China Textile Institute (CTI) was renamed as Taiwan Textile Research Institute (TTRI) in September 2004. Taiwan Textile Research Institute(TTRI) has made a remarkable and revolutionary structure reform since January 2002, and transformed into a more visionary and innovative R & D teamwork framework as well as a more supportive administrative system. Since the fiber spinning building was completed and open in November 2001, TTRI has extended her service capability from fiber spinning, yarn formation, fabric formation, dyeing and finishing, apparel manufacturing, as well as textile testing. Undoubtedly, TTRI has integrated inside herself to consolidate her service strength and competitiveness in the domestic and international community.

In January 2005, five functional departments were merged into two major R & D departments, that is, Department of Raw Material and Yarn Formation, and Department of Product Development and Promotion. Three Centers, Center of Excellence (COE), Department of Testing and Certification (DTC), and Center of Industrial Economics, Intelligence and Training were set up.

DTC, TTRI has been serving textile industries over 49 years. Apart from the same services given by ITS, SGS commercial testing laboratories, DTC, TTRI is also capable of providing new textiles testing methods and apparatus. In particular, Functional Textiles Testing has been very popular in recent years and several testing apparatus have been developed by TTRI to assist industry to quantify their product performance to assure the quality of the products. The laboratory has been accredited by CNLA, TAF (Taiwan Accreditation Foundation) since 1998 and 55 test items have been accredited, including several functional testing items.

In addition to the textile testing, Certification Section of DTC has been formed in 2004 and has been certified by CBA, TAF to be a product certification body, based on ISO Guide 65. To strengthen international laboratory collaboration, TTRI has extended her contacts and established close relationships with several distinguished testing and notified bodies worldwide such as BTTG (UK), SATRA (UK), TUV PS (Germany), EMPA (Switzerland), STFI (Germany), Boken (Japan).

The Committee for Conformity Assessment of Accreditation and Certification on Functional and Technical Textiles was established in Nov. 2002. Fifteen specifed standards have been made and approved by the committee over the year 2003-2004 ,  including EMI Textiles; Waterproof and Breathable Textiles; General and Medical Antibacterial Textiles , and Quick Drying and Wicking Textiles etc. . The 15 members of the committee are composed of four leading textile companies in Taiwan who have been manufacturing functional and technical fibers, yarns, fabrics or garments, four leading textile-related R& D  institutes, three textile-related Universities, three governmental officers (MOEA, IDB, and BSMI), and one representing textile consumers. TTF will be responsible for issuing certification mark for functional textiles, whereas TTRI will be responsible for issuing certification mark for technical textiles.

All the test standards are free to download( http://www.ftts.org.tw/  ). If  you are interested to have any further information on any service indicated above, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Dr.Sheng-Fu Chiu
Director, Department of Testing and Certification
Taiwan Textile Research Institute

Tel：8862 22670321 ext.7000
Fax：8862 22689839
E-mail：sfchiu.0222@ttri.org.tw