2010 International Symposium on Computational Intelligence and Design

The Application of Data Mining in FFE of the Fashion Product Development

CHEN Xiaopeng, LUO Yun, ZHU Fanglong

School of Clothing
Zhongyuan University of Technology
Zhengzhou, China
e-mail: chenxiaopeng@zzti.edu.cn
AbstractAiming at providing support for fashion product
development, the research analysed the Fuzzy Front End in
fashion design and the processes of the pre-development in the
industry. The functions of data mining and its applications in
fashion product development were discussed. A case study was
conducted based on the data mining of the 3-D body scan
measurements. Principal component analysis, correlation
analysis, and the optimal bandwidth selection in kernel density
estimation were employed to establish the specification of pants
for target consumers. It is concluded that the data mining is an
important tool to transform the data into information helpful
in making development decision and solving technology
problems.

A. The Function of Data Mining

The primary function of data mining is to assist in the
analysis of collections of observations of behaviour.
Knowledge Discovery in Databases is used to describe the
process of finding interesting, useful data[5].
Data mining commonly involves five classes of tasks:
Classification: to arrange the data into predefined
groups. Common algorithms include Decision Tree
Learning, Nearest neighbour, naive Bayesian
classification and Neural network.
Clustering: to classify the groups while the groups
are not predefined. The algorithm should try to
group similar items together.
Regression: to find a function which models the data
with the least error.
Association rule learning: to searches for
relationships between variables.
Predictive analytic: to exploit patterns found in
historical and transaction data to identify risks and
opportunities, and analyse current and historical
facts to make predictions about future events[6].

Keywords-Product development, Fuzzy Front End, Data

mining

I.

INTRODUCTION

The process of product innovation involves the

introduction of a good or service that is new or improved,
including market research and analysis, the idea generation,
product design and detail engineering[1].
The key of fashion product innovation management lies
in the precise understanding of the consumers and proper
positioning of the product. These are all conducted at the
first stage in generating and commercializing new products.
The Fuzzy Front End is used to describe the starting period
of new product development processes. It is the phase
between first consideration of an opportunity and entering
the structured development process[2]. The Fuzzy Front End
consumes 50% of development time and includes all
activities from searching for new opportunities to the
development of a complete concept[3].
In fashion product development, predevelopment
activities include market assessment, technical assessment,
supply chain assessment, market research, product concept
testing, value to the customer assessment, product
definitionbusiness and financial analysis. These activities
yield vital information to make a development decision.
II.

B. The Application of Data Mining

Data mining can be used to uncover patterns. The
increasing power of computer technology has increased data
collection and storage. Automatic data processing has been
aided by computer science, such as neural networks,
clustering, genetic algorithms, decision trees and support
vector machines. Data mining is the process of applying
these methods to the intention of uncovering hidden
patterns[7]. It has been used for many years by businesses,
scientists to sift through volumes of data. The application of
data mining in fashion design could be summarized in Fig. 1.

THE APPLICATION OF DATA MINING

Data mining is the process of extracting patterns from

data. Data mining is becoming an increasingly important tool
to transform these data into information. It is commonly used
in a wide range of profiling practices, such as marketing,
surveillance and scientific discovery[4].

978-0-7695-4198-3/10 $26.00 2010 IEEE

DOI 10.1109/ISCID.2010.71

Figure 1. The application of data mining in fashion design.

255
215

TABLE I.

TOTAL VARIANCE EXPLAINED

Extraction Sums of Squared
Loadings

Initial Eigenvalues
Component
Total

1
2
3
4
5

6.058
2.625
1.505
0.928
0.558

% of
Cumulative %
Variance

46.603
20.192
11.579
7.139
4.293

46.603
66.795
78.374
85.514
89.807

Total

Rotation Sums of Squared

Loadings

% of
Cumulative %
Variance

6.058
2.625
1.505

46.603
20.192
11.579

46.603
66.795
78.374

Total

% of
Cumulative %
Variance

4.347
3.599
2.243

33.439
27.683
17.252

33.439
61.123
78.374

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis

For example, data clustering can discover the segments

or groups within a customer data set. Another example is
that the market basket analysis could identify the
characteristics of the customers' favourite items from a
clothing store records.
Also data mining is a highly effective tool in the catalog
fashion marketing. Data mining tools can identify patterns of
customers and help identify the most likely customers.
III.

According to their functions in pants structure, the

components are named:
Circumstance components: including hip girth, leg
girth, abdomen girth, knee girth, waist girth and
ankle girth;
Length components: including in-length, out-length,
total height and waist-knee length;
Crotch components: including height of crotch,
waist-hip length and total crotch length.

CASE STUDY: SPECIFICATION DESIGN OF PANTS

B. Correlation Analysis
Standard deviation shows how much variation it is from
the "average" [8]. It helps detect tampering of data. A low
standard deviation indicates that the data points tend to be
very close to the mean, whereas high standard deviation
indicates that the data are spread out over a large range of
values.

A. Body Scanning Data for Controlling Measurements

Due to the lack of specification research on pants, the
controlling measurements in the size system are not
sufficient for pattern-making of the pants. The product
development in pants has lots of fitting problems. To counter
the fitness demand of pants product, 3-D body data was
collected and the association rule was analysed.
To get a precise size system for niche market of young
woman's pants, the samples were selected among the target
consumers. The 3-D body data of 227 young woman (21-25
years old) were collected.
Factor analysis on the 13 measurements of the pants is
shown in the Table I.
From the Table I, the top 3 components are extracted as
the principal component. From the Rotated component
Matrix (Table II), the meaning of the three principal
components are clear.
TABLE II.

From Table III, the hip girth highly correlated with other
girthes except the ankle girth. From Table IV, the lengthes
of the sections of the pants could be calculated from the total
height because these components are all in high correlation
with total height. From the Table V, the height of crotch
correlated with the total crotch length, which is the most
complained area of the pants by the consumers.
TABLE III.

ROTATED COMPONENT MATRIX

Hip girth
Leg girth
Abdomen girth
Knee girth
Waist girth
Ankle girth

Component
1 Hip girth
2 Leg girth
3 Abdomen girth
4 Knee girth
5 Waist girth
6 Ankle girth
7 In-length
8 Out-length
9 Total height
10 Waist -knee length
11 Height of crotch
12 Waist-hip length
13 Total crotch length

0.904
0.886
0.857
0.836
0.835
0.314

0.220
0.174

0.156
0.130
0.144
0.107
-0.119
0.180

0.154
0.307
0.309
0.533

0.142
0.169
0.983
0.934
0.908
0.815
0.168
0.184
0.261

TABLE IV.

CIRCUMSTANCES COMPONENTS VARIABLES

CORRELATION ANALYSIS

Hip
girth

Leg Abdomen Knee

girth
girth
girth

Waist
girth

Ankle
girth

1.000
0.905
0.781
0.747
0.767
0.228

0.905
1.000
0.732
0.768
0.677
0.158

0.767
0.677
0.676
0.621
1.000
0.204

0.228
0.158
0.263
0.284
0.204
1.000

Total height
Out-length
In-length
Waist -knee length

216
256

0.747
0.768
0.647
1.000
0.621
0.284

LENGTH COMPONENTS VARIABLES CORRELATION

ANALYSIS

0.263
0.439
0.857
0.792
0.703

0.781
0.732
1.000
0.647
0.676
0.263

Total height
1.000
0.899
0.894
0.756

Out-length
0.899
1.000
0.947
0.854

In-length
0.894
0.947
1.000
0.779

TABLE V.

CROTCH COMPONENTS VARIABLES CORRELATION

ANALYSIS
Height of
crotch

Total crotch
length

Waist-hip
length

1.000
0.837
0.536

0.837
1.000
0.411

0.536
0.411
1.000

Height of crotch
Total crotch length
Waist-hip length

Thus the hip girth, the total height and the height of
crotch were defined as the controlling measurements for
pants product of woman.
C. Grading Margin
The histogram could be used to estimate the density
distribution of the basic measurements[8]. When the grading
margin is too large, the differences of the body data are
eliminated, which might cause the fitting problem. On the
contrary, the small grading margin get better matching to the
curve of density distribution, but the amount of the patterns
lead to efficient problems in the operation of the factories
and the tiny disparity in specifications has little influence on
clothing. Rational grading margin is the key elements in the
feasibility of the size system.
The research adopted the optimal bandwidth selection in
kernel density estimation (formula 1) to calculate the
grading margin of the sections.
4 1/( d + 4) 1/( d + 4)
(1)
h = (
n

)
j

d +2

Figure 3. The Product Development of Fashion Product

IV.

CONCLUSION

It is in the Fuzzy Front End that major commitments are

typically made involving time, money, and the products
nature to set the course for the entire project and final end
product. The process of the pre-development in fashion
industry could be demonstrated in Fig. 3.
Data mining provides support in market research and
analysis, the idea generation, product design and detail
engineering. It is an important tool to transform the data into
information helpful in making development decision as well
as in solving technology problems in fashion design.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research is part of the project: Dynamics and Structure

D: the dimensions of the samples; d=1 for each section;

N: the amount of the samples;
j: the standard deviation of the j section.
The result of the standard deviation was shown in Fig. 2.
In this case, the optimal grading margin is: 1.48cm for hip
girth, 1.98cm for the total height and 0.45 cm for the height
of crotch.

Research Based on Remote 3-D Body Scanning and its Application

in Functional Clothing (No. 102102210255), funded by Henan

Provincial Science and Technology Office, whose support is

gratefully acknowledged.
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Figure 2. The Standard Deviation Curve of the Principal Component

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