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Automatic Fabric Storing and Feeding in Quality Clothing Manufacture

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Abstract

The exploitation of “intelligent” factory set-ups could enhance the competitiveness of the EU textile and clothes industries, by enabling collaborative design-and-manufacture options, while achieving economies of scope with effective exploitation of (strategic/tactical/execution) flexibility. Simulation turns to be reference aid for developing and acknowledging the appropriate set-ups and the adaptive schedules. The investigation, besides of reference concepts, summarises, for explanatory purpose, a case example related to the management of the fabric warehouse in order to grant adaptive sorting and dispatching of bolts, with on-process selective retrieval and handling of the actually used cloth, with account of fabric quality-data and of time-varying schedules. Purposely designed front-end automation rigs are required to enable the prospected up-grading options, and example robotic aids are studied, to show their actual feasibility. The considered combined-mode schedules show the benefits for prompt response leaving open middle/long horizons issues; direct checks on alternatives are provided by virtual reality tests.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Industrial Robot Design Research Group, University of Genova, Italy

    G. M. Acaccia, A. Marelli, R. C. Michelini & A. Zuccotti

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  1. G. M. Acaccia
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  2. A. Marelli
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  3. R. C. Michelini
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  4. A. Zuccotti
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Acaccia, G.M., Marelli, A., Michelini, R.C. et al. Automatic Fabric Storing and Feeding in Quality Clothing Manufacture. Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems 37, 443–465 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026194432448

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