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By Walter N. Rozelle
When Hurricane Fran slammed the North Carolina coast in September 1996 and proceeded to move inland, the storm claimed 23 lives and inflicted more than $5-billion in property damage.
On Sept. 5 Fran stalled over the Raleigh area and proceeded to rapidly dump 10 in. of rain. Raleigh's Crabtree Creek area was especially hard hit — including Cotton Incorporated's headquarters. The storm left Cotton's offices product-development, evaluation and laboratory equipment knee-deep in water, with out-of-pocket losses exceeding $750,000. Moreover, this was the third time the facility had flooded.
“Farmers are a practical lot,” says Hugh Summerville, former chairman of Cotton Incorporated (which is principally funded by the 30,000 producers of Upland cotton) and a member of an exploratory committee quickly formed and charged with finding the site for Cotton's new headquarters. “When farmers get flooded out on a piece of ground repeatedly, they know what to do: They move to higher ground,” says Summerville. “And that's exactly what we decided to do.”
An intensive search for more than 50 areas led to the committee selecting a site in Cary, N.C., in the Research Triangle Park area. “Many of the prospective sites we looked at were very expensive, didn't have adequate access roads or weren't fully developed,” says J. Berrye Worsham, president and CEO. But once the site was selected, things moved rapidly.
From the onset, Cotton Incorporated management called on departmental employees for input in designing their respective areas to promote increased efficiency. A bonus: Designing new headquarters from the ground up meant that for the first time, all of the organization's research and marketing divisions — except for Consumer Marketing (including Retail Marketing, Public Relations & Advertising and Fashion Marketing), which remains in New York City — would be situated under one roof. Now, about 110 of Cotton Incorporated's employees work in the headquarters building. They include staffs of the following departments:
- Agriculture;
- Fiber & Textile Research;
- Global Product Marketing;
- Strategic Planning;
- Finance;
- Most of Administration.
The facility in Cary's Weston Office & Industrial Park offers a pleasing blend of architectural beauty, natural surroundings, and efficient layout. Cotton's neighbors include GTE, MCI, IBM and Wessex. The site's 16.6 acres contains more than 500 trees and shrubs — and is a minimum of 63 ft above the nearest flowing water. A 2-story, 36,597 sq-ft office section connects by an enclosed walkway to an elevated 88,456 sq-ft single-story research and laboratory building.
Inside the laboratories. World Headquarters capabilities for evaluating cotton fiber and fabric processing particulars extend the full range of what the typical plant might encounter. The Cary facilities have capabilities of moving raw fiber through spinning preparation, knitting, dyeing, and finishing. In addition, full fiber-research and testing capabilities are at technicians' fingertips.
Fiber evaluation. As you might imagine, World Headquarters has extensive resources for fiber testing and is bedrock for evaluating proposed changes in standards and procedures in every aspect of measuring fiber characteristics. These capabilities have gained in importance as the global cotton marketing chain — grower to mill — moved closer to complete reliance on High Volume Instrumentation measurement of cotton strength, length and color characteristics to determine the price growers — Cotton Incorporated's principal supporters — get for their product.
Yarn manufacturing. The well-equipped Fiber Processing Laboratory contains full-scale production equipment to manufacture combed or carded sliver from raw fiber as well as a full compliment of spinning, twisting, and winding technologies. Facilities are in place for producing intimate fiber blends and blended, compressed bales for special mill trials. The impressive equipment inventory includes:
- Opening and blending lines (Fiber Controls);
- Coarse and fine openers (Rieter B10 and B60);
- Chute-fed cards (two Platt Saco Lowell, one Hollingsworth 2000, one Trützschler DK 803);
- Drawing (Rieter D05 and D30); • Lap winder (Platt Saco Lowell);
- Comber (Rieter E74); • Roving (Platt Saco Lowell Rovematic).
- Ring — Zinser 351, Suessen EliTe® Compact, Suessen Fiomax 1000 and Plat Saco Lowell with SKF Drafting
- Rotor — Rieter M1-1 and R-1; Schlafhorst SE 9 with Suessen conversion and Amsler slubbing;
- Vortex — Murata MVS 851 (This technology, which already has more than 14,000 positions operating in U.S. mills, is getting special attention.);
- Winding/twisting — Murata Mach Coner with carousel, Saurer-Allma, and SSM winder.
Fabric formation. A well-equipped Knitting Laboratory provides technicians with capabilities for producing a full range of popular knitting constructions such as jersey, jacquard, interlock and pique. The adjacent CAD-CAM Lab's four computer design stations give fabric designers and researchers additional capabilities in fabric development.
Although World Headquarters has no installed equipment for various weaving-preparation processes (warping, warp sizing) and weaving, technicians say this is no hindrance as nearby weaving operations provide these capabilities whenever required.
The nonwovens industry consumes a large — and growing — volume of cotton fiber. Cotton Incorporated performs considerable development work in nonwovens, providing this vital industry segment with welcome support.
Fabric wet processing and finishing.
Compared to its former quarters in the Crabtree Creek building the sheer size of this laboratory (called Applications Lab) is what first strikes a visitor. Larger than many small commercial finishing operations, the area's equipment provides capabilities for complete evaluation of various fabric preparatory finishing processes such as bleaching and mercerizing, as well versatility for accomplishing various dyeing and finishing procedures. Adjacent labs provide garment dyestuff and chemical testing.
Yarn, fabric testing. The facility has a fully equipped laboratory for processing yarn and fabric samples. Equipment runs the full gamut of strength, twist, evenness and elongation equipment for yarn samples; strength, tear, abrasion, etc.. for fabric evaluations.
Article first appeared in the June 2000 issue of TW
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