Sewing Defects and Way to Minimization in Garments Industry
Sewing Defects and Way to Minimization in Garments Industry
Sewing Defects:
Sewing defects are the most common ones found during a product inspection for garments. The product quality is more affected by sewing defects. Sewing defects in the garments industry are generated due to various factors related to human error, machine malfunction, material quality, and environmental conditions. These defects can impact the overall quality, durability, and appearance of the garment. There are various kinds of sewing defects; please see the list of sewing defects and the ways to minimize them in the garment industry.
List of Sewing Defects in the Garments Industry
- Uneven stitch
- Irregular stitch
- Balloon stitch
- Stitch skipping
- Missing stitch
- Slipping seam
- Thread breakage
- Broken material
- Thread return
- Weaving thread lift
- Seam puckering
- Sewing slippage
- Left-to-right inclined stitch of bobbin thread
- Seam grinning
- Towel face
- Clogged stitch
- Pitch error
- Seam bray
- Hangnail
- Idle stitching
- Feed dog defect
- Needle breakage defect
- Needle mark

A Short Description of Sewing Defects:
- Uneven stitch: Stitching is not performed straight and a part of stitches is sewn in disorder. It is a common defect in garments.
- Irregular stitch: Irregular knotting points of thread occur on the upper and lower faces of cloths under a certain tightness.
- Balloon stitch: Large or small thread loop suddenly occurs on upper or lower cloth from knotting point of sewing thread.
- Stitch skipping: Stitches of sewing thread partially skip and stitching is not performed completely.
- Missing stitch: Stitches are out of the sewing line.
- Slipping seam: When the force is applied to stitch, the constituent thread of the part moves and stitch opens or slips.
- Bobbin Thread breakage: When the force is applied to stitch, sewing thread is cut.
- Broken material: Constituent threads of cloth are cut by sewing machine needle at the time of sewing.
- Thread return: The line that occurs when constituent thread of cloth turns and thread on the wrong side faces the right side by the shock force at the time of penetration of sewing machine needle.
- Weaving thread lift: The state that defective gloss or defective pattern occurs when a part of weaving threads is shifted by stitch, sewing machine needle, awl, etc.
- Seam puckering: Wrinkle that occurs near stitches by shrinking by sewing, sewing slippage, etc.
- Sewing slippage: Upper and lower cloths slip each other in the feeding direction.
- Left-to-right inclined stitch of bobbin thread: Left-to-right inclined stitches are formed.
- Seam grinning: Stitch opens since tension of sewing thread is insufficient.
- Towel face: Knotting positions of sewing thread continuously occur on the lower side of cloth in the state of large thread rings.
- Clogged stitch: A certain resistance force is applied to the sewing product and stitch pitch becomes irregular.
- Pitch error: Stitch length is changed by change of feed force, cloth slippage, etc. This phenomenon is apt to occur between high and low speed sewings.
- Seam bray: Sewing thread gets loose and the state of stitch skipping occurs.
- Hangnail: The state that several pieces of yarn of sewing thread are cut during sewing.
- Idle stitching: Knotting point of thread is formed without sewing product.
- Feed dog defect: Scratch (trace of teeth) made by feed dog when feeding cloth.
- Needle breakage defect: Scratch on sewing product made by needle tip when several stitches are performed in the state that needle is broken during sewing.
- Needle mark: Trace of hole of sewing machine needle due to re-sewing, basting, etc.
How to Minimization of Sewing Defects:
So, defects can be occur for various reasons.. Anyhow if we can control the cause of defects then we can control rejection of final products. Quality control department of the industry should give emphasis on it. In every steps of manufacturing, quality department should check the quality of the product. When any types of defect appear in the product they should take necessary steps to deduce the rate of defect. We want a defect free product which can satisfy the consumer demand. We should follow the below procedures:
- Step:1…….Review of the existing quality system in the company
- Step:2…….Identification of defects in the various departments by collecting data from old and present records
- Step:3 ……Analysis of data collected in order to identify majorly occurring defects
- Step:4……Categorization of defects as per diferent section
- Step:5……Development of a model in Quality Inspection System
- Step:6……Implementation of check sheets to capture defects in different departments
- Step:7…. .Training on concepts of quality, usage of the collected data to analyze and solve quality issues
- Step:8……Training persinnel like QC’s, supervisors and checkers on filling in the format identify Cause & Effect
- Step:9……Analysis of defects in the check sheets implemented in various dept. & devising suggestions to improve
- Step: 10…Spreading of Inline inspection to other l
- You may love to read: Sewing Quality Control SOP in the Garments Industry