CAD Systems and the Division of Labour in Knitwear Design

Abstract


The design of knitted garments is an activity shared by knitwear designers (who are almost all young and female) and knitting machine technicians (who are almost all male and usually older). The process involves programming knitting machines using CAD systems, which are designed for and used by the technicians. The designers get much less training and access to the CAD systems than they want. This paper examines why this is, and what would be involved in creating a situation where the designers are empowered over the technology of knitwear design. It concludes that the limitations of the technology cause this situation, which is reinforced by economic and attitudinal factors.

1. Introduction

The profession of knitwear designer is absent from lists of typical female occupations (e.g. Lockwood and Knowles, 1984), but it is almost entirely female; their closest colleagues, knitting machine technicians, are almost entirely male. Both groups are finding computers increasingly unavoidable: programming industrial knitting machines is an essential part of knitwear production, and this is now done almost entirely with purpose-built computer aided design systems. The male group exists to use this complex technology; the female group does not get the access and competence with CAD systems many of its members clearly want. Moreover, one can make a strong prima facie case that empowering knitwear designers over the CAD technology should result in a substantial improvement in the efficiency of the design process, leading to the production of cheaper or better garments.

* Why do knitwear designers have very little access and control over the computer technology in their industry?
* What is involved in creating a situation where knitwear designers have full access and mastery over the computer technology?
* Would creating this situation be cost-effective for the knitwear industry?

This paper is an attempt to answer the first question and explore the second as far as is possible at the present time. The answer to the third depends on future developments in the industry, particularly on the capability and cost of CAD systems, though we describe the major factors determining the answer. Technological, economic and attitudinal factors all act to create a situation where knitwear designers have very little opportunity to use or develop competence with knitting machine CAD systems; we attempt to assess the relative importance of these influences. In discussing what the obstacles are to enabling knitwear designers to use CAD systems, and how they might be overcome, we have chosen not to discuss future developments in computer support for designing. Instead we concentrate on the barriers that exist to effective use of existing systems and to the development of CAD systems better suited to the needs of designers. We also comment in passing on the sharp sex divisions between the different occupations in the knitwear industry, though we have not studied the causes for the sex segregation we observe.

2. Investigating the Potential for CAD Systems for Designing Knitwear

The primary objective of our research is the development of CAD systems to support knitwear design, that is, to support knitwear designers rather than technicians. To state the obvious, effective use of new technology involves providing the right technology for the needs of the industry, and the right industry for the technology, so that it is not wasted because of bad organisation or training, or harmful attitudes. This paper is a by-product of a study of designers and of the knitwear industry by the first author, which was intended primarily to determine the potential users' requirements for an intelligent CAD system. In order to study the design process and the attitudes of designers and technicians towards design, CAD systems, themselves and each other, the first author employed a combination of ethnographic methods.

As we are computer scientists working on ways to support design activities, our sociological observations and analysis are informal and incidental to our study of the design process, and are not situated in any developed theoretical framework. In particular, we use the term attitude in what we take to be its conventional everyday meaning. We are aware that discussing attitudes in this way is risky and unscholarly, in that it is difficult to say anything with confidence about attitudes, and we were not able to work with the rigour expected in both computer science and the social sciences. Nevertheless we find that the social context of CAD system use in the knitwear industry is too important for our technological work for us to ignore it.

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