Innovation in Textile Industry / An Application in Knitted Fabrics: Delphi & Fuzzy-Ahp Analysis

The textile sector is one of the most important sectors for Türkiye’s foreign trade and domestic market. A significant value of exports is provided through the textile sector. Textiles have both historical importance and high socio-economic value not only for Türkiye but also for the world in today's conditions. In this context, important studies are being carried out on the political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental effects of textiles. The textile sector includes many different areas. It has many main areas such as yarn, weaving, knitting, home textiles, apparel and indirect sub-areas such as chemistry, design, printing and dyeing. This study focuses on the knitted fabric area, which has a significant share in the textile sector. On the other hand, competition is quite intense for such an important sector. The most important distinguishing factor of competition on a global basis is sen as technology. Businesses that carry out technology, research and development (R&D) activities and highlight innovation as R&D output provide competitive advantage. The research problem of this study can be expressed as revealing the obstacles to innovation in the textile sector enterprises in the field of knitted fabric and making a weighting with Fuzzy AHP analysis regarding these obstacles. The methodology of the study will be to carry out a study revealing the obstacles to innovation with the Delphi method after the literature review and bibliometric analysis and then weighting the obtained criteria with Fuzzy-AHP. The study has an original structure in terms of methodology. It also has high academic value due to being a field analysis. The findings of the study and suggestions for the public real sector and academia are expressed accordingly.

Keywords: Textile, Knitting, Fabric, Innovation, Bibliometric Analysis, Delphi, Fuzzy AHP