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The clothing industry still relies on some of the same techniques and processes used hundreds of years ago. However, it has changed in many ways as well, and continues to change as technology and artificial intelligence change. In fact, AI is used in many aspects of clothing manufacturing to ensure precision and consistency in clothing products. Here’s a look at how this type of technology is applied in the average American clothing factory.

Women’s FashionMaterials Production

Clothing is derived from a variety of different materials that all fall under the broader category of textile fibers. It’s important that these fibers—whether they’re cotton, wool, polyester, or another material—are of a high quality, and that all the fibers used to produce the material possess consistent properties. For example, if the cotton fibers used to make a T-shirt are not of a uniform fineness, the cotton fabric will not have an even texture.

In centuries past, these fibers had to be inspected by hand, and consistency was difficult to attain. However, AI can now be used to identify various textile fibers and grade them based on a variety of properties, including color, length, fineness, tensile strength, and so on. By identifying and sorting the textile fibers in this way, AI allows clothing manufacturers to more efficiently produce a higher-quality product by utilizing higher-quality materials.

Color Consistency

Color is important to consumers. They want to ensure that a garment is not only the color that they want, but that the color won’t fade easily, rub off onto underclothing, or bleed onto other garments in the wash. And, when buying multiple garments in the same color (such as team jerseys or branded t-shirts for a business), consumers want to know that each and every garment is going to have the exact same color.

Men’s FashionBut color mixing is a precise science. If you’ve ever had to buy another can of paint when repainting a room and you’ve found the color to be ever-so-slightly different than the original batch, you know just how easy it is for different mixes of the same color to differ. This is why the clothing manufacturing industry largely depends on AI for mixing their dyes.

AI can create more precise color mixes to provide the consistency that consumers want. Additionally, it can be used for color matching of previous mixes, and evaluation of the final product after dying or printing to ensure quality.

Artificial intelligence is able to scan a final product and quickly identify issues with the color or the print; this is much more precise than relying on humans to check it by hand, and it saves a significant amount of time in production. Using AI for quality control saves producers time and money, while providing customers with the consistently high-quality products that they desire. Ultimately, this type of technology creates a win-win situation for consumers and manufacturers alike.

AI technology is essential to ensuring the quality of American-made clothing. And, because this technology is constantly evolving, we are discovering new ways to use AI to improve our products’ quality every day. To learn more about how we use AI and other technology to ensure the quality of our products, give Apparel Production, Inc. a call at (212)-278-8362.