Abstract:
In recent years, ready-made garments (RMG) have be~ome the largest export products of
Bangladesh. Kmtwcar cun,tilule, aboul 34% of the total earning througb RMG expurt,. The
malll importing countries of Bangladeshi kn itwcar arc the U,S.A, Canada "nd the ElJ coulltrie,.
Wbile placing orders for knit wear, buyers genenolly specify their ba,ic requirements in terms
of gmms per 'quare meter (USM). fabric widU, and ,brink"»e (both leo.,,,h and width) for a
finished knitted fabric of a particular sh"de, The suppliers. on thei" patt. have to ehoo,~ knitting
vat'abk, Iikc mach ill. gauge (defined by "" u! /""p-jrJrnl/lig IIced/c,I'pel' ","I circullljerella ,if
Ihe mach/lie). yarn count ( i1 mei1Sur~ ()f yarn finclless) & stitch length( fel'l!;th '1 Y""" in a
farJp).The choice of the,e knitting variables lS "nporta.nt in ord." to meet the quality
specif,cation of the buyers.
Sometime, Ihe buyer's ~pecifieation, combinatIOn of the above three requin:ments, is quite
impo,sible to achieve. I'or this n:ason it i, vel)' common for knitted-fabric manufaetun:rs 10
carry out a fairly large numbers of ,ample trials when they arc reqmred to develop a new
product. The,e trial~ can consume eon"de",ble "mount of time and raw material>, ~nd eau~e
considerable dIsruption to production schedules, before a satisfactory solution i, found. But,
they are e»ential to ensurc Ihat a buyer's potential n~w product can aetnaJly be delivered.
The above-mentioned ,nuation> I.d to the development (>f STARFISH technology at
Intemational In,llltrte for Cotton, UK in 197R Allhough STARFISH software wa,
comm~rClally available since 1988, Bcximeo Kniuing Limited wa, the first company in
Bangladesh to buy this co,tly software in 1995,
T() use STARFISI-I. the user ha, to gi, e input variables of machine gauge. yarn CO\lntand stitch
length mainly a, well as specifying a target value of GSM and lilbric width or shrinkage. In case
oftargel GSM and fabric width, th" STARFISH gives shrinkage as outputs and in ca~e of target
shrinkage; Ihe software gives GSM and fabric width as outputs.
I\, STA KFiSII outputs repre'ent the results developed frorn many industrial trials of different
countries, the user jll,t gct, the standard average val"es of GSM, Width and Shri"kage of a
particular fabric from STARFISH. So to customize th" sottware in a particular factory, the
results given by STARFISH has to be calibrated ,ceo"ling to the factory re.<"lt<.
In (hlS project thesis, first the relationship between STARFISH inputs (yam count and stitch
length) and OUlputs {USM/W,dth) ha, been established thl'Ough a ,el of multiple linear
regression models for each specific machine g"uge. The models thus developed have a high
degree of correlationshlp with R' values in the range of O.97-0.99. Consequently, the regressioo
model> can he used as a substitute ofSTARrJSH to predict output, with a high accuracy \lnder
similar environment. Sc~ond. STARFISH pred'eted results have bee" compared with recorded
result, of Be"imeo Knitting Limitoo, using standard statistical measures in order to customize
STARFISI! package, It is observed that the mean absolute percenlIlge errl)r (MAPE) is less thllll
5% for all nlachine g""ges. The finding, clearly show that malluf'et"rers can u,e STARI'ISH
package qUlle nd,,"nt"geously for the selection of dee,slon vaflable,.
