Textile and clothing industry is one of the oldest manufacturing industries and is a major contributor in the economic growth of developing countries. However, from past few decades, it has been criticised for its opaque, unsecured and untraceable nature of supply chain. Addressing these challenges, the paper proposes a system approach to introduce an item-centric secured traceability concept to monitor and control manufacturing processes and supply chain activities. In order to implement such secured traceability system, the paper describes the process for manufacturing, encoding and validating an innovative two-factor secured tag based on particle randomness that is printed on the surface of textile. Being micro-sized, the particles are easy to read and validate with pattern recognition. Further, as achieved through an uncontrolled manufacturing process, the randomness is unclonable to produce counterfeit tags. Furthermore, a sequence of experimental analyses has been conducted using various simulated scenarios to verify its applicability. A secured tag can be a low-cost and durable substitute for detachable, unsecured identifiers commercially available in the market.

Product security is one of the major concerns in the textile industry. Every year, fashion brands suffer significant loss due to counterfeit products. Addressing this, the paper introduces a secured tag for traceability and security of textile products. The proposed tag is unclonable, which can be manufactured using conventional screen-printing process. Further, it can be read using a smartphone camera to authenticate the product and trace its history. Consequently, imparting additional functionality to the textile through surface modification. To validate its applicability, the study experimentally investigates the durability and readability of the developed secured tag using three different binders on polyester and cotton textiles substrates. A comparison is presented with an in-depth analysis of surfaces and binders interaction at different stages of the secured tag lifecycle, i.e. before print, after print, after wash and after abrasion cycles. The methodology and findings of the study can also be useful for other manufacturing domains dealing with the printing process.

Traceability has emerged as a prime requirement for a multi-tier and multi-site production. It enables visibility and caters to the consumer requirements of transparency and quality assurance. Textile and clothing industry is one such example that requires traceability implementation to address prevailing problems of information asymmetry and low visibility. Customers find it difficult to access product data that can facilitate ethical buying practices or assure product authenticity. Besides, it is challenging for stakeholders to share crucial information in an insecure environment with risk of data manipulations and fear of losing information advantage. In this context, this study investigates and proposes a blockchain-based traceability framework for traceability in multi-tier textile and clothing supply chain. It conceptualizes the interaction of supply chain partners, and related network architecture at the organizational level and smart contract and transaction validation rules at the operational level. To illustrate the application of the proposed framework, the study presents an example of organic cotton supply chain using blockchain with customized smart contract and transaction rules. It finally demonstrates the applicability of the developed blockchain by testing it under two parameters. The proposed system can build a technology-based trust among the supply chain partners, where the distributed ledger can be used to store and authenticate supply chain transactions. Further, the blockchain-based traceability system would provide a unique opportunity, flexibility, and authority to all partners to trace-back their supply network and create transparent and sustainable supply chain.