ISO Certification for Textile and Apparel Industries

ISO is an international organization of standard gathers the experts to develop voluntary International Standards that support innovation and provide solutions to global challenges. As of now, ISO has developed more than 23,000 types of ISO standards.

Among the ISO standards, they are ISO standard for textile testing or the management system. The testing standards include guidelines for a wide range of processes and hundreds of tests geared for textiles. And new standards are often being developed as textiles, and the materials used to make them change.

Textiles and apparel from all over the world. They might be weaving or knitting at one factory, dying at another factory, and sewing as apparel at another place. There are lots of company manufacture textile or apparel, how can we ensure their goods/products are good standard and consistent quality? This is where ISO 9001 international standard Quality Management System can give the best solution to the organization. The standard can give a benchmark that the organization is manufacturing with consistent quality.

Textile and apparel industries involve many complicated processes and challenges, many of the textile manufacture implemented ISO 9001 to lower down the operation cost and control the output quality at the same time achieve customer satisfaction. But some organizations only see the necessity of ISO Certification when export overseas. In fact, ISO certification is more than that. If the organization well equipped with quality and competition, it can reach out to more business opportunities.

Globalization is happening in every industry now, textile and apparel industries are facing a dramatic change. Consumers now not just look for the design they are looking more at quality, innovation, environment friendly, and safe products. This ISO 9001 standard is globally used in countless companies. The standard helps to ensure the organization’s consistency quality in every process, improve the end product quality, lowering the operation cost, reduce error, rework, wastage, and increase process efficiency. ISO 9001 often involves inspection and testing in the process. For example, raw materials being tested, then dyed fabrics being inspected, and eventually finished goods.

ISO 9001 focuses on process standardization. It requires to have documentation on process parameters or KPIs, input process, services or product (raw material, fabric, trim, machine, utility, manpower, Subcontractor), and measure & analyze the output (through an audit, corrective action, preventive action) in the manufacturing process.

Besides ISO 9001, ISO 14001 (Environment Management System) is another ISO certification that can be applied in the textile and apparel industries. Eg. Italian lifestyle brand Paul & Shark is adopting ISO 14001 to demonstrate motivation, credibility, and commitment to environmental responsibilities to an industry leader. The textile and apparel industry is the 2^nd largest polluter in the world.

Textile mills produce one-fifth of the industrial water emissions in the world and use 20,000 chemicals to make clothing, many of them carcinogenic. Every year, Chinese textile factories alone generate around 3 billion tonnes of soot by burning coal. This caused air pollution which has a big impact on our human respiratory system and heart. Besides, most of the apparel hard to recycle. Studies have shown that 85% of textiles go to landfills every year and washing certain kinds of clothes especially fabric contains plastics like polyester brings thousands of bits of plastic into the sea and pollute the ocean.

ISO 14001 Environment Management System as an operational process to safeguard the environment from an organization perspective. ISO 14001 is based on the idea that improved environmental performance. It can be accomplished by consistently defining environmental aspects and managing them to make a substantial contribution to sustainability by avoiding emissions, enhancing environmental performance, and complying with relevant law.

Reference: Fibre2Fashion

ISO 9001 Quality Management System (QMS)

ISO 9001:2015 Requirements

How to apply ISO 9001 in Malaysia

ISO 14001 Environment Management System (EMS)