Background

Manual remanufacturing interventions lack industrial scalability due to several process-level challenges, thus replacement of manual processes through automation can make textile remanufacturing a feasible and scalable solution. Even though there are some innovative garmenting processes to automate the joining of garment parts, unique to remanufacturing process is garment disassembly which still lacks automation due to the inherent complexity.

Currently nearly 14 kgs of used textiles are discarded in Sweden (and several other EU countries) per capita per year, of which nearly 3 kgs are sorted rewearable items that are exported mainly to the developing nations in Asia and Africa. It is estimated that nearly 50% of this amount is incinerated or landfilled resulting in high environmental footprints and waste dumping. With upcoming producer responsibility schemes (from 2025), and other EU policy measures this volume of rewearable items collected will rise exponentially. Here large-scale textile remanufacturing is crucial to valorise used garments in a resource-effective manner, deliver lower eco-cost of pollution, and generate new revenue streams.

Remanufacturing in this context refers to remaking used clothes so that the product at least equal to newly manufactured garments in terms of quality or customer value. As manual remanufacturing interventions lack industrial scalability due to several process-level challenges, e.g. long process time for disassembly, lack of specialist skills, replacement of manual processes through automation can make textile remanufacturing a feasible and scalable solution. Even though there are some innovative garmenting processes to automate the assembly or joining of garment parts, e.g. Sewbots, unique to remanufacturing process is garment disassembly which still lacks automation due to the inherent complexity.

Purpose and task overview

The purpose of the project is to develop a knowledge-based garment modularization system by taking into consideration complex properties and features of post-consumer garments for providing optimal solutions for disassembly and eco-design.

To address this, a more careful design of a hybrid system for automated remanufacturing is required that combines: knowledge-based system with sustainable design (eco-design) and business frameworks (remanufacturing scalability) at the operational level. Such a system would consist of:

1. Hybrid knowledge base: that combines complex used garment properties with domain-specific information from garment designers and developers to determine remanufacturing criteria.

2. Intelligent modularization system: that aids in categorization of used garments based on similar/compatible features and proposes disassembly rules via advanced multi-criteria optimization approaches.

Specifically, this project will involve the following tasks:

Task 1: To identify the main criteria for selecting used garments for remanufacturing processes, and use multi-criteria decision-making techniques to prioritize them

Task 2: To develop a knowledge-based intelligent system for garment modularization that can facilitate optimized garment disassembly. This includes developing methods and technique for used garment categorisation, grouping in terms of different variables such as construction details, fabric properties, defects and damages etc., determining constraints, and optimizing the final extraction.

Task 3: To create guidelines relevant for eco-design, and for understanding garment fitness for remanufacturing, and how to implement such decisions in circular production.

Long term vision and partnership

The project is important for the ongoing development of strategic research on sustainable textile value chain in Textile & Fashion at University of Borås as it weaves two strategic areas: (i) digitised textile manufacturing and supply chains, and (ii) circular material and processes. This falls in line with the agenda for European partnership on Textile of the Future. It is expected that project will further lead to new, and larger, research projects, and develop novel industry-academia networks on circular textile production and automation.

Overall, the project combines research and supervision competences, from industrial and textile engineering, and decision and computer science. Within the scope of this project, collaboration will be established with several Swedish textile industry actors aiming to scale up fashion remanufacturing, such as brand retailers, small-scale remakers and circular textile innovation test beds.