Employees At Whiteville Plant
Are A Very Special Group
(Continued From Page One)
Consulenze Industrial!, an Italian
firm owned by Emanuele Bondi, an
Italian inventor and engineer who
invented the system.
The Whiteville employees, most of
whom have been with the company
since the plant opened in 1973, have
overcome numerous obstacles in
perfecting a very complicated
process, according tp W. C. Flake,
general manager.
pre-determined lengths and
embedded into a backing which has
been previously coated with a
plastic material. One block or
“stack” of cloth will produce 90 6’x9’
or 8’X10’rugs or 180 4’x 6’rugs.
After the fabricating process is
completed, the warp is removed
from each rug. The rugs are then
sent to Eden for washing, shearing,
fringing or sergirig, cutting, inspect
ing, warehousing and shipping.
“First, the process had to be
modified before full-scale
production could be achieved. Then
these people had to be trained in an
extremely complex system which
uses electronic equipment. The
really hard part, however, was
achieving and maintaining high
quality.
‘Each step in the production of
these rugs is absolutely critical and
must be done correctly. That means
that every single employee at the
Whiteville Plant knows the im
portance of his or her job and per
forms accordingly. They have all
• made up their minds to maintain a
high degree of first quality rugs and
that’s exactly what they are doing
and are going to continue to do.
There’s nothing that can’t be done
when you have a group like this, with
a combination of teamwork and de
termination,” Flake said.
“This is where these employees
have outdone themselves. They
themselves have set goals for
quality for 1978 and have shown that
they are determined to meet these
goals. I’ve never seen anything like
the teamwork and determination
they have.
“They are just outstanding in
every way. In safety—no lost time
accidents since 1974, in maintaining
high quality, in cooperation, in
everything,” Flake said.
The system is indeed quite
complex. First, the pattern is
scanned by an electronic computer
device which transmits the design
onto punch tape. The punch tape is
used to select the colors for the de
sign which will be woven on a loom
utilizing electronic equipment.
The cloth is then folded into a
“stack” which can be up to 10 feet
high. This huge “stack” of cloth is
put on a fabricating machine in such
a way that the ends of yarn are cut to
ADDIE MITCHELL, left, 3"
cess as folder operators.
NATHANIEL McKAY,
nician, and ARTHALIA S'
DIANNE STOCKS, scanner operator, begins the process which will
result in beautiful rugs.
i ii’tf
IP
BOBBY REESE removing warp from finished rug.
DORIS FOWLER,
er, left, and BILLY LEWI»
operator.
THE MILL W
HiS