The weaving is a process of formation of fabric with interlacement of two or more sets of yarns using a stable machine called loom. It is still not certain when the weaving process was introduced to human society. Except few activities elsewhere, the major developments in textile took place in England. In England the major shift from agriculture to woolen industry came in the 14th century. During all these years and a few hundred years after 14th century, the cloth was produced on hand-looms which were not equipped with fly shuttle.
In 1733, John Kay invented the fly shuttle which enabled weft to be inserted more rapidly. Edmund Cart Wright, an English clergy man, invented a so called powerloom which could be operated from a single point by two strong man. Fortunately steam power was available by 1765. Soon powerlooms were driven by steam and most of the wooden parts were replaced with iron. These looms then were stopped every few minutes in order to replace the empty weft pirns or cop in the shuttle and this limited the number of looms, a weaver could operate to about four. James Northrop, an English man invented an automatic weft transfer system which replaced the weft pirn in the shuttle without slowing or stopping the loom in 1889.
Similar developments took place elsewhere also, Ruti, a major loom maker of Switzerland manufactured automatic bobbin changing Northrop loom in 1898. After World War II, more productivity and efficiency were essential to overcome increasing labour costs in Western countries. Limitations of Shuttle Looms Despite the relatively high speed and efficiencies in loom with conventional picking, productivity of these machines will continue to be limited as long as their fundamental constructions involved the use of shuttle propulsion. It is known that the power required for picking is proportional to the cube of the loom speed. If the loom speed is increased from 200 to 300 picks per minute, the power requirement would increase by a factor of (3/2) 3 i.e. 3.4 times approximately.