Starting a Textile Mill

It takes huge capital investment to start a textile mill. Textile mills account for huge number of employed people in the fashion industry. 

Milling involves the conversion of fiber into yarn. Then the yarn is processed and cut into fabric.

 Things to consider before starting a textile mill are the financial involvement and plant requirements. You need to determine the factory capacity and number of machinery.

You need to invest in property, building structure, labor costs, raw materials and packaging. Estimating the project cost essential to the success of the enterprise.

 Fixed and Working Capital

Fixed capital is calculated based on leasehold, building, equipment and spare parts. Working capital involves procurement of raw material, packaging cost, freight of yarn and direct labor. Other working capital requirements are utility, variable power, indirect labor and recurrent expenditure.

Efficiency of the Textile Plant

You need to calculate variables such as machine type, number, efficiency, quantity of yarn produced and delivery speed. This should provide a framework on procurement of machinery.

Textile Mill Machinery

Textile mill machinery is fully automated and branded equipment. They are huge, expensive and structured to carry out specific processes.

Common machinery found in textile mills is winding machines, ring frame with auto doffer, overhead blower and combers. More machinery is spinders, autoconer, draw frame and speed frame.

The mill needs lots of accessories such as hand trucks, fork lift, trolleys and spindle oil lubricants.  More are strapping machine, pneumatic cleaners, weighing equipment, testers and card service machines.

 These are just a few equipment's and machinery needed to launch your textile mill. You can see the enormous challenges facing a startup textile mill.

Locating the Textile Mill

The textile mill should be located in a zoned commercial area. The mill requires huge factory, adequate landed space for parking, loading, equipment and storage. You can lease or purchase suitable land, build or rent a factory.

Hire Staff

Hire qualified machine operators, maintenance staff, administration personnel and drivers. You need a marketing department, accountant and staff for the packaging department. A small textile mill could hire between 200 to 250 employees.

Manufacturing Process

The manufacturing process depends on the type of fiber. The manufacturing process explained below is based on cotton fiber.

The process starts with the blowing room then carding room, spinning, weaving shed for cloth. From the spinning room the fiber is divided into sewing threads, yarns or cloth.

A simple flow chart for cloth manufacturing

Blowing room-carding room-spinning room-winding- weave shed-warping-sizing –weaving –cloth

More complex flow chart for cloth manufacturing

Bale breaker- willowing- breaker scutcher- finishing-carding-silver lap- combing- drawing -slubbing - intermediate- roving- mule spinning-winding-beaming-warping-weaving

A simple flow chart for sewing thread

Blowing-carding-fine roving-ring spinning-doubling-bleaching-winding-cabling-gassing-spooling-sewing thread

A simple flow chart for yarn bundle

Blowing-carding-fine roving-ringing-reeling-bundling-yarn bundle

Finishing

To remove impurities in the fabric it goes through bleaching, scouring, desizing and mercerizing. Other process involves dyeing the fabric, shrinking, raising, singeing and printing.

Things to Do

Register your business as a limited liability company. You can source raw materials from wholesalers or farmers. Hire graphic artistes and designers to create appealing designs.

Marketing

There is a huge market for woven cloths and textile materials. Sell directly to wholesalers and major fashion outfits.

Produce high quality fabrics and price your products appropriately. Use both electronic and traditional print methods to reach customers.

Tye and Dye Business Venture

 9 Fibers Obtained from Animals

Fibers are strings spun into yarn and then woven into fabric. The type of fiber dictates the cloth or material. There are two types of fibers produced by textile companies, the synthetic fiber and natural fiber. 

Fiber is obtainable from certain plants and animals. The synthetic fibers are either a combination of natural fibers or laboratory creation. Animal fibers are common to creatures with thick coats such as fur or hair.

Here are a few fibers produced by animals used in the textile industry.

1-Spider Silk

Spider silk is a protein fiber spun to make webs for dwelling or walk ways. Despite the delicate looking structure the webs have tensile strength and are used to catch prey.

Spiders are versatile at silk production and capable of making seven different types of silk. The silks function dictates its application and use.

The different silk types are used for prey immobilization, dispersal and nesting. Other uses deployed by spiders are guide lines, prey capture, anchor and alarm lines.

 Spider silk is incredible strong despite its fragile look and diverse functionality. The silk is produced from seven silk glands located at the lower side of the abdomen.

Although not all spiders have same number of glands they are equally versatile. Spider silk has many industrial applications in the textile, coating and cosmetic industry.

Spider silk use in textile is not commercially viable because of the difficulty and quantity during an extraction process.  However, it is possible to farm spiders to produce light weight material.

2-Sheep’s Wool

Approximately 85% of the world wool requirement is produced by sheep. The amazing animal is farmed for meat and wool.

 Wool is a tough fiber used in the manufacture of textile material. The type of fabric depends on the quality of the fiber extracted from the animal.

Different farm animals produce fibers used in textile such as the Angora goat, and Angora rabbit. Wool fabric are easy to fleece and spin into a single fiber.

Sheep wool has good absorbent and bind qualities.  There are three different grades of wool the medium wool, long wool and fine wool.

The long wool is coarser than the others, grows long and is easy to spin.  Medium sheep wool is least valuable and more difficult to spin. Common applications of medium sheep wool are the production of socks, sweaters and blankets.

Fine sheep’s wool attract premium prices are luxurious fibers and best among the lot.  Hair- Sheep wool is not harvest-able fiber because they hardly produce use-able length.

The value of the sheep wool is predicated on the quality of the fiber, grade, length and contaminants present in the fabric. White wool has the most commercial value and sold to wool mils globally.

Sheep wool prices are dictated by international prices and wool exchange. To obtain the wool the sheep goes through shearing, scouring to clean greasy wool.

Other parameters used to determine quality of wool are the color, tensile strength, yield, crimp and diameter. Major producers of wool are Australia, china, united state of America and New Zealand.

3-Mohair

Mohair is a produced from the hair of the Angora goat. It is a silk-like yarn that has high luster and used in producing premium textile fabric.

Mohair is crease resistant, durable and has natural elasticity. Although mohair looks like wool they are distinctively different from sheep’s wool.

The Angora goat that produces mohair is sheared two or three times yearly. They are versatile producers of mohair and a single goat is capable of producing 15 pounds of mohair a year.

 One of the major producers of mohair is South Africa. Tonik is a fabric achieved through a combination of mohair and wool experimentation.

Other countries that produce mohair are New Zealand, Australia, Russia and Germany. Mohair is used in the production of suits, socks, coats and hats. The soft fabric easily absorbs dye and attracts premium prices. Mohair Goat farming is a lucrative venture but highly specialized niche.

4- Yak fiber

The yak produces two types of commercially viable fiber. Although the coat is composed of three different fibers, coarse, mid-type and down fiber only two are spun.

The coarse and down fibers are the ones used to produce yak fibers. During winter the yak produces a soft under coat that is a fine soft hair.

The down hairs ability to insulate the yak in winter is its most valuable property. The second hair regarded as guard hair is longer, tougher and coarser than down hair.

The guard hair covers the entire body of the animal. The guard hairs are coarse by nature and allow carding or spinning.

Yak hair is produced into belts, halters, bags and rugs. The entire process includes picking, cleaning, carder and spinning the yarn. The yarn is a colorless durable fiber with many applications such as making ropes, blankets, tents and clothing.

5-Sericulture

Silk is a protein fiber produced by the silk worm. The fiber has lots of commercial application in the textile industry.

The farming of silk worm is known as sericulture and accounts for 60 percent of silk production worldwide. Silk is obtained from the cocoons of larvae stage of a silk moth.

The silk worm pupae are the architect of the commercially harvested silk. They produce a continuous thread woven into silk fibers.

Top countries that produce commercially viable quantities of silk are Chine, Russia, Brazil, France, Japan, India and Italy.

Stages of silk production start when the silk moth lays its eggs. They lay thousands of eggs in a batch. The eggs hatch into larvae which are fed mulberry leaves.

After several growth processes and moulting they weave a cocoon. The cocoon is then dipped in boiling water to kill larvae, brushing and fiber wound into raw silk.

6- Alpaca fiber

Alpaca is a South American camel-like animal that closely resembles a llama. The domesticated animal is found in Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru.

It produces alpaca fiber known to have similar characteristics as wool. The natural fiber produced by alpaca is luxurious soft and durable.

The fiber attracts premium price in the international market. Fabrics made from alpaca fibers are water resistant, elastic and good for weaving.

Top designers favor the material to make expensive or inexpensive products.  Farmers have a choice to farm any two types of alpaca the Suri alpaca and the Huacaya alpaca. 

Suri fiber is characterized by long silky fibers while the Huacaya has crimpy soft dense fibers. The production process involves carding, spinning and weaving the fiber.

A major advantage is the low impact alpaca farms have on the environment. The fibers are made into many products such as sweaters, footwear and jackets.

7-Cashmere goat

Cashmere is a luxury item produced by cashier goats. The product has a high demand and attracts premium pricing.

The cashmere could be produced into different textures based on the extraction and manufacturing process. A thing of interest is that cashier is harvest from the neck region of the goat.

 The goats have a double fleece of undercoat and outer coating. The outer coating is coarse and of high quality fiber.  It goes through combing, raking to collect the high quality fiber.

The types of fiber obtained from the goat are processed fiber, raw fiber, virgin and recycled fibers. Alpaca are social animals that live in large groups.

8-Buffalo wool

Bison is a large terrestrial bull closely related to the buffalo. Bison wool is made into different products such as bison gloves, head wear, shoes, yarns and kits.

Bison fabric is soft, warm, lightweight material that does not shrink, easily cleaned and non allergic to the skin. Fine undercoat attracts premium prices, machine washable and is regarded as a luxury item.

The animal prefers open plains and many are farmed and kept under supervised captivity.

9-Angora rabbit

The Angora rabbit is a large rabbit covered in hair. Many farms use the product to manufacture clothing and fashion items.

Types of Angora rabbit include French angora, English angora and giant angora. To become commercially acceptable the hair should be without blemish once plucked.

10-Other natural animal fibers

Fibers from other animals are used in different industrial applications. Animal fiber is obtained from the possum, yak, camels, horses, weasel and oxen.