Textile Mills

SIC 2200

NAICS 313

Textile mills produce a vast range of finished and intermediate textile products, but production centers on broadwoven fabrics from cotton, wool, and other natural and man-made fibers. These textiles are used in such diverse applications as clothing, household linens, furniture, and motor vehicle interiors. Certain industry firms also perform textile finishing by applying chemicals and processes to purchased fabrics. See also the article entitled Apparel.

INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the textile industry in the United States and other developed countries faced some severe challenges, requiring significant restructuring of manufacturing priorities and operations. From the 1980s to the late 1990s the international competitiveness of the textile industry in developed countries—where labor costs were steeper than in the developing world—steadily improved with the introduction of more efficient machinery. However, this increased productivity led to accelerating layoffs of textile workers and rapidly increasing mill closures by 2002, as fewer people were needed to produce the same—or even greater—volumes of goods.

In addition, the impact of the Asian financial crisis of 1997 to 1998 on the textile industry in developed countries continued to be substantial. Asian textiles, whose prices fell significantly during the crisis, were being imported to developed countries in ever-increasing volumes, contributing to the adverse state of textile industries in some developed countries, including the United States. In 2001 at least one hundred U.S. textile mills closed and some 60,000 to 75,000 U.S. textile workers were laid off. The situation was even worse in 2003, when a total of 99,400 apparel and textile workers in the United States lost their jobs.

After heavily investing in newer and more efficient but costly technology and equipment, U.S. textile mills found it harder to compete with the lower-priced textile imports from Asia entering U.S. markets in the early 2000s. In consequence, large numbers of U.S. mills shifted production to emphasize non-apparel textiles such as home furnishings and industrial textiles, reduced their workforces, merged with other companies, forged tighter links with apparel and other end-use manufacturers, sought opportunities to shift production to sites in the developing world, or closed their doors entirely. Many formerly flourishing U.S. textile milling centers, particularly in the southern states, were forced to realign their local economies, which some did by welcoming in new types of manufacturing and service industries to employ laid off textile workers and offer new opportunities for growth.

Despite the problems brought on by the Asian financial crisis Asia's textile business at the start of the new millennium was showing renewed strength. Responsible for the vast majority of the world's broadwoven cotton milling, Asia continued to shape the global textile industry. In particular, China remained a towering competitor. The burgeoning Chinese economy was a powerhouse in textile milling and supported thriving industries in textile machinery—the equipment used in textile mills—and in apparel, the biggest end market for milled textiles. China has been the world's largest producer of woven cotton textiles since the 1980s, a position that was strengthened by the Chinese economic boom that began in the 1990s. The Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s mainly dampened China's intra-region trade but did not diminish the volume of its textile exports. When China joined the World Trade Organization in December 2001, its position as the dominant player in the international textile industry was further assured.

ORGANIZATION AND STRUCTURE
Global Patterns of Production and Consumption

While China continued to be the world's largest producer of textiles in the early 2000s, by most measures the developed countries of Japan, the United States, and the European Union were the world's largest consumers of textile products. Textile mills around the globe produced fabric from either natural raw material fibers such as cotton, wool, silk, and flax, or two principal types of manufactured fibers: artificial fibers (previously called cellulosic) and synthetic fibers (previously called non-cellulosic). Consumer demand for end-use products containing fabric significantly impacted intermediate levels and types of fabric production.

The textile milling and production process involves a variety of operations including opening and cleaning, carding, spinning, weaving, knitting, and finishing. Textile mills purchase production machinery from textile machinery manufacturers that were historically responsible for introducing advanced machinery. As is true in most other industries, newer equipment in the textile industry tends to save labor and to waste less material, stimulating significant reductions in unit costs.

Firms of all sizes located in developed and developing countries alike produce broadwoven fabrics—that is, fabrics woven on wide looms. In developed nations, the textile industry tends to be dualistic in nature, as a large number of small and medium-sized firms produce a limited range of fabrics and account for a relatively small proportion of output, while a few large firms produce a wider range of fabrics and a disproportionate share of output. Whether a country is developed or developing, the textile industry in a particular country is shaped by diverse factors such as the complexity of products produced; the amount of available capital; the skill level, sophistication, and wages of workers; the degree of vertical integration; industry concentration levels in the country; the overall importance of the industry to the country's entire economy; and the country's degree of participation in the international marketplace.

The Production Process

The production of textile fibers and fabrics is a multistage sequence involving opening and cleaning, carding, weaving, and wet processing. Firms that transform cotton fiber, for example, into broadwoven fabric employ a wide range of machines, equipment, and workers to perform a variety of operations. In addition to broadwoven fabrics, the textile industry produces weft, lace, and warp knit fabrics, mainly in circular form. The textile industry also comprises carpet and rug production as well as yarn-spinning mills and plants producing man-made fibers. Because the production of cotton fabric is integral to the success of the textile industry worldwide and involves many of the same steps as the production of fabric from other fibers, the following is a detailed description of the cotton-textile production process.

First, opening-room machinery loosens up cotton layers taken from bales of cotton and reduces them into smaller pieces, then delivers the fiber to cleaning machines for further processing. If the cotton fibers are not properly selected or are imprecisely fed, production efficiency is reduced and quality suffers. In the second, or carding, stage, a machine called a "card" disentangles and collects the cotton fibers to prepare for the next phase, weaving. In the weaving phase, looms weave the cotton fibers into fabric.

Finally, the fabric is subjected to a multi-step, wet-processing phase that involves preparation, where the fabric is separated from the loom and natural contaminants are removed; dyeing, where color is added; and finishing, where enhancements such as durable press, water repellency, stability, mothproofing, soil resistance, and flame-proofing are incorporated into the fabric. Not all woven-cotton fabrics pass through the entire wet-processing chain. For instance, surgical goods undergo intensive preparation yet require no dyeing or finishing. Only the preparation and finishing steps are necessary for certain yarn-dyed goods. In general, the fabric's fiber content and intended end-use determine which wet-processing procedures the fabric will undergo.

Technological advances such as computer automation introduced from the 1960s through the 1990s in the production of cotton broadwoven fabric significantly improved the efficiency and profitability of textile mills. In the opening and cleaning stage, for example, computers were installed to select the most desirable combination of cotton bales for the specific end product. Bale pluckers and automatic feeds could be programmed to retrieve a set quantity of fiber from the bales, making possible the processing of more than 1,000 pounds of fiber per hour while assuring a homogeneous blend, a performance far superior to any achieved with manual feeding. Automated blending contributed to more evenly distributed variations in fiber characteristics, more uniform processing, improved fabric quality, lower raw material costs, and reduced costs in labor. Automated equipment in the opening department was completely controlled by microprocessors, delivering well-opened stock via chute feeds to the cards and eliminating the need for picker laps and their transportation. Using automated equipment, masses of cotton fiber were gradually opened to progressively smaller tufts without ever being compressed.

Prior to the 1960s, card operations reached a processing range of 4 to 18 pounds per hour depending on the type and quality of cotton fiber used and the desired purity level and nep (one or more entangled fibers) count. In the early 1970s new...

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