98 terms
Textile and garment glossary
Short, practical definitions. Where a term has a full guide or a calculator, the entry links to it.
A
- Absenteeism
- Person-days lost to unplanned absence as a share of person-days scheduled. It reduces the operators actually present and therefore capacity.
Read the guideCapacity calculatorManpower requirement calculatorSee: CapacitySee: Skill matrix
- Acceptable Quality Limit(AQL)
- The quality level, in defectives or defects per hundred units, that a sampling plan is designed around. Older documents call it acceptable quality level.
The AQL, lot size and inspection level together give the sample size and the accept and reject numbers.
Read the guideAQL sample size calculatorSee: Inspection levelSee: Sampling planSee: Major defect
- Allowance (time study)
- Extra time added to basic time for personal needs, fatigue and unavoidable delays, usually as a percentage.
Read the guideGarment SMV calculatorSee: Basic timeSee: Standard Minute Value
- Availability (OEE)
- Run time divided by planned production time. The first of the three OEE factors; it captures stops and breakdowns.
Read the guideOEE calculatorSee: Overall Equipment Effectiveness
B
- Barre
- Unwanted horizontal bands across knitted fabric (or vertical in some wovens) caused by differences in yarn, tension or loop length between feeders.
- Basic time
- Observed time adjusted by the performance rating: the time a qualified operator needs at standard pace, before allowances.
Read the guideGarment SMV calculatorSee: Rating (performance rating)See: Standard Minute ValueSee: Allowance (time study)
- Bill of Materials(BOM)
- The list of every material and trim needed for a style, with consumption per garment, wastage and supplier.
- Bottleneck
- The operation or station with the lowest capacity. It limits the output of the whole line.
Read the guidePitch time calculatorSee: Line balancingSee: Pitch timeSee: Work in progress
- Bowing
- A fabric fault where weft yarns or knitted courses form a curve across the width instead of a straight line.
- Bursting strength
- The pressure a fabric withstands before rupturing when pushed from one side over a circular area. The usual strength test for knits.
C
- Capacity
- The output a line or factory can produce in a period, usually expressed in available minutes or pieces of a given SMV.
Read the guideCapacity calculatorSee: Standard Minute ValueSee: EfficiencySee: Absenteeism
- Colorfastness
- The resistance of a dye or print to changing color, or staining other materials, under conditions such as washing, rubbing, light or perspiration.
Results are rated with grey scales from 1 (poor) to 5 (no change).
- Containment
- Immediate action that stops defective product from moving on while the root cause is found, such as holding and sorting suspect bundles.
- Corrective and Preventive Action(CAPA)
- A structured response to a problem: correct the cause so it does not recur, and prevent similar problems elsewhere.
- Cost of making(CM)
- The price or cost of cutting, sewing and finishing a garment, excluding materials. Often quoted per dozen.
Read the guideCM cost calculatorSee: Cost per minuteSee: Free On BoardSee: Standard Minute Value
- Cost per minute(CPM)
- The factory's manufacturing cost for one available sewing minute, used to cost CM from SMV.
- Course
- A horizontal row of loops in knitted fabric. Courses per inch (CPI) measures how closely they are packed.
- Crimp
- The waviness of a yarn in woven fabric as it passes over and under crossing yarns, expressed as the extra yarn length in percent.
Read the guideFabric GSM calculatorSee: Ends per inchSee: Picks per inch
- Critical defect
- A defect that makes a product unsafe or breaks a legal requirement, such as a broken needle fragment or a loose small part on children's wear.
Read the guideSee: Major defectSee: Minor defectSee: Acceptable Quality Limit
- Crocking
- Transfer of color from a fabric surface to another surface by rubbing. Tested dry and wet and rated with the grey scale for staining.
- Cutting
- Cutting spread fabric into garment components along the marker, by straight knife, band knife or automatic cutter.
D
- Defective
- A unit with one or more defects. Defective percentage counts each unit once, however many defects it carries.
Read the guideDHU calculatorSee: Defects per Hundred UnitsSee: Acceptable Quality Limit
- Defects per Hundred Units(DHU)
- Total defects found per 100 units inspected. A garment can have several defects, so DHU can exceed 100.
Read the guideDHU calculatorSee: Right First TimeSee: Defective
- Denier(den)
- A direct yarn count: the weight in grams of 9,000 meters of yarn or filament. Common for synthetic filament yarns.
- Dimensional stability
- A fabric's or garment's ability to keep its measurements after washing, drying or other treatment. The opposite of shrinkage and growth.
Read the guideRead the guideShrinkage % calculatorSee: Shrinkage
E
- Efficiency
- Earned minutes as a percentage of available minutes. For a line: output × SMV divided by manpower × working minutes.
Read the guideLine efficiency calculatorSee: Standard Minute ValueSee: Capacity
- Elastane
- A highly elastic synthetic fiber, sold under trade names such as Lycra. Small percentages give stretch and recovery to knit and woven fabrics. Called spandex in North America.
- Ends per inch(EPI)
- The number of warp yarns in one inch of woven fabric width.
Read the guideFabric GSM calculatorSee: Picks per inchSee: CrimpSee: Warp
- English cotton count(Ne)
- An indirect yarn count: the number of 840-yard hanks in one pound. Higher numbers mean finer yarn.
F
- Five S(5S)
- A workplace organisation method: sort, set in order, shine, standardise and sustain.
- Five Why analysis(5 Why)
- A root cause method that asks why a problem happened, then why that cause happened, until a cause that can be acted on is reached.
Read the guideSee: Root cause analysisSee: Corrective and Preventive Action
- Fleece
- A knitted fabric, usually made on a three-thread or two-thread fleece structure, with a brushed back that traps air for warmth.
- Four-point system
- A fabric inspection method that gives 1 to 4 penalty points per defect by length or size, then compares points per 100 square yards with an acceptance limit.
- Free On Board(FOB)
- A trade term: the seller delivers the goods on board the vessel at the named port of shipment. In apparel, FOB price usually means the full garment price to that point.
Read the guideGarment costing calculatorSee: Cost of makingSee: Bill of Materials
- French terry
- A knitted fabric with a smooth face and loops on the back, made on a terry or fleece machine and left unbrushed.
G
- Global Organic Textile Standard(GOTS)
- A certification standard for textiles made with organic fibers that covers processing, chemical inputs and social criteria along the supply chain.
- Global Recycled Standard(GRS)
- A certification for products with recycled content that adds social, environmental and chemical requirements to chain of custody.
Read the guideSee: Recycled Claim StandardSee: Global Organic Textile Standard
- Grams per square meter(GSM)
- Fabric weight: the mass in grams of one square meter of fabric.
Measured by cutting and weighing a sample of known area. A 100 cm² round cutter gives GSM = sample weight × 100.
Read the guideFabric GSM calculatorGSM to oz/yd² calculatorSee: Ounces per square yardSee: Yarn count
- Grey scale
- A set of grey chip pairs used to rate color change or staining in colorfastness tests, from 5 (no change) to 1 (severe).
I
- Industrial engineering(IE)
- The discipline of designing and improving work systems. In garment factories it covers methods, standard times, line balancing, layout and capacity.
Read the guideSee: Standard Minute ValueSee: Line balancingSee: Work study
- Inline inspection
- Checking garments at or immediately after sewing operations, so defects are caught at source instead of at the end of the line.
Read the guideDHU calculatorSee: Defects per Hundred UnitsSee: Right First Time
- Inspection level
- In acceptance sampling, the setting that fixes how the sample size relates to lot size. General level II is the usual default.
Read the guideAQL sample size calculatorSee: Acceptable Quality LimitSee: Sampling plan
- Interlock
- A double-knit fabric made of two interlocked 1x1 rib structures. It looks the same on both sides and is stable and smooth.
K
- Kaizen
- Continuous improvement through many small, practical changes made by the people doing the work.
L
- Lean manufacturing
- A way of running production that removes waste (anything that does not add value for the customer) and makes work flow.
Read the guideSee: KaizenSee: Five SSee: Work in progressSee: Takt time
- Line balancing
- Assigning operations to operators so each carries a similar amount of work, close to the pitch time, and no station starves or floods the next.
Read the guidePitch time calculatorMachine requirement calculatorSee: Pitch timeSee: BottleneckSee: Standard Minute Value
M
- Major defect
- A defect likely to cause a customer complaint or return, or to reduce the usability or saleability of the product.
Read the guideSee: Minor defectSee: Critical defectSee: Acceptable Quality Limit
- Marker
- The plan showing how pattern pieces are laid on the fabric for cutting, usually produced with CAD and printed as a full-scale paper marker.
Read the guideMarker efficiency calculatorSee: Marker efficiencySee: Spreading
- Marker efficiency
- The percentage of the marker area covered by pattern pieces. The rest becomes cutting waste.
- Metric count(Nm)
- An indirect yarn count: kilometers of yarn per kilogram (meters per gram).
Read the guideYarn count calculatorSee: English cotton countSee: Tex
- Minor defect
- A defect that departs from specification but is unlikely to reduce usability or cause a return.
Read the guideSee: Major defectSee: Acceptable Quality Limit
- Modal
- A regenerated cellulose fiber, similar in origin to viscose, with higher wet strength and good softness. Often blended with cotton.
- Motion study
- The study of the body movements used in an operation, to remove unnecessary motions and make the method easier and faster.
N
- Needle cut
- Damage to yarns by the sewing needle, often seen as small holes along a seam in knit fabric, sometimes appearing only after washing.
- Nep
- A small tangled knot of fibers in yarn or fabric, visible as a speck, often more obvious after dyeing.
O
- OEKO-TEX
- A family of labels and certifications from the OEKO-TEX association. The best known, STANDARD 100, tests textile articles for harmful substances.
Read the guideSee: Global Organic Textile StandardSee: Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals
- Open seam
- A seam where the fabric edges have come apart or were never caught, leaving a gap or hole.
- Ounces per square yard(oz/yd²)
- An imperial unit of fabric area weight. 1 oz/yd² equals 33.906 g/m².
Read the guideGSM to oz/yd² calculatoroz/yd² to GSM calculatorSee: Grams per square meter
- Overall Equipment Effectiveness(OEE)
- Availability × performance × quality. The share of planned time that produced good output at ideal speed.
P
- Picks per inch(PPI)
- The number of weft yarns in one inch of woven fabric length.
Read the guideFabric GSM calculatorSee: Ends per inchSee: Crimp
- Pilling
- The formation of small balls of tangled fiber on a fabric surface caused by wear and rubbing.
- Pique
- A knitted fabric with a textured, honeycomb-like face made with tuck stitches. The classic polo shirt fabric.
- Pitch time
- In garment line balancing, garment SMV divided by the number of operators: the ideal work content per operator. In lean usage it also means takt time multiplied by pack-out quantity.
Read the guidePitch time calculatorSee: Takt timeSee: Line balancing
- Pre-production meeting(PP meeting)
- A meeting before bulk production where merchandising, production, quality and IE review the approved sample, specifications and risks for a style.
R
- Rating (performance rating)
- The time study observer's judgement of an operator's pace compared with standard pace (100%). Used to convert observed time to basic time.
Read the guideGarment SMV calculatorSee: Basic timeSee: Standard Minute Value
- Recycled Claim Standard(RCS)
- A chain of custody standard that tracks recycled material from input to final product, without the additional social and chemical criteria of GRS.
- Rib
- A knitted structure with wales alternating on both faces, giving high widthwise stretch and recovery. Used for cuffs, collars and fitted tops.
- Right First Time(RFT)
- The percentage of units that pass inspection the first time without repair or rework.
- Root cause analysis(RCA)
- A structured search for the underlying cause of a problem, so that the fix prevents recurrence instead of treating the symptom.
Read the guideSee: Five Why analysisSee: Corrective and Preventive Action
- Roping
- A twisted, rope-like appearance along a hem or seam caused by uneven feeding of the plies during sewing.
S
- Sampling plan
- The sample size together with the accept and reject numbers used to decide whether a lot passes inspection.
Read the guideAQL sample size calculatorSee: Acceptable Quality LimitSee: Inspection level
- Seam puckering
- Wavy or gathered fabric along a seam, caused by thread tension, differential feeding, fabric structure or thread shrinkage.
- Shade variation
- Visible color difference between parts of one garment, between garments or between rolls, beyond the agreed tolerance.
- Shrinkage
- Reduction in length or width after washing, drying or other treatment, reported as a negative dimensional change in percent.
Read the guideShrinkage % calculatorSee: Dimensional stability
- Single jersey
- The basic weft-knitted fabric made on one set of needles, with V-shaped loops on the face and semicircles on the back. The standard T-shirt fabric.
- Skewing
- A fabric fault where weft yarns or courses run straight but at an angle to the perpendicular of the selvedge.
- Skill matrix
- A table of operators against operations showing each person's skill level, used for line balancing, absence cover and training plans.
- Slub
- A thick place in a yarn, either a fault or a deliberate effect in slub yarns.
- Spirality
- The slanting of wales in knitted fabric caused by yarn twist and knitting conditions. In garments it shows as twisted side seams after washing.
- Spreading
- Laying fabric in plies of the required length on the cutting table, aligned and without tension, ready for cutting.
- Standard Allowed Minute(SAM)
- Another name for standard minute value, used by many buyers and factories. The meaning is the same: the standard time for a task, in minutes.
Read the guideGarment SMV calculatorSee: Standard Minute Value
- Standard Minute Value(SMV)
- The standard time, in minutes, for a qualified operator working at standard pace to complete a task, including allowances.
Read the guideGarment SMV calculatorSee: Standard Allowed MinuteSee: Basic timeSee: Efficiency
- Stitch length
- In knitting, the length of yarn in one loop. It is the main setting that controls knit fabric weight, width and shrinkage.
Read the guideFabric GSM calculatorSee: CourseSee: WaleSee: Grams per square meter
- Stitches per inch(SPI)
- The number of stitches in one inch of seam, a key sewing specification that affects strength, appearance and puckering.
- Stretch and recovery
- How far a fabric extends under a given load, and how completely it returns to its original length after the load is removed.
T
- Takt time
- Available production time divided by customer demand: the pace at which one unit must be completed.
Read the guideTakt time calculatorSee: Pitch timeSee: Lean manufacturing
- Tensile strength
- The force needed to break a fabric strip or grab specimen pulled in one direction, and the extension at break.
- Tex
- A direct yarn count: the weight in grams of 1,000 meters of yarn.
Read the guideYarn count calculatorSee: DenierSee: English cotton countSee: Metric count
- Time and action plan(T&A)
- A schedule of every task needed to ship an order on time, with planned and actual dates.
Read the guideSee: Bill of MaterialsSee: Pre-production meeting
- Time study
- Measuring the time to perform a defined task with a stopwatch or video, rating the pace and adding allowances to set a standard time.
Read the guideGarment SMV calculatorSee: Motion studySee: Standard Minute ValueSee: Rating (performance rating)
V
- Viscose
- A regenerated cellulose fiber made from wood pulp. Also called rayon. Soft and absorbent, but weaker when wet than cotton.
W
- Wale
- A vertical column of loops in knitted fabric. Wales per inch (WPI) measures how closely they are packed.
- Warp
- The lengthwise yarns in woven fabric, held under tension on the loom.
- Weft
- The crosswise yarns in woven fabric, inserted between the warp yarns.
- Work in progress(WIP)
- Partly finished garments between operations. Too little starves operators; too much hides problems and slows throughput.
Read the guideSee: BottleneckSee: Line balancingSee: Lean manufacturing
- Work study
- The combined use of method study and work measurement to improve how work is done and set standard times.
Y
- Yarn count
- A number expressing the fineness of a yarn, either as weight per length (direct systems) or length per weight (indirect systems).
Read the guideYarn count calculatorSee: TexSee: English cotton countSee: Denier
Z
- Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals(ZDHC)
- A multi-stakeholder programme that sets guidelines for chemical management in textile and leather supply chains, including a manufacturing restricted substances list (MRSL) and wastewater guidelines.