TÃœV SÃœD is a customer, forward-thinking, and independent supplier of technical, quality, and safety services. It is committed to delivering solutions that are future-proof via technological excellence for the success of its clients while upholding the highest standards of integrity. Suvodeep Mukherjee, Senior General Manager, South Asia- TÃœV SÃœD, discusses with Divya Shetty about the relevance of quality testing and recent trends in the textile industry.
What is the importance of quality testing in the textile industry?
Clothing and textile certification programs help manufacturers in the garments industry put their products through rigorous testing to ensure compliance with relevant product regulations. Textile and clothing products can present hazards to consumers, including safety issues around flammability or through the use of hazardous chemicals.
What’s more, there is a growing expectation that manufacturer to consider environmental and social issues into account during the production processes. Clothing and textile testing audits and certification programs help your business comply with relevant regulations and boost consumer trust.
Our garment testing labs and textile testing and audit programs provide our clients with a one stop solution for compliance with all relevant regulations.
What kind of certification does your organisation provide to the textile sector?
TÃœV SÃœD provides testing, inspection, audits and certifications service to textile and apparel industry.
As a trusted and independent partner to our customers, our dedicated team of experts and worldwide laboratory network assures the safety, compliance, and performance of innovative products. We enable our customers to harness the advantages of technological progress, to anticipate risks, and manage the entire product lifecycle and international supply chains. We add value by reducing time to market of products and by developing new safety standards for a better future.
Our experts support manufacturers, buyers and retailers with their knowledge of existing and new guidelines. As a recognised organisation, we are accredited with all major international certification bodies.
The legal requirements for harmful substances in textiles and leather articles vary from country to country or are constantly changing. In order to avoid warnings, product recalls or inconveniences with authorities, TÃœV SÃœD provides support in complying with due diligence and bringing clothing onto the market that is harmless to health. In addition, the quality and safety of products made of leather or textile can be proven.
A listing of TÃœV SÃœD product testing and certification services can be seen here: https://www.tuvsud.com/en/industries/consumer-products-and-retail/textile-and-clothing
Kindly elaborate on the new testing equipment being used today. Discuss trends.
On the audit side, there is an emerging trend of remote audits. In testing, the majority of the testing equipment is digitalised and interfaced with the laboratory management system. This ensures the accuracy, integrity and traceability of the tests results. The recent trend is in testing for waste water (effluent water) for harmful substances at the ETP of factory premises.
What kind of quality and testing challenges do exporters deal with?
In general, at the sourcing side, one of the quality challenges is the sourcing of raw material at cheaper cost, because of the cost pressure for certain segments of their customers. Else at laboratories we don’t have any significant testing failure trend for any particular test parameter.
Working as a team, we ensure that: Products comply with legal safety and quality requirements and fulfil sector-specific standards. Products are manufactured or supplied in the defined quality. Products optimally meet the needs of product buyers and users and satisfy their requirements. Our clients gain critical competitive advantages, for example in brand communication, by using our widely recognised, high-profile certification marks.
What are your growth plans for the textile industry?
We have plans to add and promote new value-added services i.e. biodegradability, recycled PET testing, Microplastic testing. We also are promoting sustainability service solutions across the industry and we wish to be automatic choice of our customers in sustainability solutions. Apart from testing, we have eminent speakers and trainers who has subject matter expertise and can conduct training or lecture series with different stake holders in supply chain.