship defects and handling defects, and due to the defects in the trims and accessories being used in the garment.

Fabric defects

Part of the defects occurring in the final garment could be caused due to the defects in the fabric being used. In our previous articles we have discussed the defects that can occur in knitted and woven fabrics, their causes and possible remedies in depth.

Workmanship & handling defects

Garment manufacturing is a long process compromising of various stages, pattern making, spreading, cutting, sewing and finishing. Hence, defects can creep in any of or all of these stages, so we need to stay vigilant at each of these stages to ensure the desired quality of the final garment.

There are a variety of workmanship and handling defects that occur commonly in garments:

Pattern stage:

There are various defects in patterns that mar the garment quality. At times patterns or parts of the patterns can be missing from the marker, or if the marker wasn’t correctly labelled, we can end up with mixed garment parts, which can lead to garments with wrong size of parts. In napped fabrics, if patterns are not facing the right direction, garment design can be compromised.

Pattern not properly aligned to fabric’s grain line, or poor line definition can lead to inaccurate cutting. Skimpy marking to better utilise the fabric by not using the patterns’ outside edge for cutting, or moving pattern to squeeze into smaller spaces, can lead to patterns with worn out edges or faulty and wrong sized parts, which leads to puckering or pleating when the garment parts are sewn together as they are not of correct sizes. Missing or displaced notches and drill marks, not enough knife clearance, wrong check matching, or wrong check boxing, all can hamper the quality of the final garment.

Spreading stage:

Narrow fabric lay, misaligned plies, or not enough plies, all can lead to missing bits in the garment parts. Incorrect ply tension leads to size variations in the parts. Also, while spreading, incorrect ply direction, splicing errors, distortion in lay due to static between plies can lead to incorrect cutting, especially if the fabric has checks or stripes.

Cutting stage:

Failure to precisely follow the marker lines, leaning straight knife while cutting, using round knife on a considerably high speed, misplaced or incorrect notches and drill marks, frayed or fused edges due to blunt knife, faulty marker placement, etc. lead to distorted garment parts or missing bits which leads to uality issues at later stages.

Some of the defects that occur due to faulty workmanship and handling are: