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The engineers have the knowledge to produce textile machinery, parts and technical know-how to erect the new textile plants

By AMANULLAH BASHAR
 Feb-18  24, 2002

Pakistan's education sector has to play the significant role to give new dimensions to the textile industry, which has already achieved sound footings in the country.

Engineer A. Kalam, who is leading the NED University of Engineering and Technology as the Vice Chancellor has taken initiative to produce textile engineers at NED's Department of Textile Engineering, having capacity to give the textile sector self reliance in all aspects of the textile industry.

The engineers have the knowledge to produce textile machinery, parts and technical know-how to erect the new textile plants without any technical assistance of foreign experts. The vice chancellor told to PAGE that time is not far away when the country can produce its own machinery instead of relying on imports, however the ball is now in the court of the private sector who should think to make the country self reliant in textile machinery.

He said that so far the textile sector not only importing the textile units but have to import persons for installation of the projects. If the private sector comes forward, the university has started providing them the qualified engineers helping them to curtail reliance on imports for textile accessories.

Dr. Muzzaffar Mahmood, Dean of the Department of Mechanical Engineering was in fact the man of vision for establishing the textile department at the NED University.

Talking to PAGE, Dr. Muzzaffar said that actually the target of the textile department is the growth of this prime sector of the economy instead of focusing on the mills. The concept is to make our textile industry second to none in producing quality products and to provide a solid engineering base to the textile sector in Pakistan.

He said that with liberalization of world, the textile sector in Pakistan has to equip with the required knowledge and expertise to face the challenges of the open market in respect of quality, standards as well as environment that would require qualified engineers to meet the challenges.

Noorullah Soomro, Principal Labs Engineer of the textile department said that in order to address the problem of cotton contamination, his department providing special training right from cotton picking to ginning level to the graduates.

He said that so far our textile industry was being run by the technical experts but not by the qualified engineers hence there is a lot of room for improvement in quality products.

NED University of Engineering and Technology was set up in 1996 with the financial assistance of Export Promotion Bureau, which provided Rs25 million for the purpose.

Industry

The curriculum for the program was adopted from similar courses offered by the North Carolina State University (NCSU) USA, which is a 4-year full time bachelor degree program. NCSU is accredited with ABET and has ranking of 29th of top 50 graduate schools in engineering of the USA.

Objective

The knowledge gained in the two areas of both engineering and textile technology world would enable the students to serve the industry in planning and maintaining the textile units. They would be helpful in developing parts and machinery, improving process, quality control, indenting and technically scrutinizing equipment and taking care of environment aspects as well as implementing ISO standards (especially ISO 9000 and ISO 14000).

Curriculum

The curriculum provides a broad-based knowledge of fundamental engineering and deals with applications of scientific and engineering principles to the design and control of fiber, textile and apparel process, products and machinery. These cover natural and man-made materials, interaction of materials with machines, safety and health, energy conservation, waste and pollution control.

Training

The Department is striving to train its students professionally in line with practical requirements of the industry. They are being trained in textile testing, spinning, weaving, dyeing and finishing systems. Now laboratory work for textile engineering subjects is carried out at the University. Students are performing necessary practical of textile yarn manufacturing and textile fabric manufacturing in the newly established Textile Product Lab as well as at Synthetic Fiber Development and Application Center (SFDAC) at Korangi which is also a brand new facility built with assistance of UNIDO. Their subjects are being taught by visiting faculty from SFDAC.

Internship

The Department sent its students to various textile and processing industries for five weeks internship during summer holidays in third academic year. The Department of Textile Engineering has received membership of the Textile Institute, Manchester, UK, which links textile-related setups, and textile Universities around the world. Members have benefited from monthly subscriptions to Journals and magazines, which provide latest information on trends and developments in textile engineering.

Currently, NED University is trying to develop linkage with China Textile University, Shanghai and other International Universities.