Visual Inspection and Grading Systems

Evaluation of fabric quality is a complex process for both the fabric supplier and the garment manufacturer.
The garment manufacturer's process of determining the quality of  a particular fabric is called 'fabric inspection process'. Fabric Inspection process can be divided into three sub processes.

Visual Inspection

Visual inspection can be done manually or with  full automated machines. Unfortunately in Sri Lanka, manual inspection method is often used in most of the garment factories. Often the garment manufacturer receive fabrics in roll form. Randomly chosen fabric rolls (10% from total rolls ) are fixed into the fabric inspection machine. The fabric inspector checks for fabric defects and note them manually to offer points.

( manual fabric inspection )

Fabric Grading Systems

Once the fabric defects are detected each defects are given points depending on the severity. Offering points is a part of grading system to assess the quality of the fabric. There are several grading systems available such as 4 - point system, 10 point system, 9 points system, Graniteville system etc.

we shall discuss the grading system in detail.

4 - Point system

 Published in 1959

 Also called the American Apparel Manufacturers Association (AAMA) point grading system

 The maximum number of defect points to be counted against any one linear yard is 4 points

Defect Counting - 4 point system

Fabric Grading according to 4 - point system

10 point system

• published in 1955 by Textile Distributors Institute and National Federation of Textile
• Designed to consider every defect  according to the size regardless of type
• mostly used for woven fabrics

The 4 - point system is frequently used for fabric grading in Sri Lanka but there is no standard industry-wise system for grading fabrics. When the order is placed the buyer or the merchandiser should specify in the contract the evaluation method to be used for grading fabrics.