Literatura académica sobre el tema "North Carolina State University. Department of Textile and Apparel Management"

This study identifies how an electronic journal can be established and implemented in the textile and apparel field. The study considers, Journal of Textile & Apparel Technology & Management as an innovation in the textile and apparel field, and analyzes electronic media as a way of disseminating information to scholarly and industrial communities in a better way. This study documented the process of establishing the electronic journal, and also provides the importance of a feedback loop to provide inputs for future journals. The readership behavior of the journal, including unique visits, repetitive visits, hits (page impressions), geographic location of the readers/visitors, entry page, was examined with the help of log files collected from College of Textiles and Sitestats, a UK based company. Issue analysis (volume 1, issues 1-4, volume 2, issue 1) was compared with previous issues and the results were related to Rogers? Model of the Innovation-Decision process (1995) and proved that JTATM is an innovation in the textile and apparel field.

The purpose of this research has been to explore the role of agent certification in the process of global sourcing. While some research has been done in the area of exporter-intermediary relationship, little has been done to study the importance of buyer-agent relationship and how the process of agent certification could strengthen that relationship. Global sourcing has played a vital role in the existence of textile and apparel industries across the world. With the increased advancement of developing countries and the numerous advantages that these countries possess, developed countries, such as the United States and countries in the European sub-continent, rely heavily on global sourcing to remain competitive in the global marketplace. Due to numerous barriers to global sourcing such as language barriers and inability to check sources, companies have found it useful to source through agents. These agents act as the facilitators between the sources and the buyers. With the advent of Internet and e-commerce, online sourcing has come into picture. Although the transparency in terms of sources and buyers on the web and their processes has increased and organizations are thinking of certifying sources, the role of agents' sill exists. A total of 30 agents and apparel-manufacturing buyers were interviewed to assess the feasibility and role of agent certification in the global sourcing process. While the specific items to be certified were not confirmed, both types of subjects agreed that agent certification would assist in the transactions in the buyer-agent relationship. It was found that small and medium-sized buyers would find agent certification more useful than large-sized buyers because of small-size buyers' limited resources and potential to find trusted agents.

The purpose of the research has been to investigate how merger and outsourcing activities impact the way productivity is measured on five categories of company resources: human, physical, knowledge, capital, and infrastructure resources. This research involves: an assessment of productivity measures with the goal of determining which resource category are key areas to monitor after merger activity, an evaluation of profitable textile mergers with the goal of delineating the execution of the merger strategies, an analysis of the effect of increased outsourcing on productivity growth with respect to the textile industry, and an evaluation of the adequacy of productivity measures in representing the economic competitiveness of the US Textile Industry. For the sample of textile companies, merger activity impacts the productivity of capital and knowledge resources the most. The most common strategies employed during successful textile mergers targeted the improvement of: corporate structure, product differentiation and speed to market. The influence of outsourcing on productivity growth in the textile industry was found to be negligible when comparing productivity measures that include and exclude outsourcing. In order to get a better understanding of competitiveness, companies are not looking solely at productivity, but are pairing productivity with other measures mainly profitability measures. Of all the resource categories, the productivity of knowledge resources is the leading contributor to competitiveness. However, one difficulty is that knowledge resources are also the category for which there were not concrete measures productivity that denote how well this resource was being used.

ZAVERI, MITUL DILIP. " Absorbency Characteristics of Kenaf Core Particles " (Under the direction of Dr. Behnam Pourdeyhimi). Chopped Kenaf Core (2 " to 4" in length), obtained from Greene Natural Fibers ? a company located in Snow Hill, North Carolina, was ground into very fine particles (below 1 mm) and categorized into various size ranges. The ground particles were tested for water absorbency and the optimum particle size, giving maximum absorbency, was determined. Experiments revealed that Kenaf Core of size range 106 ? 425 microns gave the highest water absorbency at saturation, up to 12 times its weight. The 425 ? 840 micron range was the next highest and it absorbed water up to 10 times its weight. Factors leading to this optimum particle size range were determined, the absorption mechanisms taking place were studied and experimental analysis was done to prove the results obtained. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) images were also taken to understand the shape and profile of the granular particles in fine detail. Various chemical treatment and refining experiments were carried out on the highly absorbent particle sizes (106 ? 840 microns) to enhance their bonding properties and to make handsheets from them. The highly absorbent Core particles were treated with NaOH in water bath at 90 º C, Cooked with NaOH and Na2S at 170 º C in a bomb reactor and treated with water in a water bath at 90 º C, all for 3 hours. Handsheets were made from the chemically treated particles to determine if there was sufficient bonding between them. To enhance the bonding further, the particles were refined in a blender for one hour. The effect of chemical treatment and refining on the absorbency properties of the Core was determined. SEM analysis of the particles was done to visualize the fibrillation caused due to refining. Handsheets were made with a blend of hardwood and highly absorbent (untreated and water treated 106 ? 840 micron) refined Core particles with 50 ? 70% of Kenaf Core in them. The absorption properties of these handsheets were determined and compared with the absorption of a handsheet made from fluff pulp (same basis weight). As the final step, the handsheets made from a blend of kenaf core and hardwood pulp were sandwiched between a pair of 17gsm lightly calendared polypropylene spun bond fabrics.