STORAGE AND PACKING SYSTEM ( A COTTON’S JOURNEY )

INTRODUCTION Storage and packaging system is one of the essential part of any industry even though it appears to be lesser important In textiles, right from fibre stage to finished product, storage and packaging plays a crucial role as it has impact beginning from quality till aesthetics

FIBRE STAGE COTTON PICKING It is a mechanism of picking of cotton boll from the cotton plant In India, manually labours pluck the cotton from the plant and they put in a basket, which are all collected in sac and stored in a godown, and are later openly put in lorry for transport But in other countries automatic picking is followed in which module is developed

CASE IH HALF LENGTH MODULES The automated cotton picker forms case IH module which are 16 feet long, rectangular and trapezoidal in cross section. Those modules are protected with a cover similar to conventional modules but shorter in length. JOHN DEERE ROUND MODULES The John Deere cotton picker forms round modules that are fully enclosed on the circumference by a specially engineered polyethylene film that protects the cotton while also providing a compressive force to maintain the module density. It weighs around 6000 pounds.

BALING After picking, ginning is done where the seeds are removed After ginning, the bale packing is supplemented with systems for bale conveying, weighing and wrapping. The bale press consists of a frame, one or more hydraulic rams and a hydraulic power system. After bale forming the bale is wrapped with lower gsm cotton fabric A Standard bale dimension is 1.4m length 0.51m wide and 0.84m thickness. It may weigh around 226.8 Kg.

YARN STAGE AUTO CONER It is a separate department in spinning where cops are converted to cone With help of winding mechanism, splicing mechanism and clearing mechanism the cops are packed into a cone The final form may weigh around 2.5 kg Individually cones are wrapped in polythene bag and a group of cones weighing till 60 kg are packed in polypropylene sac and transported to weaving mill

SLIVER CAN Sliver can is used for transportation of slivers from cards, draw frame and comber without changing its properties. Coiling of slivers is done in cycloid manner so that slivers can be pulled out without any entanglement. Sliver can consists of turn table, sliver condenser, sliver delivery tube, compression plate, rotating plate and for carding additional parts such as coiler condenser, coiler trumpet is needed. There are two types of coiling 1. over coiling 2. under coiling

FABRIC STAGE FABRIC FOLDING MACHINE For garment factory, the fabric should be in roll or folded form. Fabric folding machine folds the fabric without altering length and width of the fabric. Folding machines are designed with double drive, which are synchronized with dancing roller and ensure tensionless fabric lapping/ rolling. Fabric fold plating is done before fabric compaction to increase production. Later the fabric is covered by polythene sheet.  

GARMENTING STAGE PRE-PACKING Pre-packing includes pressing, folding and metal detection. Folding of garments varies from style to style. The major types of folding of garments are stand up, semi stand up, half fold, hanger fold and flat fold. The metal detectors can detect the metal sphere (ferrous) of 1.2mm diameter. There are two types of detecting systems where one can detect all metals present in a cloth and another can detect only ferrous metals.

PACKING OF GARMENTS Final garment can be packed in polybags with a single piece of garment or with many garments which is called blister packing. Without polybags, garments are packed in carton box directly as solid pack, ratio pack and mixed pack. Size assortment given by buyer is followed whenever different sizes are packed in single box. A set of cartons like 6 or 12 or 24 is packed as one giant box which is called as cartoning.

CONCLUSION Thus the major sections where storage and packing system is involved in cotton’s journey from harvesting till garment has been discussed and its role and mechanisms has been explained.  

PRESENTED BY ARAVINTH AND VAANAZHAGAN

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