UK: Safety Testing Innovation Helps Solve Production Nightmares

Poor security on attachments, particularly on children's clothing, can leave both the manufacturer and retailer facing costly recall problems and potential litigation. For instance, poor button or press-stud attachment and weak seams which go undetected until after customer purchase are, at best, a great embarrassment and at worst, a business disaster. Designers, manufacturers and retailers need to be able to test garments throughout the production process without recourse to expensive laboratory testing or unreliable and non-quantifiable manual testing. Coming up with a new solution to this problem has occupied inventor Dave Milnes and garment industry expert Angela Franks since 1995. Working closely with apparel manufacturers, independent testing houses and retailers they have now launched Stretchtest, a safety testing machine that allows consistent, immediate and random assessment to take place. "It provides companies in the garment industry and allied trades with a means to gauge quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively, whether their clothing matches accepted tolerances such as the British Children's Clothing Standard SSI 7907 1997," Angela explained.Stretchtest can also be used to establish break points. A digital display shows the operator the time, force set and force applied, and after each test a printed label with either "pass" or "fail" can be raised to enable full records to be kept. As a further safeguard, the operator must complete some details manually. Testing includes: