News
AWTA Ltd Implements its Management Succession Plan
On the 30th January 2001 the Chairman of AWTA Ltd, Mr Alan McGregor AO, announced the Board had approved the appointment of a new executive team to lead the Company into the 21st Century.
This announcement brought to a climax a planned and managed Succession Plan, initiated by the Company 5 years ago.
Michael Jackson has succeeded the previous Managing Director, David Ward OAM. David resigned as a Managing Director on May 21st, and Michael has now taken on that role. When he finally retires in July 2001, David will have achieved almost 35 years of leading the Statutory AWTA and AWTA Ltd. In the intervening period Michael is working closely with David to ensure a smooth transition to the Chief Executive position.
Sas Douglas retired at the end of March, after some 30 years controlling AWTA / AWTA Ltd's operations as Deputy CEO. The Board used this opportunity to restructure management of the business along functional lines, rather than regionally. This change will assist the new team to achieve the Company's service objectives and will take best advantage of the individual appointees' growth potential, abilities, motivations, strengths and personalities.
The Board approved 2 new Senior Management positions, namely, General Manager - Customer Relations and General Manager - Laboratory Operations. These replaced the Deputy Managing Director and Regional Manager positions, from the 30th March, 2001.
Ian Ashman (formerly Regional Manager - WA) was appointed as General Manager - Customer Relations. Georg Beilharz (formerly Regional Manager - NSW & Qld) was appointed as General Manager - Laboratory Operations. Both have already transferred to Melbourne.
With these new appointments, the Executive Team is Michael Jackson, Alex Artomonow (General Manager - Corporate Services), Ian Ashman, Georg Beilharz, Peter Sommerville (Corporate Development Manager) and Charles Englander (Manager - Industrial & Legal Services).
In his role as GM - Customer Relations, Ian Ashman will be accountable for all sampling and associated liaison functions. This structure will still provide the strong regional management of sampling operations by the respective Sampling Operations Managers in each of the wool selling regions, while at the same time organising this major part of the Company's business along functional lines.
Likewise, Georg Beilharz, as GM - Laboratory Operations, will be accountable for the operations of the three raw wool laboratories in Melbourne Sydney and Fremantle. Again this structure continues to provide strong regional management of these operations by the respective Laboratory Managers, while also organising them on functional lines.
Alex Artomonow, General Manager Corporate Services, is now accountable for the Textiles Testing Division, in addition to his existing accountabilities for Industrial & Legal Services, Information Services, Accounting Services, and his role as Company Secretary.
The replacement of the Regional Manager positions by this new structure necessitated a reorganisation of the management structures in the Sydney and Fremantle Laboratories. Angus Ireland (formerly Laboratory Operations Manager - Sydney) is now responsible for laboratory and data processing operations within the Sydney Laboratory as well as the technical management of the Laboratory. Recognising this wider role his position has been renamed Senior Manager Sydney Laboratory. Likewise, Paul Walsh (formerly Laboratory Operations Manager - Fremantle) is now Senior Manager Fremantle Laboratory. Because Georg Beilharz is located at the Melbourne Laboratory, the equivalent responsibilities for Melbourne operations are included in his position.
Jim Marler, formerly National Technical Manager, now reports directly to Michael Jackson, in the new position of National Technical Adviser. In this position Jim carries with him many of his former accountabilities except the direct accountability for Research & Development, which now resides with Peter Sommerville, Corporate Development Manager. Jim will continue to represent the Company on technical matters at IWTO and will be more intensively involved in providing technical advice to laboratory and sampling operations.
This restructuring has required the Company to strengthen the technical resources in both Sydney and Fremantle. Consequently the position of Technical Manager has been created in each centre. David Petrie was appointed as Technical Manager - Sydney Laboratory (see People and Personalities), and at the time of publication the equivalent position in Fremantle has yet to be filled.
For more information see Features: An overview of AWTA Ltd's New Management Structure.
TEAM revisited - AWTA Ltd initiates TEAM 3
The new Managing Director of AWTA Ltd, Michael Jackson advised the IWTO Congress in Shanghai in May this year that AWTA Ltd has initiated a program, in co-operation with combers and topmakers, to update the TEAM formula to reflect the current performance of top making mills around the world and to determine whether or not the additional information about fibre diameter distribution and fibre curvature provided by the LASERSCAN technology can improve the prediction of processing performance of mill consignments.
The most important raw wool characteristic is Mean Fibre Diameter, closely followed by Staple Length & Strength. In the past, experienced wool buyers used their subjective judgment of length and strength, in combination with their experience of their customers processing capabilities, to select wools suitable for producing wool tops with a specified hauteur or mean fibre length.
On the 7th December 1979 the then CSIRO Division of Textile Physics ran a seminar on "Staple Length & Staple Strength of Greasy wool: Measurement and Effects on Worsted Processing. This seminar set the scene for the approaching SAM (Sale with Additional Measurements) trial, scheduled to begin in Adelaide early in 1980.
In these trials auction sales were held in which measurements of Staple Length & Strength were available in the catalogues in addition to the coretest information.
The ATLAS technology currently used for measuring Staple Length & Strength was not then available, but research instruments developed by CSIRO had been adapted for use by AWTA (then a statutory body). However, the results of the trials were sufficiently encouraging for the industry to proceed to a major processing trial, TEAM (Trials to Evaluate Additional Measurements), designed to establish the relationship between the new raw wool measurements and top hauteur for a large number of mills. The TEAM project, conducted from July 1981 to July 1984, was planned and executed jointly by AWTA Ltd and CSIRO Division of Textile Physics, maintaining close association with the Raw Wool Services Department of the Australian Wool Corporation. However the success of the trial depended heavily on the active involvement and co-operation of 14 combing mills, 10 topmakers, 26 Australian wool buying firms and 55 Broker and Private Treaty Merchants. In all, 232 consignments were processed, all fully measured for Staple Length & Strength, and with the final processing results made available on a confidential basis by the participating combers and topmakers.
Major outcomes of TEAM were two empirical formulae, one for fleece wool and one for skirtings, which described the relationship between Mean Fibre Diameter, Mean Staple Length and Mean Staple Strength for the entire database established by the trial. The project also provided a single formula, which performed almost as well as the two separate formulae, but which included a term for Vegetable Matter Base.
In July 1986 TEAM-2 commenced, funded by wool growers through the Australian Wool Research and Development Council. At the same time a considerable number of results was being collected through another scheme, funded by AWTA Ltd and the AWC. This was primarily designed to allow mills and topmakers who did not participate in TEAM-1 or TEAM-2 to gain some experience with the application of Staple Length & Strength measurements to their greasy wool purchases. The combined data from all three projects totalled 545 consignments, representing a wide range of wool types. The TEAM-2 report provided a single formula, since known as the TEAM FORMULA, which provided a prediction of Hauteur based on Staple Length, Staple Strength, Mean Fibre Diameter, Adjusted Percentage of Middle Breaks and Vegetable Matter Base. For the first time it was proposed that individual mills could use this formula, together with a mill adjustment factor specific to their process, to predict Hauteur from the greasy wool measurements. TEAM-2 also provided formulae for prediction of Coefficient of Variation of Hauteur and Romaine.
However, it is important to appreciate that TEAM provided benchmarking formulae, because they are based on a statistical regression analysis of the database of greasy wool measurements and processing results, within a specified period of time. In the ensuing years there have been considerable improvements in combing technology. It is therefore entirely appropriate to revisit the database, to examine any shifts that may have occurred and to evaluate whether or not the additional measurements of the fibre diameter distribution and fibre curvature can improve the accuracy of processing prediction.
Consequently, AWTA Ltd has decided to launch TEAM-3. The details of the program are described in the Features section of this newsletter.
CSIRO proposes a new test method as an aid to improving the Comfort of Wool Fabrics
Dr Geoff Naylor from CSIRO's Division of Textile and Fibre Technology has presented a draft test method to the Shanghai Congress of IWTO entitled "The Measurement of the Diameter Characteristics of Fibre Ends in Wool Slivers."
Extensive research on fabric skin comfort by CSIRO has identified that discomfort arises from the presence of a critical number of coarse fibre ends, which protrude from the fabric surface and press hard enough against the skin before buckling to trigger nerve ends lying just below the skin surface. The maximum force a protruding fibre can exert before buckling is a function of the fibre diameter and the length of the protruding end. Thus fabric skin comfort depends upon the fibre diameter characteristics of the fibre ends and the fabric design and finishing. These last two parameters affect the density of fibre ends per unit area of fabric and the length of the protruding fibre ends.
CSIRO has shown that it is possible to make wool garments for next to skin wear by selecting wools with appropriate fibre end diameter characteristics and that the usual "whole of fibre" measurement of fibre diameter characteristics can sometimes be misleading in predicting potential fabric skin comfort properties.
In processing, diameter characteristics of the fibre ends in tops can be manipulated somewhat independently of the "whole fibre" diameter values. In some experimental tops produced by CSIRO fibre ends of up to two microns finer than the average were achieved. Changes of this order can potentially have a significant effect on fabric skin comfort, and hence on consumer appeal of the garment.
Currently there is no accepted method for topmakers to predict, and hence control, the diameter characteristics of fibre ends in a top from the available raw wool measurements for the components in a blend, although research is underway in this area. Thus, in general, it is not a simple matter for topmakers to routinely construct commercial blends and simultaneously produce a specified outcome with respect to the diameter characteristics of the fibre ends. The proposed test method will not assist in this matter, as it is applicable only to the top, not to raw wool. However, it will be useful in further characterising and therefore adding commercial value to specialised wool tops.
The method allows the use of either Laserscan or OFDA100 in providing the necessary measurements. A subsample from the top is prepared using a Fibroliner FL100 (also used for preparing samples for Almeter measurement). This device creates an aligned fibre assembly, arranged such that all the fibres have one of their ends situated approximately on the same line perpendicular to the fibres. This "beard" is placed on a specially designed guillotine, which cuts short fibre snippets from across the base or the "squared end". The measurements of diameter characteristics of the fibre ends are derived in the normal way, using either Laserscan or OFDA100, from this snippet specimen.
In practical terms the CSIRO research suggests that certain wool types with a specific along-fibre variation in fibre diameter, may produce wool tops where the fibre diameter characteristics of the fibre ends are sufficiently different from the "whole fibre" values to enable the manufacturing of more comfortable fabrics.
Breeding Ultrafine Wool
An exciting development in the industry is a project largely funded by commercial superfine wool growers in New South Wales, with technical input provided by specialists within CSIRO, to breed commercial flocks with a mean fibre diameter approaching 14 microns. Each of the participating growers will be making a substantial investment, from their own funds, in this project over the next 5-10 years.
There are a number of challenges that have to be considered, not least being the preservation of desirable style characteristics and the maintenance of commercially acceptable fleece weights. However, the willingness of the growers to provide the funds and the breeding stock required is a measure of their confidence that the planned outcome is achievable.
Thanks to the efforts of many researchers over many years, and in particular to the CSIRO Fine Wool Project, there is good scientific evidence to support this view. The CSIRO Fine Wool Project has been a long-term project of research and extension aimed at fine wool growers and ram breeders. The CSIRO, The Woolmark Company, the CRC for Premium Quality Wool and many other collaborators supported the program.
The Finewool Project research outcomes have been documented and released on CDROM. Copies of the CDROM can be obtained from CSIRO's Research facility near Armidale, NSW.