Advanced Automation for Shirt‐collar Manufacturing

Summarizes the work conducted on the research and development of machinery to automate the turning and pressing of collars and their automated assembly to the shirt‐collar bands sponsored by the Defense Logistics Agency. This research and development has involved the conceptualization, design and development of proof‐of‐concept shirt‐collar turning and pressing processes based on “double‐point turning and pressing” and their systems integration into a robot‐assisted apparel workstation. The work has also involved a second activity to understand, design and develop technology which can temporarily fold and crease single‐ply shirt‐collar bands for continuous automated assembly of shirt collars and collar‐bands. This work has involved the understanding of the folding and creasing properties of various apparel fabrics, the evaluation of two technology approaches for accomplishing this task, and the attachment machine control technology for high‐speed collar and collar‐band joining.