AI Apps That Can Prove Useful in the Textile Industry
Let’s face it, Textile manufacturing is a tedious process. Being one of the oldest lasting industries to exist, textile works have been slow to adapt to recent innovations. That’s not to say that the change has been slowly yet surely seeping in. If one jumps back a couple of decades, everything was done by hand in this niche. From fabric manufacture to cotton mixing.
However, automation in some form always existed in this industry. Even as far back as the 18th century. Keep in mind, though that we’re talking about automation, not robotics. Tools have always existed for fast-tracking the cloth-making and perfecting process but it has never been entirely independent of the human touch.
With the onset of COVID a couple of years back, however, many industries have had to change their ways at a whim’s notice to cater to strict guidelines. Many of which included a no-contact policy. Neither with employees nor the products being made. This opened up the textile industry to the possibility of employing AI in a broader scale.
With the advent of robotics and completely automated technology, AI has found a new home, and the textile industry has been streamlined in both efficiency and accessibility.
Read on about the various facets of AI brilliance and how they showcase themselves through different apps!
Table of Contents
Printing and Drawing
Garments without much design or flavor to them are often found to be obsolete by buyers. Unless of course, block designs are a current fashion. Printing designs was hard work. Usually assigned frequently and in bulk to factory workers. Working on each piece of cloth with its own design designated to it would not only require a massive amount of time, but if the design was messed up due to human error, it would also result in a widespread recall, among other penalties.
Now, with the right amount of tools and programming, AI can do the same without compromising on the time taken. Input the design to be printed and watch an automated machine take charge. The possibility of messing up the task is minimized along with a seamless, efficient workflow with the machine taking up multiple garments without needing a break.
Logistic Transportation
Moving, packing, and processing items in bulk can take up much fuel, energy, and money. Especially when being done manually. The more manual labor this employs, the slower the process gets. Luckily, with technology embedded into factories, this entire process can also be automated.
A simple app installed onto your phone or work computer can help ensure that cranes installed in, for example, ceilings can be moved around at your behest to wherever material may be required. Simply attach the items needed and transport them around the space without physically needing people to do it instead.
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3D Printing
To achieve block 3D structures that have been designed down to the T is a task possible only through a viable 3D printing device and application. The availability of such tools, both hardware and software, is easy but integrating them into, say, a big factory is a daunting task.
However, once the integration part is done, 3D printing can be done almost instantaneously, with CAD software providing the design (this can be done via human input) and the machine printing it out subsequently.
Laser Welding
The old way of stitching clothes together was…well…stitching them together. However, this process had to be done by hand and with precision to allow the design to be true to the schematic. The possibility of human error was quite high and so was the time taken to achieve the right design in a single article. Now, with the introduction of laser welding, there has been a rapid shift from the usual way of joining materials.
Not only does laser welding offer a quicker process to get garments put together in the required shape but it also can be done via the application of AI. Robotic automation eliminates the need to have hefty safety gear on because the entire process can be handled via a dedicated machine.
Conclusion
That’s a wrap on all we have for how AI applications can help with streamlining and quickening various processes specific to the textile industry. With automation as well as innovation being improved on a regular basis, it won’t be long before entire industries will be handled remotely through the use of apps. Robots will be doing the grunt work while humans will switch to more engineering-oriented roles where they can provide prompts and diagnoses for AI apps.