SERVICE FOR WOOL

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30952, 7 January 1966, Page 6

SERVICE FOR WOOL

Development Centre (N.Z.P.A.-Reuter) LONDON. The new product development centre being established by the International Wool Secretariat at Ilkley, in Yorkshire, would give the wool textile industry the best technical service facilities in the world, said Dr. G. H. Crawshaw, manager of the secretariat’s product development section in an address to the Bradford Textile Society. Work would begin soon on the five-acre site although the full facilities of the centre would not be available until late 1967. It would comprise a laboratory block occupying 40,000 sq ft, and a pilot plant of 30,000 sq ft The buildings would include an engineering plant, a physical testing laboratory and a photographic section. Dr. Crawshaw said the pilot plant would enable I.W.S. technologists to spin, weave, knit and tuft samples of wool textiles and to carry out a variety of finishing processes, as well as make clothes for wearing trials. There would be an engineering workshop for development work on machinery. When the I.W.S. established technical service groups four years ago, their function was to assist industry to take up new processes developed for wool, said Dr. Crawshaw. They were now operating in 21 countries. “Research results reach the I.W.S. from all kinds of sources. We have to place them in perspective and adapt them to competitive commercial conditions,” said Dr. Crawshaw.