Abstract:
The textile industry has been identified as one of the key industries which could spur industrial
growth in Kenya. Efforts are being made by the Kenyan government and other institutions to revive the
textile industry. One area which could contribute towards the revival of the Kenyan Textile industry could
be the optimization of the cotton processing in Kenya. Cotton processing includes ginning, spinning,
weaving and wet processing. In cotton spinning, the Kenyan industry uses ring and rotor spinning
technologies. While ring spinning is the traditional spinning process, rotor spinning has established itself
as a great competitor especially when dealing with course counts. This paper looks at the quality of cotton
rotor spun yarns, in comparison with the uster standards. While the Kenyan cotton lint reported good
quality characteristics when compared to Uster standards, the quality of the rotor spun yarn was poor
especially for yarn evenness and hairiness. It is therefore recommended that the rotor spinning process
adapted to spin the Kenyan yarn should be carefully evaluated so as to unearth the sources of the
shortfall in yarn quality
