Textiles Quality Control Standards and Testing Procedures

At Herman Miller all materials undergo two forms of testing. Initial testing is done when a
new product, process, or supplier is accepted. These tests lead to the development of quality
standards, which our suppliers take responsibility for meeting. From that point on, materials
are checked on a random basis to see that suppliers adhere to the quality standards. Quality
is checked at suppliers, as materials are received in our facilities, and throughout production.
All Herman Miller textiles are tested for their ability to stand up to the kind of wear they are
likely to get in actual use, including fire retardancy, elongation, strength, and color transfer.
Qualities such as surface texture, pattern, ability to absorb or reflect light, ability to conform
to product, and ability to respond within an environment when placed next to woods, laminates,
glass, carpeting, painted surfaces, or other textiles are also taken into consideration.
When possible, our test procedures conform to the methods established by the American
Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). Herman Miller strives to meet and exceed all industry standards pertaining to our products.

The Association for Contract Textiles (ACT) has developed five symbols that assure contract
fabrics perform up to industry standards and pass all applicable testing. These symbols are
included on all Herman Miller textile swatch cards where applicable:

Flame resistance (fabric's ability to resist burning)
Crocking resistance (fabric's colorfastness)
Ultra-violet light resistance (fabric's resistance to fading)
Physical properties (fabric's resistance to pilling, seam slippage, and tearing)
Abrasion (fabric's ability to withstand surface wear from rubbing)

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Development In Spinning

Developments in Spinning - the Tribological Approach
Eckhard SONNTAG
Emil BRÖLL GmbH & Co, Austria; www.broell.com


SUMMARY


The maximum production speed in spinning is limited either by engineering considerations or by the yarn itsself. Today technological limits, concerning yarn quality and end breakage rate are the most important factors. One should be aware of the fact, that the tribological most important elements in spinning are identical with the most crucial ones when optimizing this processes.
There will be a quiet revolution in the productivity of synthetic fibres like PES, PAN, PP and even wool. The same spinning speeds will be reached as in cotton spinning today. This will be possible through surface and material engineering, where the tribological interactions between the fibre and surfaces of contacting textile machine components are considered.

Implications of Surface Chemistry on Cotton Fiber Processing By Gary R. Gamble

ABSTRACT
Increasing speeds of cotton yarn production
in the textile mill have made it necessary to development
complementary methods to traditional
measurements of physical fiber properties, such as
length and strength, as predictors of yarn spinning
efficiency. With the goal of investigating possible
complementary measures to address this problem,
this research attempts to quantify the pectin, wax,
glucose, and surface electrolyte components of the
cotton fiber in order to develop a chemistry-based
methodology to elucidate currently unknown
factors involved in yarn spinning efficiency. The
amount of each component was measured for 21
cotton samples, and the results are correlated with
micronaire-normalized frictional measurements
based on draft force and fiber-to-fiber friction.
Results indicate that inter-fiber friction decreases
primarily as a function of increasing pectin and
soluble salt components on the cotton fiber surface.
Variations in wax content do not appear to
significantly affect inter-fiber friction relative to
the effects produced by variations in pectin and
salt content. These are important observations
not only from the standpoint of being able to set
fiber processing equipment parameters based
on chemical measurements, but it also raises the
possibility of breeding cotton to produce desirable
spinning characteristics based on the level of
surface chemical components developed during
the fiber growth period. This research provides
results on samples from the first year (crop year
2001) of a 5-year, leading commercial cultivars
study performed by ARS. Further information
obtained in subsequent crop years will be used
to expand the current database.