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.
Keyword Codes: J.6; K.4.2; K.4.3
Keywords: Computer-Aided Engineering, Social Issues,
Organizatorial Impacts
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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