Executive Summary

The purpose of the project is to improve the processing, the use of measurement, and the knowledge of the effect of fibre properties in wool spinning in China and India. This will help build a viable, competitive industry and improve the supply chain from grower to spinner. The key research objectives are to develop techniques that can be used to predict yarn quality and spinning performance from a knowledge of fibre properties in a form suitable for Chinese and Indian spinning mills, and to demonstrate the benefits of objective measurement for Chinese domestic wool.

The Chinese and Indian interactions are being kept separate in line with the strong feelings expressed by each country and with their somewhat different needs.

Collaborators: CSIRO Textile and Fibre Technology, Agriculture Western Australia, Indian Woollen Mills Federation, IWS India, Dong Hua University (former China Textile University), Xian Institute of Science and Technology (former North-West Institute of Textile Science and Technology), Nanjing Wool Market, five mills in India and six mills in China.

China Summary
Review meetings were held in Shanghai and Xian in October 2000 and the mills visited. The meetings were highly successful and mills claimed that they were already deriving benefits from the project. The benchmarking results show that among the Chinese partner mills there are significant variations in yarn quality and spinning performance. On average, spinning performance of the mills is below the world'€™s best practice. Three papers resulting from this project were presented at the 70th IWTO Congress held in Shanghai in May 2001.

The progress made in China is well in line with the project schedule for most mills. Initial data of 115 top and 105 yarn samples were used in the preliminary benchmarking report. A further 220 top and 61 yarn samples have been received this year and are currently being tested.

The project has attracted considerable attention from the Chinese Government. Development of a spinning prediction system has been listed as one of the six key wool-related projects in a major program supported by the state government. The Government has granted significant funding for the implementation of this program.

The mills have given priority to improving quality control and significant investments have been made to upgrade their testing laboratories. Lanzhou Sanmao has purchased a Tensor for implementation of the project and to improve top dyeing quality. A modern wool research centre is to be established at Shandong Ruyi and significant funding has been received from the Government for this development.

Initial trials have been carried out at Lanzhou Sanmao aimed at introducing objective measurement into the mill'€™s operations. Further trials will be carried out to investigate the significance of clip preparation and pre-sale testing in terms of impact on mill processing. This work will be conducted in conjunction with the Nanjing Wool Market in order to send clear price signals to woolgrowers to encourage proper clip preparation and pre-sale objective measurement.

India Summary
Following visits to all five mills by the Indian partners, samples were sent to CSIRO for the benchmarking exercise. The benchmark report was sent and all mills visited in March 2001. Co-operation was excellent and sensitive costing information was provided. Overall, the mills performed a little more poorly than expected, particularly in terms of yarn strength and damage in dyeing. Further exchange of samples and investigations are in progress to determine the causes of underperformance. Each mill'€™s performance relative to other mills was a strong stimulus for improvement. All mills agreed to purchase and trial the same two tops, one assembled using their standard specifications and one assembled using much broader specifications. This will allow a more definitive benchmarking while opening up mills to a review of their purchasing practices. The Ministry of Textiles undertook to arrange for a survey of the needs of the decentralized worsted sector.

Development of Predictions
As requested by the mills, the predictions have been extended to include hairiness and neps, and to take into account spinning speed. A spreadsheet version of the prediction software has been introduced to aid mills in plotting performance over time and for different products.

Future Directions
Mills in both China and India have expressed the desire to have the predictions extended to wool/polyester blends and to reduce damage in top dyeing. Samples of the various polyesters have been collected and some initial spinning trials are underway. Some additional trials and testing have been carried out to help the mills explore when and how the wool is damaged in dyeing but an extension to the project and additional expertise are required to make concrete improvements to the top dyeing process. A model that allows predictions to be tailored to a specific mill is still in progress as are refinements to the prediction of yarn strength. A costing tool is to be programmed which will use the prediction software to allow mills to quantify a change in fibre properties on processing costs. The Chinese mills, in particular, are very interested in the development of a comprehensive diagnostic system to help them guide them towards world'€™s best practice. Like the top dyeing work this would require an extension to the existing project.

Executive Summary

The purpose of the project is to improve the processing, the use of measurement, and the knowledge of the effect of fibre properties in wool spinning in China and India. This will help build a viable, competitive industry and improve the supply chain from grower to spinner. The key research objectives are to develop techniques that can be used to predict yarn quality and spinning performance from a knowledge of fibre properties in a form suitable for Chinese and Indian spinning mills, and to demonstrate the benefits of objective measurement for Chinese domestic wool.

The Chinese and Indian interactions are being kept separate in line with the strong feelings expressed by each country and with their somewhat different needs.

Collaborators: CSIRO Textile and Fibre Technology, Agriculture Western Australia, Indian Woollen Mills Federation, IWS India, Dong Hua University (former China Textile University), Xian Institute of Science and Technology (former North-West Institute of Textile Science and Technology), Nanjing Wool Market, five mills in India and six mills in China.

China Summary
Review meetings were held in Shanghai and Xian in October 2000 and the mills visited. The meetings were highly successful and mills claimed that they were already deriving benefits from the project. The benchmarking results show that among the Chinese partner mills there are significant variations in yarn quality and spinning performance. On average, spinning performance of the mills is below the world's best practice. Three papers resulting from this project were presented at the 70th IWTO Congress held in Shanghai in May 2001.

The progress made in China is well in line with the project schedule for most mills. Initial data of 115 top and 105 yarn samples were used in the preliminary benchmarking report. A further 220 top and 61 yarn samples have been received this year and are currently being tested.

The project has attracted considerable attention from the Chinese Government. Development of a spinning prediction system has been listed as one of the six key wool-related projects in a major program supported by the state government. The Government has granted significant funding for the implementation of this program.

The mills have given priority to improving quality control and significant investments have been made to upgrade their testing laboratories. Lanzhou Sanmao has purchased a Tensor for implementation of the project and to improve top dyeing quality. A modern wool research centre is to be established at Shandong Ruyi and significant funding has been received from the Government for this development.

Initial trials have been carried out at Lanzhou Sanmao aimed at introducing objective measurement into the mill's operations. Further trials will be carried out to investigate the significance of clip preparation and pre-sale testing in terms of impact on mill processing. This work will be conducted in conjunction with the Nanjing Wool Market in order to send clear price signals to woolgrowers to encourage proper clip preparation and pre-sale objective measurement.

India Summary
Following visits to all five mills by the Indian partners, samples were sent to CSIRO for the benchmarking exercise. The benchmark report was sent and all mills visited in March 2001. Co-operation was excellent and sensitive costing information was provided. Overall, the mills performed a little more poorly than expected, particularly in terms of yarn strength and damage in dyeing. Further exchange of samples and investigations are in progress to determine the causes of underperformance. Each mill's performance relative to other mills was a strong stimulus for improvement. All mills agreed to purchase and trial the same two tops, one assembled using their standard specifications and one assembled using much broader specifications. This will allow a more definitive benchmarking while opening up mills to a review of their purchasing practices. The Ministry of Textiles undertook to arrange for a survey of the needs of the decentralized worsted sector.

Development of Predictions
As requested by the mills, the predictions have been extended to include hairiness and neps, and to take into account spinning speed. A spreadsheet version of the prediction software has been introduced to aid mills in plotting performance over time and for different products.

Future Directions
Mills in both China and India have expressed the desire to have the predictions extended to wool/polyester blends and to reduce damage in top dyeing. Samples of the various polyesters have been collected and some initial spinning trials are underway. Some additional trials and testing have been carried out to help the mills explore when and how the wool is damaged in dyeing but an extension to the project and additional expertise are required to make concrete improvements to the top dyeing process. A model that allows predictions to be tailored to a specific mill is still in progress as are refinements to the prediction of yarn strength. A costing tool is to be programmed which will use the prediction software to allow mills to quantify a change in fibre properties on processing costs. The Chinese mills, in particular, are very interested in the development of a comprehensive diagnostic system to help them guide them towards world's best practice. Like the top dyeing work this would require an extension to the existing project.

Executive Summary

The purpose of the project is to improve the processing, the use of measurement, and knowledge of the effect of fibre properties in wool spinning in China and India. This will help build a viable, competitive industry and improve the supply chain from grower to spinner. The key research objectives are to develop techniques that can be used to predict yarn quality and spinning performance from a knowledge of fibre properties in a form suitable for Chinese and Indian spinning mills, and to demonstrate the benefits of objective measurement for Chinese domestic wool.

The Chinese and Indian interactions are being kept separate in line with the strong feelings expressed by each country and with their somewhat different needs.

Collaborators: CSIRO Textile and Fibre Technology, Department of Agriculture Western Australia, Indian Woollen Mills Federation, IWS India, Dong Hua University (former China Textile University), Xi'an University of Engineering Science and Technology (former North-West Institute of Textile Science and Technology), Nanjing Wool Market, five mills in India and six mills in China.

China Summary
A project review was held in April 2002 that involved the review team visiting China for a week to discuss with collaborators the impact of the project. The reviewers' report was positive and a typical statement from the report was:

"The review has highlighted excellent collaboration between the Australian and Chinese partners. This is evidenced by good response to the Project and its concept, stimulated by the early success of the Project in the participating textile mills."

The progress made in China is well in line with the project schedule. As a result of the benchmarking study carried out during the first two years of the project, which showed that top dyeing was a major problem for the mills, additional trials have been carried out during the year to pinpoint where the problems arise. Participating mills showed considerable interest in this trial and contributed significant resources to ensure its success.

Results showed that there are large variations in spinning performance among participating mills. Pleasingly the best of the Chinese mills' performance is catching up with the world's best practice. Different mills have different problems. Some mills have good top dyeing quality but their spinning is not as good. Some mills are good in spinning but poor in top dyeing. A problem common to all Chinese mills is high nep counts and high spinning ends-down.
During the year a model mill specific version of the prediction model, Yarnspec, was developed based on data from Lanzhou Sanmao. This model was shown to accurately predict the mill's performance.
As part of the Chinese domestic wool sub-project a processing trial has recently been conducted at CSIRO and Lanzhou Sanmao, the primary objective of which was to investigate whether mill sorting can be simplified for Chinese wool, which has been well prepared on farm and measured pre-sale. The wool used was from Xinjiang wool farms purchased through the Nanjing Wool Market.

Results of the trial show that, for well-prepared wool, differences in top quality are negligible between conventionally sorted lines and lines prepared using a greatly simplified sorting method. This work indicates that there is a potential to greatly reduce the labour involved in sorting, which will bring significant savings to Chinese mills. This work will also provide incentives to the local wool production industry for quality and price improvement.

India Summary
Due to travel restrictions the Indian project review was held in Australia in July 2002. Like the China sub project the reviewers gave a very positive report. A typical statement from this report was:

"We were impressed with the experimental design of the project, and although not all phases of work have been completed at the time of our review, there are positive results available. Most of the participating mills are already finding benefits from the introduction of Yarnspec into their mill quality control. It has benchmarked their current yarn quality and spinning performance to world best practice, and enabled them to begin analysing how to improve quality and profitability."

The Indian sub-project has progressed in two major areas. Firstly the benchmarking study was completed and causes of underperformance identified. Secondly a major mill trial was undertaken to demonstrate how the choice of input material could be changed to reduce costs and increase wool availability.

The main conclusion of the benchmarking study is that damage related to dyeing is the major cause of underperformance in Indian mills (a similar conclusion was reached for Chinese mills). The damage does not appear to be fully revealed by bundle tenacity measurements so that even using the measured (low) values for bundle tenacity the yarns still have lower tenacity and elongation than predicted. One possible cause of damage, in some cases, is that the wool after dyeing often has a high pH (i.e. is alkaline) whereas leaving the wool slightly acidic is to be preferred for reducing the risk of damage in drying or steaming and over time.

During this study, correction formulae were developed for the temperature and RH used for testing yarns in Indian mills (relative to the standard 200C, 65%RH in non-tropical countries) and a new program, COSTSPEC that allows the processing costs of different tops to be compared was introduced.

In the wool input optimisation trial two batches of 4 tonnes of greasy wool were assembled from 5 to 6 sale lots purchased at auction in Fremantle. The first batch conformed to the typical specifications of leading Indian mills. The second batch greatly increased the allowed range of staple length and strength. The batches were spun into yarn at 5 Indian mills. The mean yarn properties and spinning performances were found to be essentially identical, within errors, except for the strength properties of the yarns where the conventional batch was marginally superior. Analysis of auction data showed the batch made up with the wider range of staple properties would be cheaper and more wool would be available at auction for the mills' buyers to bid on.

Development of Predictions
A versatile spreadsheet version of the prediction software has been introduced to aid mills in plotting performance over time in order for them to diagnose underperformance and to track trends in the mill's performance.

Future Work
To ensure full impact of the project a number of activities could be undertaken as an extension to the project. These are:

Completion of tailored Yarnspecs with improved features to assess and diagnose causes of underperformance
Formal mill trials in China to be carried out to demonstrate economic gains which can be made from optimising fibre inputs
Support for workshops or seminars in India and China to disseminate more widely the results of the project
Support for follow-up trials in which Indian mills purchase and assess performance of consignments purchased using revised specifications and modified dyeing procedures
Completion of a software package, based on Yarnspec, in the light of mill feedback, that quantifies the total cost of spinning in terms of the cost of the wool plus the cost of production.

Arising from this project are possible new projects in the areas of:

Prediction and quality control of wool/polyester blends
Top dyeing
Improving domestic wool marketing in China (in collaboration with NWM and building on and diffusing the work carried out at Lanzhou Sanmao)