AEO Dry and Wet Processing SOP
Objectives:
1. To ensure consistent quality
2. to avoid ripping and smelly denim
Standard Operating Procedure:
1. Dry processing
i. Dry processing guideline should be made by DP supervisors for each style, including application details, relevant tools, and precautions if needed.
ii. Dry processing target should be provided to each worker, and be renewed daily. Target must has hangtag with relevant style information, application details, & sign-off by supervisor.
iii. For whisker, sanding, and PP spray/rub, each workers ha to set up his own 2 pieces of DP target every day when shift starts, and to be approved by supervisor. One will be kept for working and one to be sent for further DP and wet processing. The garment should be back to the worker and review with supervisor to see if necessary adjustment to be made.
iv. Inspection references should be in 2pcs, one maximum & one minimum to show the acceptable range. QC record should be documented with details such as style details, production details, and types/quantity of defects. And inspectors should able to identify correlated worker with proceeded garments.
v. Whisker templates must be properly graded
vi. Sand paper changing record should be properly documented.
vii. Placement of localized sanding should be marked by 2lines, which show where the feathering started and ended
viii. Additional marking is needed for knee points, in order to identify the placement for knee hotspots, starbursts, and back knee whiskers.
ix. Destroy holes should be graded according to sizes. If destroy is applied manually, chalk marking is needed for placement. If it is done automatically by machine, graded template is needed.
2. Wet processing:
i. Bleach:
• Controlled bleaching must be carried out to avoid bleaching at too high temperature
• Please refer to below part#6 for internal quality test for physical strength on tensile & tear.
ii. Anti-chlor:
• Appropriate and adequate amount of anti-chlor should be used.
• Laundry is advised to check the residual chlorine of bath after neutralization to avoid residual chlorine remained on garments to avoid bleach smell and storage tendering.
iii. Resin:
• Type: Low formaldehyde or formaldehyde free resin is recommended. Must be able to produce finished products to fulfill AEO’s requirement, i.e. lower than 75 ppm by ISO 14184-1.
• Dosage: follow chemical supplier’s recommendation and recipe must be able to fulfill AEO’s requirement
• Catalyst: follow chemical supplier’s recommendation and recipe must be able to fulfill AEO’s requirement. In case of solid / crystal catalyst, laundry must ensure proper storage of catalyst to avoid hydration / crystallization to avoid wrong dosage.
• Curing condition: follow chemical supplier’s recommendation and recipe must be able to fulfill
AEO’s requirement.
• Tumble Dryer: vendors need to provide temperature checking record every month to AEO.
• Curing oven: vendors need to provide temperature checking record every month to AEO. Curing condition must follow chemical supplier’s recommendation and fulfill AEO’s requirement.
• Wet pick up: laundry needs to follow chemical supplier’s recommendation and keep record of wet pick up of every batch of garments.
• Flash curing: laundry is not suggested to use flash curing. Intermediate drying of garments prior to curing is recommended.
• Formaldehyde testing: recommend laundry to carry out in-house formaldehyde testing. Vendor must have passed BV reports for bulk. AEO wash team will random pick bulk goods for formaldehyde and physical testing.
iv. Sulphur dyed fabrics or garments:
• pH of finished garment: sulphur dyed fabrics / garments do have variable amount of labile sulphur which could be easily converted to sulphuric acid upon storage in acidic and humid conditions. Therefore, it is suggested these garments to be finished with a final pH larger than 7 to avoid storage tendering issue. High risk products include sulphur black dyed by traditional sulphur powder dyeing system, sulphur dye fabrics / garments with acid wash, strong bleach and resin spray or dipping etc. Neutralization with sodium acetate or preferably buffer system is recommended to ensure the pH stability during storage.
v. Anti-ozonate softener:
• Unfixed indigo is easily to be oxidized by ozone in air and caused yellowing. Anti-ozontae softener is generally recommended for finishing the garments. In particular to heavy bleached garments, proper removal of unfixed indigo prior to finishing is important to ensure proper color fastness to ozone, even though suitable anti-ozonate softener will be used e.g. Velvetol 8.
vi. Light Fastness improver:
• If the light fastness cannot achieve AEO’s requirement and laundry needs to use light fastness improver or UV blocking agent, laundry needs to inform AEO and provide clearly written information in the wash recipe with chemical name, pH, dosage and temperature.
vii. OBA: ( Optical Brightening agent )
• Unless agreed by AEO, laundry should not be allowed to add OBA into any of AEO’s denim garments; especially on chambray shirts that we usually found vendors added OBA into the shade bands, might be unintentionally. In case of exception such as white bleached garments which OBA usually needed to be added, laundry needs to provide clearly written information in the wash recipe with chemical name, pH, dosage and temperature. For other products such as chambray, garment dyeing (including neon colors) etc, laundry needs to seek AEO’s approval before putting AEO into any sample and bulk products.
viii. Product safety:
• all dyes and chemicals used in laundry must fulfill latest AEO’s RSL requirement. Vendors needed to download, read carefully and check with all dyes and chemical suppliers to fulfill such requirement. Laundry can provide AEO’s RSL to chemical suppliers and they should be able to provide conformation certificates. To make our products more environmental friendly and safer, mills and laundry is suggested to use chemical suppliers with such kind of certificates to fulfill REACH, Oeko-Tex Standard 100 and GB18401 standards. These are well known industry norms and renowned chemical suppliers should be able to fulfill these requirement. AEO has been proactively collecting such information from our fabric mills and laundries.
3. Machinery:
i. Tumble dryers and curing oven monthly record: AEO requires all laundry to provide their monthly tumble dryers and curing oven checking record to AEO. These will be uploaded to our intranet website at the end of each month.
ii. Temperature of tumble dryers has to be checked 3times a day by infrared thermometer — before the 1st shift, 2nd shift, and end of the day. While temperature checking, infrared thermometer should always point to garment, and measure 3points per checking.
iii. In case of defective machinery, obvious notice must be attached. such machinery could not be used to produce AEO products until is has been fixed & verified.
4. Non-destructive testing:
i. In view of ripping cases happened to our products, particular on fly areas on our jeans; AEO Quality and Wash team will random pick any bulk garments subject to physical testing, by comparing before home laundering garments and garments after at least 3 home laundering to determine its quality and usability.
5. Frequency of laundry’s in-house inspection
i. Lab has to maintain standard atmosphere for conditioning — optimum environment condition as temperature 21OC & relative humidity 65%.
ii. Laundry have to control product’s quality performance regarding (1) Rubbing Fastness, (2) Tensile Strength, (3) Tear strength, (4) Odor, and (5) pH value.
iii. In order to avoid garment wastage, laundry can add panels into bulk execution for testing. All panels must have actual finishing on both dry and wet process, and length should be similar to actual style.
iv. All inspection/testing must be recorded properly. Agent team and our QA and wash team can review inspection report when visiting laundries.
• Rubbing Fastness: Testing Method ISO105-X12
Both Warp and Weft directions must be tested
• Tensile Strength: Test Method ISO 13934
Both Warp and Weft must be tested
Areas with most aggressive DP or resin must be tested
• Tear Strength: Test Method ISO 13937
– Both Warp and Weft must be tested
– Areas with most aggressive DP or resin must be tested
• pH: Test Method ISO 3071
– cut test specimen from hip whisker area, thigh, and base shade
• For Rubbing Fastness, Tensile Strength, Test Strength, and pH, at least 1 sampling from bulk per day per style must be tested.
• Odor: (Carried out in 2 phases with actual garment samples.)
– Phase 1: 1 sampling per style per day, sealed in plastic bag and checked for smell after 5 days. Garment can be released to bulk if no issue is recognized. In case whole bulk wash will soon be completed & handover date is less than 5days, extra garment can be sealed for odor checking after 48hours.
– Phase 2: 1 sampling per style per week, sealed in plastic bag and checked for smell after 1 month. Garment can be released to bulk if no issue is recognized.
– Please note that smell or odor typically concentrates is areas that contain multiple layers of fabric.
v. On top of minimum frequency, extra sampling and lab testing is necessary according to fabric and formula nature such as, but not limited to, the following: (1) pH against Sulphur black denim, (2) physical strength against destructive wash, (3) rubbing fastness test against minimal wash-off and, (4) odor check against bleach/ozone. Vendor should evaluate capacity of their in-house lab & set up proper testing frequency.
vi. Vendor need to set up standard procedure of daily operation in order to ensure laundry can identify correlated bulk garments in case there is a quality failure. This should include items such as separate storage according to date, work shifts (morning/afternoon), and/or loading. More detailed separation can provide convenience and avoid additional processing to sort out actual garments with problems.
vii. Upon recognizing quality failure, laundry needs to define if problem garments can or cannot be re-fixed, or proportion between them
• Depending on nature of failure, laundry should experiment re-fixing a small loading then reconfirm appearance, measurement, as well as associated test performance. Then applies on all affected garments after determining the necessary corrections.
• For re-fixed garments, garments must be retested again per each re-fixing loading. Sampling should be in garment form in order to reflect the quality accurately.
viii. After fixing the quality failure(s), control for subsequent bulk (if any) needs to be enhanced; laundry need to pull at least 4times by different time through out the day. Then frequency can be back to normal if not recoding any additional failure.
ix. Vendor needs to report all quality failures to AEO together with relevant testing records. Additionally vendors should provide action plan to deal with each unique case with consideration of potential factors, such as fabric, wash, style, and machinery. AEO QA and wash team will pull and seal samples from retouched garments and submit for testing at BV.
6. EIM scoring ( Environmental Impact Measure)
i. EIM scoring is required for order quantities over 10K units but is encouraged to submit for every program that goes into production.
ii. For standardization on evaluation, please input the weight in SIZE 6 for Women’s & SIZE 32/32 for Men’s
iii. Data of EIM scoring should come from either shade band or pilot run, in order to reflect actual bulk situation.
iv. We have set timelines to collect the EIM scoring of critical seasons as below.
SP Middle Sept, HO: End October
SUM Early Nov HO February
BTS Middle March HO: April
HOL End July : HO: August
v. Pls align the file name as “style #_factory year-month-date” (example “3334_kenpark_2018-05-05.docx”)
vi. AEO wash team to go through the EIM scoring against actual bulk formula during regular laundry visit
তারিখ: ফেব্রুযারী ০৫, ২০২০
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