Human factors in the woollen industry: an investigation of inspection and mending performance with special reference to worsted and terylene/worsted cloth

This is an investigation into certain aspects of a process called burling and mending which is concerned with the inspection and repair of faults in cloth. The females who carry out this task represent a high proportion of the labour force in the textile industry. Three experiments were undertaken. The first of which established basic information on operator performance by testing the speed and accuracy of burlers and menders in carrying out cloth inspection on an evaluated piece of cloth, under four experimental conditions. The conditions prescribed inspection with: (1) eyes only; (2) hands only; (3) both hands and eyes (normal); and (4) hands and eyes plus supplementary angular lighting. A statistical analysis took into account the conditions described age differences performance in relation to eight different fault categories and the resultant interactions. [Continues.]