Fabric Inspection

The inspection of fabric and garments has two primary functions;

1. First to classify the products according to the different qualities based on the demands
of market and customer and
2. To provide the information about the quality being produced.
Normally the three operations such as inspection, mending or repairing of mendable
defects and grading are performed in one operation at a time.

Grading of Defects:
 The textile products such as fabric and garments during the manufacture may have
yarn defects, fabric defects and fabrication defects due to the various reasons.
 The defects depending on the magnitude, frequency of occurrence, position,
importance, effect on the purpose, consequences in the further process, etc., shall be
classified and graded under various systems.
 During the inspection, the occurrences of various defects need to be examined and
graded based on their magnitude and dimension as per the required system.
 There are 2 different types of systems are widely used for grading the defect of fabrics

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Grading of Defects:
The quality of a final garment depends on the quality of a fabric when it is received as a
roll.
Even the most outstanding manufacturing methods cannot compensate for defective
materials. So fabric inspection and QC is one of the major areas in textile and
garment sector.
To establish a workable system for inspecting and evaluating piece goods shipments is
vital. No single accepted system for measuring the quality of fabrics, but some of the
more commonly used systems are described here.
Fabric inspection must be selected randomly.
The fabric sample must be selected from different place, different lot and different time.
Ten Point System
Oldest and most used in woven finished fabric
Four point System
Widely adopted and used in knitted fabric

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4 Point Grading System:
 The 4 point grading system, also called the American Apparel Manufacturers
Association (AAMA) point – grading system for determining fabric quality, is widely
used by producers of apparel fabrics.
 The 4-Point System assigns 1, 2, 3 and 4 penalty points according to the size and
significance of the defect. No more than 4 penalty points can be assigned for any
single defect.
 Defect can be in either length or width direction, the system remains the same.
 Only major defects are considered. No penalty points are assigned to minor defects.

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Point Allocation for 4 Point System

Length of defect in fabric, Points allotted

either length or width
Up to 3 inch 1
Over 3 inch, up to 6 inch 2
Over 6 inch, up to 9 inch 3
Over 9 inch 4
Holes and openings (1 inch or 2
less)
Holes and openings (Over 1 4
inch)

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4 Point Grading System:
 No linear yard of fabric shall be assigned more than 4 penalty points, no matter how
bad or frequent the defects are.
 Total defect points per 100 square yards of fabric are calculated and the acceptance
criteria is generally not more than 40 penalty points.
 The formula to calculate penalty points per 100 square yards is given by:
(Total Points scored in the roll x 3600)
(Fabric width in inches x Total yards inspected)

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10 Point Grading System: No linear yard of fabric is assigned more than 10 points, no matter how bad or
frequent the defects are.
Fabric is considered “first quality” if the number of defect points is less than the number of yards of fabric inspected.
 In the case of fabrics wider than 50 inches, the fabric is considered first quality if the total defects points do not
exceed the number of yards of fabric inspected by 10% .

Point Allocation for 10 Point System

Length of defect Points allotted
Warp defects
Up to 1 inch 1
1 to 5 inch 3
5 to 10 inch 5
10 to 36 inch 10
Weft defects
Up to 1 inch 1
1 to 5 inch 3
5 inch to half – width 5
Large than half - width 10
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No linear yard of fabric shall be assigned more than 10 penalty points, no matter how bad
or frequent the defects are.
Calculation:
 A fabric roll 120 yd long and 48 inch width contains the following defects. Can we
accept this fabric roll as per 4 point system?
 Defect Length / No of Defect is like 0 to 3 inch – 2 defect, 3 to 6 inch – 5 defect, 6 to 9
inch – 1 defect, More than 9 inch – 1 defect

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No linear yard of fabric shall be assigned more than 10 penalty points, no matter how bad or
frequent the defects are.
Calculation:
 A fabric roll 120 yd long and 48 inch width contains the following defects. Can we accept this
fabric roll as per 4 point system?
 Defect Length / No of Defect is like 0 to 3 inch – 2 defect, 3 to 6 inch – 5 defect, 6 to 9 inch – 1
defect, More than 9 inch – 1 defect
Answer:
0 to 3 inch – 2 defect ( 2x1 = 2 points)
3 to 6 inch – 5 defect ( 5x2 = 10 points)
6 to 9 inch – 1 defect ( 1x3 = 3 points)
More than 9 inch – 1 defect ( 1x4 = 4 points)
Total Points = 19 points
Formula:
Points/ 100 yd² =
(Total Points scored in the roll x 3600) / (Fabric width in inches x Total yards inspected)
Points/ 100 yd² = ( 19 x 3600) / (48 x 120)
= 11.9 defect points / 100 yd²
(so if the acceptance criteria are 40 points per 100 yd², then this roll is acceptable).
So we can accept this fabric roll as per 4 point grading system.