Name – Pradeep Kumar Shrivas

Roll no. 1907018 Pgpex Vlfm

Topic- Manufacturing System Design Assignment of Blue Jeans

Blue Jeans

Background
Blue jeans are casual pants made from denim, noted for their strength and comfort.
They have been worn by sailors and California gold miners as sturdy work pants, by the
young as a statement of their generation, and by the fashionable, who are conscious of
the prestige conveyed by designer names.
Denim cloth itself has an unusual history. The name comes from serge de Nimes, or the
serge of Nimes, France. Originally, it was strong material made from wool. By the
1700s, it was made from wool and cotton. Only later was it made solely from cotton.
Originally, it was used to make sails, but eventually, some innovative Genovese sailors
thought it fit that such fine, strong material would make great pants, or "genes."
The name for blue jeans was derived from the color of the fabric used to make them.
Denim was treated with a blue dye obtained from the indigo plant. Indigo had been used
as a dye since 2500 B.C. in such diverse places as Asia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Britain,
and Peru. Blue jean manufacturers imported indigo from India until the twentieth
century, when synthetic indigo was developed to replace the natural dye.
Blue jeans in the form we know them today didn't come about until the middle of the
nineteenth century. Levi Strauss, an enterprising immigrant who happened to have a
few bolts of blue denim cloth on hand, recognized a need for strong work pants in the
mining communities of California. He first designed and marketed "Levi's" in 1850, and
they have stayed essentially the same ever since; there have been only minor
alterations to the original design.
Original Levi's did not contain rivets. A tailor by the name of Jacob Davis invented
riveted pants at the request of a miner who complained that regular pants were not
rugged enough to hold his mining tools. Davis subsequently granted Strauss the use of
his rivet idea, which was patented on May 20, 1873. Few other changes were made
over the next century. Zipper s replaced button flies in 1920 (although later button flies
had a resurgence of popularity) and in 1937 the rivets on the back pockets were moved
inside in response to complaints from school boards that the jeans students wore were
damaging chairs and from cowboys that their jeans were damaging their saddle s. In
the 1960s, they were removed entirely from the back pockets.
Blue jeans started becoming popular among young people in the 1950s. In the year
1957, 150 million pairs were sold worldwide. This growing trend continued until 1981
and jeans manufacturers were virtually guaranteed annual sales increases. In the
United States, 200 million pairs of jeans were sold in 1967, 500 million in 1977, with a
peak of 520 million in 1981. When jeans first caught on, apologists reasoned that their
low price determined their huge success. During the 1970s, however, the price of blue
jeans doubled, yet demand always exceeded supply. Sometimes manufacturers met the
demand by providing stores with irregulars; that is, slightly defective merchandise that
would not normally be sold.
Although the demand for jeans actually decreased in the 1980s, a brief surge occurred
with the introduction of designer jeans to the market. Despite the apparent success of
designer jeans, however, they did not capture the majority of the market; jeans have not

The first two steps in blue jeans manufacture are carding and spinning. In carding, the cotton is put through a
machine with bent wire brushes. The brushes clean, disentangle, straighten, and gather the cotton threads into
sliver. After several slivers are joined together, they are put on spinning machines that twist and stretch the
cotton to form yarn.

returned to the height of popularity they achieved in the seventies. Manufacturers must
therefore constantly seek ways to keep the demand for blue jeans high. Believing that
the decrease in demand reflects the changing needs of an aging population, jeans
manufacturers have begun to cater to the mature customer by providing roomier, more
comfortable jeans. Sally Fox, an entomologist, has developed cottons that naturally
come in beige, brown, and green. The Levi Strauss Company now markets multicolored
jeans as well. The company hopes to ride the popular wave of environmentalism, even
advertising their new product on recycled denim.
Although blue jeans have remained basically the same since they were first designed,
they have always been versatile enough to meet market demands. Since futuristic, yet
familiar, "Levi's" appeared in the movie Star Trek V, it can be surmised that
manufacturers as well as the public, expect blue jeans to be around indefinitely.
Raw Materials
True blue jeans are made out of 100 percent cotton, including the threads. Polyester
blends are available, however, the over-whelming majority of jeans sold are 100 percent
cotton. The most common dye used is synthetic indigo. The belt loops, waistband, back
panel, pockets, and leggings of a pair of blue jeans are all made of indigo-dyed denim.
Other features of blue jeans include the zipper, buttons, rivets, and label. Rivets have
been traditionally made of copper, but the zippers, snaps and buttons are usually steel.
Designers' labels are often tags made out of cloth, leather, or plastic, while others are
embroidered on with cotton thread.

The Manufacturing Process

Denim, unlike many types of cloth (which are woven in one place and sent to another
for dying), is woven and dyed at one location.

Preparing the cotton yarn

Unlike many other cloths, denim is dyed before it is woven. The dye used is generally a chemically
synthesized indigo. The denim is dipped in the dye vat several times so that the dye forms many
layers. This explains why blue jeans fade after washing.The yarn is then woven on large shutle-
less looms. The blue threads are woven with white threads, but because the blue threads are
packed closer together than the white ones, the blue color dominates the cloth.
  There are several steps between ginned cotton (cotton after it has been picked
from fields and processed) and cotton yarn. The incoming cotton is removed from
tightly packed bales and inspected before undergoing a process known
as carding. In this process, the cotton is put through machines that contain
brushes with bent wire teeth. These brushes—called cards —clean, disentangle,
straighten, and gather together the cotton fibers. At this point, the fibers are
called slivers.
 Other machines join several slivers together, and these slivers are then pulled
and twisted, which serves to make the threads stronger. Next, these ropes are
put on spinning machines that further twist and stretch the fibers to form yarn.

Dyeing the yarn

 Some cloths are woven (see step 5 below) and then dyed, but denim is usually
dyed with chemically synthesized indigo before being woven. Large balls of yarn,
called ball warps, are dipped in the indigo mixture several times so that the dye
covers the yarn in layers. (These many layers of indigo dye explain why blue
jeans fade slightly with each washing.) Although the exact chemicals used in
such dyeing procedures remain trade secrets, it is known that a small amount of
sulfur is often used to stabilize the top or bottom layers of indigo dye.
 The dyed yarn is then slashed; that is, it is coated with sizing (any one of a
variety of starchy substances) to make the threads stronger and stiffer. Once this
operation is complete, the yarn threads are ready to woven with undyed filling
yarn threads.

Weaving the yarn

 The yarn is then woven on large mechanical looms. Denim is not 100 percent
blue, as the blue dyed threads forming the warp (long, vertical threads) are
combined with white threads forming the weft (shorter, horizontal
 The denim cloth is cut into pattern pieces from stacks 100 layers thick. High-speed cutting
machines are used for this process. Once the pieces are cut, they are sewn into completed pairs of
blue jeans. Sewing is done in assembly-line fashion using human-operated sewing machines.

threads). Because denim is woven with the blue threads packed closer together
than the white threads and with the blue threads covering three out of four white
threads, the blue threads dominate. (By examining a piece of denim closely one
can detect the steep diagonal pattern that results from this process, which is
known as a three-by-one right-hand twill weave.) Although mechanized looms
make use of the same basic weaving procedure as a simple hand loom, they are
much larger and faster. A modern "shuttle-less" loom (which uses a very small
carrier instead of the traditional shuttle to weave the weft threads between the
warp threads) may produce as much as 3,279 yards (3,000 meters) of cloth 3.28
or 4.37 yards (three or four meters) wide in a single week. As much as 1,093
yards (1,000 meters) of cloth may be rolled into a single huge bolt.

 At this point the denim is ready for finishing, a term referring to a variety of
treatments applied to cloth after it is woven. With denim, finishing is usually fairly
simple. The cloth is brushed to remove loose threads and lint, and the denim is
usually skewed in a way that will prevent it from twisting when it is made into
clothing. The denim may then be sanforized, or preshrunk. Preshrunk denim
should shrink no more than three percent after three washings.
Making the blue jeans
 Once the desired design is selected, patterns from the design are cut from heavy
paper or cardboard. Up to 80 different sizes are possible from one pattern. The
pieces of denim are then cut with high speed cutting machines from stacks 100
layers thick. Excluding rivets, buttons, and zippers, a pair of blue jeans contains
about ten different pieces, from the pockets to the leg panels to the waistband
and belt loops.
 The pieces of denim are ready to be sewn at this point. Sewing is done in an
assembly line fashion, with rows of industrial human-operated sewing machines.
Each sewer is assigned a specific function, such as making only back pockets.
First, the various pockets and belt loops are assembled. Next, one sewer
attaches the pockets to the leg seams, another then sews the leg seams
together, and still another attaches the waist-band. Once the waist band is
secure, the belt loops may be stitched on and the buttons attached. If the jeans
include a zipper, it is then sewn into place, and the pants are hemmed. Finally,
the rivets are placed in the appropriate places and the maker's label is sewn on
last.
 Some jeans are prewashed and/or stone-washed to alter the appearance or
texture of the finished jeans. Prewashing involves washing the jeans in industrial
detergent for a short time to soften the denim. Stone-washing also means
washing the jeans, but pumice is added to the load, resulting in a faded
appearance. Small stones (less than one inch [one centimeter] in diameter)
produce an even abrasion, while large stones (about four inches [10 centimeters]
in diameter) highlight the seams and pockets and produce a more uneven
appearance.
 The completed pair of blue jeans is I 0 then pressed. They are placed into a large
pressing machine that steam irons the entire garment at once in about a minute.
A size tag is punched into the material and the jeans are folded, stacked, and
placed in boxes according to style, color, and size before being sent to the
warehouse for storage. When the jeans are selected to be sent to a store, they
are put in large shipping cartons and sent on freight trains or trucks.

Byproducts/Waste
The process of cloth making involves treating the fabric with a number of chemicals in
order to produce clothing with such desirable characteristics such as durability,
colorfastness, and comfort. Each step of finishing the cotton fabric (dyeing, sanforizing,
etc.) produces byproducts, most of which are biodegradable.
Byproducts of denim manufacture include organic pollutants, such as starch and dye,
which can be treated through biological methods. These organic wastes may not be
dumped into streams or lakes because of their high biochemical oxygen demand. To
decompose, such waste materials utilize so much oxygen that the lifeforms in the body
of water would be denied the oxygen necessary for survival.
Denim manufacturers process their own wastes in compliance with all relevant
government regulations.

Quality Control
Cotton is a desirable natural fiber for several reasons. Cloth made from cotton is wear
resistant, strong, flexible, and impermeable. Blue jeans are only as good as the cotton
that goes into them, however, and several tests exist for cotton fiber. All bales of cotton
are inspected by the denim manufacturer for the desired color, fiber length, and
strength. Strength is the most important factor in blue jeans. It is measured by using a
weight to pull it. When the fiber breaks, the force used to break it is measured. The
cotton's strength index (weight of weight divided by weight of sample) is then calculated.
The finished denim cloth is carefully inspected for defects. Each defect is rated on a
government-defined scale ranging from one point for very small flaws to four points for
major defects. Although government regulations allow cloth with a high defect rating to
be sold, in reality customers will not accept denim with more than seven to ten defect
points per square meter. Poor cloth is sold as damaged. Denim is also tested for
durability and its tendency to shrink. Samples of cloth are washed and dried several
times to see how they wear.
Blue jeans are also inspected after they are completed. If a problem can be corrected,
the jeans are sent back for re-sewing. The pair is then inspected again and passed. The
buttons are inspected to ensure that they and the buttonholes are of the proper size; the
snaps, metal buttons, and rivets are checked for durability and their ability to withstand
rust. The zippers must be strong enough to with-stand the greater pressures of heavy
cloth, and their teeth durability must be checked as well. This is done by subjecting a
sample zipper to a lifetime of openings and closings.