Page 119 - Anthropometry, Apparel Sizing and Design

82 Anthropometry, Apparel Sizing and Design

3.5.2.3 Equipment

All potential hardware and software needs to be thoroughly benchmarked particularly
as there are updated ISO anthropometric standards for clothing. Unsurprisingly, given
the prominence of a national sizing survey, an organizer is likely to come under con-
siderable pressure to use equipment that may not be the best for conducting a survey,
or may be persuaded to purchase equipment before the requirements are fully under-
stood. This could distort the survey process and add to overall costs.

3.5.2.4 Data collection

As suggested earlier, it is extremely useful to allocate a unique barcode to each subject
on registration for a survey. This will help to ensure that discrete sets of subject data can
be tracked and assembled in the database. Further, although a seated scan was captured,
there were no resources available to develop the software for automatically extracting
measurements. (That capability is now available for clothing-specific applications.)

3.5.2.5 Data analysis
SizeUK undertook extensive basic data analysis on behalf of the industrial partners,
and while this produced a mass of statistical data in formats requested, partners really
only required RTW body size charts. However, as interest in using online tools has
since been received, further tools have been introduced to enable SizeUK license
holders to access the SizeUK database from their desktop and carry out customized
measurement analysis on a subset of the data based on their customer profile. These
tools are user-friendly and have been designed primarily for clothing retailers and
brands so that they can understand the overall size distribution of their customers, ana-
lyze the relationship between key measurements, and create size tables. In summary,
users can
create and save subsets of the database based on specific demographic and socioeconomic
l
criteria,
view statistical tables (min/max/mean/standard deviation/whole populations or 5th to 95th
l
percentile),
generate frequency distribution charts for any measurements,
l
view measurement definitions and images,
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produce measurement correlation charts for any two measurements and create size tables,
l
l analyze the frequency distribution both across the size range and within an individual size.
Sizemic Ltd.
3.5.2.6 Data sales
Most national surveys have typically sold their data, but each has addressed data
exploitation differently. For example, SizeUK estimated the value of the data and,
depending on the turnover of a client, contributed £40,000, £60,000, or £80,000. This
rather complicated the sale of data at a price smaller clients could afford, particularly
in the case of negotiations with very small clothing retailers and with individual fash-
ion designers (Bougourd and Treleaven, 2010).