Innovation, research and development

Innovation is considered to be very important by SGS Wool Testing Services. Many of the existing test methods are slow (and therefore expensive) and often not as accurate as people may believe. We have been heavily involved in:

• the development of the OFDA test method (which is now a full standard: IWTO-47)
• researching the application of image analysis to estimating fibre bulk
• contributing to the work on developing an OFDA medullation test method (IWTO-57)
• development work using the OFDA to measure on-fibre dirt and grease
• a wide range of work on the application of Length After Carding to both scoured and greasy wool
• developing appropriate statistical techniques for comparing instruments and test methods (now incorporated in IWTO-0)
• contributing significantly to progressing Near Infra Red Analysis techniques from the quality control environment to the certification processes (incorporated in IWTO-19)
• introducing alternative low-cost instruments for Staple Length and Strength measurement
• use of the OFDA for automatically discriminating between fibres such as wool, mohair and cashmere
• resolving issues connected with efficient and effective laboratory conditioning of wool
• researching alternative methods of predicting processing performance of wool
• developing metrology systems for rapid and cost-effective on-farm measurements of fibre properties
• developing and validating a precision model for the use of OFDA2000 for greasy wool measurement
• validating the accuracy of the improved OFDA2000 grease correction algorithm
• developing the use of NIRA for the prediction of ash residuals in the yield test

Much of this work has been reported at IWTO conferences. See Technical papers