StitchWord Editorial Issue June 2016

The way Ethiopia is being promoted by the US retailers and the World Bank, it seems it will not take much time before the country develops into a major sourcing destination...

I have not seen or heard of many Indian companies moving out of their comfort zones to establish factories outside the country... Arvind Mills with its denim plant, Indorama with its polyester plant and beating them is Kanoria Chemicals & Industries which has already inaugurated a denim factory, the first in Ethiopia, with an annual capacity of 12 million metres; and Raymond with its garment factory, and many more have already started due diligence and have assigned people and resources to the project...

What surprised me even more is the interest of Bangladesh entrepreneurs, many of whom are seriously contemplating starting factories there, and why not! The country is young and full of anticipation, offers lot of scope for investment in cotton cultivation and hydro energy, a special duty-free access to the US through AGOA and EU market under EPA, besides competitive labour wages (around US $ 50), improving infrastructure and an industry-savvy Government.

If that is not enough to entice the businessmen, then there are US retailers and brands who are taking delegations to Ethiopia with a promise to fill their factories. A 27-member garment exporter’s team has been selected for an investment trip to Ethiopia from Bangladesh; and last I heard was that DBL, a US $ 250 million exporter from Bangladesh, has already earmarked US $ 100 million investment and factory to begin production in late 2016.

Well-known company of Egypt, Velocity of an Indian entrepreneur Sidharth Singa has already started production in Ethiopia with around 2,000 employees… He has plans to take the head count to 10,000 employees. Alameda Textiles has similar plans to take the head count to 11,000 from 5,500 today. The list goes on… It all sound very exciting and I will surely give you my update in the next couple of weeks with a story on latest developments in Ethiopia.

I was in the USA recently to attend the Texprocess Americas at Atlanta. It is always exciting to meet friends and colleagues from around the world and catch-up on latest trends in market and technology. This time I met many interesting people in the e-commerce and bespoke segment.

These are the two areas that are growing and many retailers/brands are aggressively looking at these options to attract customers who are increasingly becoming difficult to please. Technology providers are also making efforts to keep pace with new challenges in the segment. Another segment that was under debate and direction for constant innovation is Robotics in apparel manufacturing... This issue carries an analysis of some of the interesting technologies that drew attention.

The issue also takes a deep look at how to handle concerns of first-hour productivity by StitchWorld after much deliberation with industry experts in the article Combatting First-hour Productivity Woes. A new series has been initiated from this issue onwards, appropriately titled TechRead, which will update our readers on books, both recent and classics that can help run factories more efficiently by brushing up your understanding of both management/production techniques and technologies.

StitchWord Editorial Issue May 2016

‘Industry 4.0’, is a name that I first heard at TEXPROCESS Germany in 2015, to lure the fourth generation back into apparel manufacturing. And I am now at TEXPROCESS Americas to witness some of the disruptive technologies that the concept is indicative of. It is said that 70-80 per cent of jobs in the present format will disappear in the next 20 years and there will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear if there will be enough jobs left in the apparel manufacturing. It may seem that the time is too far away, but the impact of it will be felt much sooner...

Look at what happened to Kodak’s 170,000 employees which used to sell 85 per cent of all photo paper worldwide. Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they got bankrupt due to digital camera. Welcome to the 4th ‘Industrial Revolution’…

Software will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years. Uber is just a software tool, they don’t own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world. Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don’t own any properties. How much time would you give the software solution and the hardware (robot in this case) to understand the suppleness of the fabric and also to pick and align and sew all parts together?

Already the computer arm has been built which is doing few of the operations and also the computer designing. Virtual sampling of the garments is taking away months of labour time...; now the process can be achieved in real time. I have access to many articles in which it is claimed that the jobs in law (lawyer), medicine (general medics and surgeons), nursing, drivers, insurance agents, etc. will be lost to computers.

The 3D printing technology deserves special mention since the price of the 3D printer is coming down and also it will become 100 times faster, and the first casualty would be the spare parts industry... It is claimed that by 2027, 10 per cent of everything that’s being produced will be 3D printed. Imagine all major shoe companies will start 3D printing of shoes... The traditional concept of fibre to fashion might just change; synthetic wearables will be produced directly from 3D printers without going through fibre to fabric process, which will turn out to be a ‘wasteful’ activity! The possibility of dyeing a fabric without water is already happening in some parts... Self-cleaning garments are already here; just few shakes will do the same job of litres of water! Waterless (or water mist-based) dyeing and processing of fabrics and garments will be common in coming years... There are many other areas that are undergoing transformation and ‘Industry 4.0’ may actually be on the way!

In the meantime, Asian countries are still struggling with challenges that are basic. In India where apparel manufacturing has always been a male-dominated domain, though ironically women operators are a preferred lot, few women have broken free of the gender stereotype and are successfully manning the production floor. StitchWorld talked to three such women who believe that they are equal if not better than men on the shop floor... Enjoy the article ‘Women who broke gender stereotypes in apparel manufacturing industry’ and let us know a few more who deserve to be applauded for the work they are doing.

After the series on whether HR is becoming more important than Technology, which received tremendous response from our readers, we are initiating a new debate – Are we overdoing welfare at the cost of human development? Also a must-read, our industry expert Anand Deshpande, Founder & CEO – Admaa Consulting, talks about shop floor control in apparel production in this issue.

StitchWord Editorial Issue April 2016

I have been saying time and again for a long time now that the technology providers need to come forward to support small and medium manufacturers to make them more productive and efficient, just like they did for the garment exporters in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

There is no better platform to understand it better than at garment technology fairs happening around India. And true to expectations, the recently concluded GTE was visited mostly by the small manufacturers, not only from Delhi and around, but also from faraway places like Indore, Meerut, Varanasi, Jaipur, Kolkata and even from small centres in the south of India.

The fact remains that India has just 200 top garment manufacturing companies that account for around 70% of the exports from this country and only 20 domestic manufacturers worth mentioning in the domestic arena, and these elite companies are already in the radar of the technology providers, who service them well.

I am not saying that they should not lure the top-end companies; all that I am driving at is that these top-bracket companies don’t need to be at local fairs. They sponsor their trips to international fairs to show them their latest machines. This time around 120 companies have got sponsorship from their Japanese principals for JIAM.

The fairs in India are relevant for the smaller companies or job-workers who want to grow but fail because, for one, they do not have enough managerial skills to grow; and secondly, lack technical support. In both these cases, I think the technology suppliers can play a major role and ignite the second phase of development in the Indian garment manufacturing industry!

Another strong belief that I have is that today, digitisation, more than automation, is the need of the industry that has put basic technology in place… To justify automation, one needs to have the right volumes to get a decent ROI. I am sure the technology suppliers will have many more reasons to make you go for automation, but for me it is primarily about saving on labour and achieving certain quality, which with all due respect is also achievable by a good and trained operator. Of course, since the labour is quite cheap, letting go off a few of them will not make a substantial impact on the cost.

Now, digitisation of the organisation is altogether a different matter… It helps increase quick delivery, offers better price to the customer through better managed business, and helps achieve higher productivity and efficiency. Although everyone agrees that digitisation is important, but a mistake most companies that are getting into digitisation commit while imbibing the IT technology, is investing in creating a strong front-end which impresses all, but fails to deliver. What is required is an equally strong back-end interface to support the front-end.

All international companies have now allocated huge budgets to make the entire company go digital and these budgets are divided smartly over the entire chain from front-end to the back-end for optimal results… The right synchronisation of people and solutions is the answer to take the company towards a path of growth. You may get an order directly in your ERP system with a copy to all departments. But how well it is understood by the people responsible and how efficiently, regularly and diligently they pick up the required directions to execute the style, is entirely a different matter. The smooth and effective translation of communication and quick action on the same is what makes an organisation and defines the success of a digital initiative.

Achieving excellence in the manufacturing of a product is one thing, but ensuring that systems are in place to guarantee that the deliveries are on time and pre-production goes as per schedule, is another thing all together.

StitchWord Editorial Issue March 2016

Another year, another GTE and 4 days of hectic display of technology… For me, more than seeing new technology, which we also get to do at other international technology fairs, it is the excitement of meeting old friends from the technology companies and interacting with the industry which is the attraction. The four days, right at the starting of the year, sets the tempo of what to expect from the industry and also presents an insight into the minds of players from all segments on the way forward…

While some real cutting edge technologies are waiting to be unfolded at GTE, the rest is merely the fight over cost of technology. Now manufacturers have also become knowledgeable and it is heartening to see serious discussions around ‘total cost of ownership’ while procuring some technology. Technology suppliers have to continuously reinvent themselves to remain in the limelight and not get marginalized by ‘happening’ management practices that promise results without the investment in technology…

The serious buyers are stretching the suppliers in threadbare discussions on value of technology. Frivolous technology features can no more win brownie points. Although I am a bit worried about the current scarcity of technology expertise and the dwindling role of technologists in apparel factories…
In a thought-provoking article Dr. Prabir Jana has questioned the positioning of a technologist in an apparel manufacturing setup… He analyses the role of a technologist, and how most of the roles have now been outsourced to agencies/technology providers who have expanded their role from mere providers of technology to full-service providers with special divisions working to support the companies through the process of selection and maintenance of the technology.

In the age of core competency, if the IT companies can outsource data centres to the cloud, why not technology outsourcing? Ultimately jobs should be done most efficiently and effectively; and if outsourcing a technologist’s role to ‘experts’ works for everyone…, then why not?
How can we forget the practice of outsourcing ‘cutting jobs’, where small manufacturers hire services of cutting masters who move from factory to factory carrying along their straight knives or around the corner shop ‘kaaj-button’ (button hole and button sew) guy doing the jobwork for some sewing fabricator?

Pondering over, be it in-house expertise or outsourced, technology continues to play an important role in mass manufacturing segment… I am confident that the role of technologist will never lose its importance… What is happening is the realigning of core roles within the industry at large.
It’s time to celebrate the technology and the technologist… Look forward to seeing you at GTE and will be more than happy to take the discussion forward…!

StitchWord Editorial Issue February 2016

If we are really serious about the future of garment manufacturing and export industry, then we should be concentrating on developing new players who are serious about manufacturing. Just improving what we already have is not going to get us too far…, fortunately we now have the right tools in ‘Make in India’ and ‘Skilling India’ initiatives.

To utilize the opportunities and explore new possibilities under both the schemes…, ‘out of the box’ measures need to be taken. Nothing can be achieved by cocooning ourselves and staying put in one place, always thinking inwards. We need to move out beyond our confines and comfort zone to address growth bottlenecks.

No one says that it is an easy path, but that’s what we (garment exporters) know how to do and do it well… No doubt, we will have to face many of the infrastructural and resource bottlenecks but that can always be resolved by using the right tools now available to us.
I have said in my earlier editorials that before we blindly get into a ‘mad’ rush to set up manufacturing units, it would be better to first get our house in order… I frankly feel that the first thrust should be on ‘Make India’ before we head-on into implementing ‘Make in India’. The three areas that need attention are: ‘Clean India’, ‘Healthy India’ and ‘Corruption-free India’. If these three areas are taken care of, then all other requirements for sustainable growth of manufacturing will follow automatically.

With a cleaner country other infrastructural issues and bottlenecks will fall in line. ‘Healthy India’ is about a vision of a physically and intellectually strong country where every citizen is aware of personal hygiene, health care and need to be educated. It is often said the real wealth of this country is its people…, but weak and illiterate masses can be constraining chains to growth. Again a corruption-free system will only support the tools that can make India a stable economic growth juggernaut.

The direction in which the Government is moving, strongly suggests that the era of Government funding and subsidies for business houses and industry segments is over; in fact, the Commerce Minister has clearly said so in so many words. The Government has started its campaign to facilitate better processes for ease of doing business for new entrepreneurs. I expect the budget to remove advantages the rich have enjoyed on their wealth and earnings…; now they need to look beyond the safe savings!

Bihar, Orissa, and North Eastern states are waiting to be explored for the opportunities that they have in garment manufacturing… The Government has shown the way by setting up textile and apparel parks and even opening skill centres in these regions. Now the industry has to come forward and take up the challenges… By developing these areas, the industry will create fresh beds of production.

Everyone is talking about China letting go of its garment manufacturing business, and a recent study by McKinsey says that 30 per cent of sourcing directors are looking to hike up buying from the country over the next five years, making it the third preferred sourcing destination after Bangladesh and Vietnam... But as an industry are we ready for the business? I come back to where I began… We have to create more manufacturing competencies and develop new players… that is the only way the country can live up to the expectations of the global community and also realize the latent potential in regions yet unexplored or underutilized.

StitchWord Editorial Issue January 2016

In an evolving industry, the evolution of technology and management tools cannot be far behind..., in fact they are the engines of evolutions supporting the industry to stay ahead and prepared for all the challenges.

As we enter in the New Year, the team reviews various subjects of focus for StitchWorld over the past one year where eight clear directions have emerged – IT, Sustainability, Less Explored Products, Technology for Value Addition, Automation, IE, Quality Management, and Bonding & Welding... These directions are indicative of how the industry is moving ahead to stay competitive.

In 2015, SW took a deep look at how technology providers and industry are better using IT solutions to add value to their operations. From virtual prototyping to appbased solutions to M2M communication, a lot has been happening in this area... Our Retrospect takes the reader through the various articles that deal with the subject. Sustainability is today perhaps the most discussed topic in all spheres and the garment industry has also been evaded with ways to keep systems, processes and factories sustainable. Efforts are at both ends – at industry-level and technologylevel, and with an intelligent synergy of both, companies are successfully taking the sustainability route to growth.
For an industry looking at options for ‘differentiating’, SW has identified some new products that have the potential to give a competitive edge. Also in focus is technology for value addition..., after all India cannot run away from its core strength; and how to get better, faster and more economical results in value addition, is the key.

Today, no industry can ignore the need for automation and over the year many articles lay out the various interventions and technologies that help in automating operations for both better productivity and quicker response time. A detailed series on IE and the various roles and responsibilities of the IE department threadbare areas that earlier did not even exist, like ‘ergonomics’.

The major goal of any manufacturing company is to produce quality products and the same is equally important in a garment factory, if not more... SW has dwelled on various ways to manage quality and how to implement QMS in factories. We have been talking of Bonding and Welding now for some time and the concept is growing bigger by the day... New developments of 2015 are discussed in some penetrating articles. I firmly believe that the technology is here to stay and co-exist with traditional sewing.

StitchWorld will continue with its journey of discovery to talk about new innovations, management tools and also benchmark practices. As always, I invite my readers to share new ideas and also suggest topics that they would be keen to read about. Wishing all of you a very busy and fruitful year ahead. Happy New Year...!

StitchWord Editorial Issue December 2015

ITMA this year really caught my attention… The biggest textile show in the world, the17th edition had 1,691 exhibitors from 46 countries, showcasing spinning, weaving, knitting, dyeing, finishing and value add machines, spread out in over 11 halls for 8 long days. However, I chose to visit only 4 halls in my four days’ visit and it turned out to be the right decision because trying to see more than that would have made me lose out on companies which opened up to me to showcase their innovations… The technologies that I identified to explore for my readers were knitting, digital printing and finishing machines and I was happy that I got plenty of innovations to see.

The knitting segment presented a true innovation, touching different dimensions and I do not still understand why this simple an idea was not thought of earlier… One company directly used sliver for knitting fabric while another used fibre roving to knit fabric…, eliminating the need of spun yarn… Just visualize how much it will impact the output price of the knitted product as one machine does multiple operations, saving time and money. The impact will further increase business opportunities of the knitted segment which today already comprises 55 per cent of the export basket. Of course, how it could impact the spinning industry is another discussion point all together…

Warp knitting is another area that is developing fast and one will not have to wait for too long to see it replacing weaving in manmade fabrics… Much faster, sturdier and endowed with stretch, one can see the results in the woven fabric produced and used now in the sports industry… In flat knitting, players outplayed each other with improved technologies that are capable of coarse knitting in multiple gauges and producing better and more complicated designs… I can see flat knitting going a notch higher on
the fashion quotient.

Digital printing was another area where I found major disruptive changes… Single pass machines, where the speed equals the analogue printing, pigment dyes against expensive reactive dyes, analogue and digital together in one machine is another area… Steadier movement of fabric, shorter drying run for better print registration and colour quality are some of the directions that came out strongly. I won’t say that the problems are all solved, digital print still has to go a long way to be at par with analogue printing, but all indications confirms its growth… This year it occupied one complete hall, but by next ITMA I am sure it will have at least three halls…

You can read the technology details in our forthcoming issues of StitchWorld magazine… What I really missed was the 3-D printing. I really wanted to see at least few companies attempting to produce machine spares or the entire garment itself… However expensive the technology or the output is, it could have been a new beginning… Maybe next issue of ITMA in 2019 will have something to offer in these lines… However, the issue that bothered me a lot was that there were not many young people selling conventional technology and the older generation, although more experienced generally have no idea on M2M platforms or IOT integration in the machines… Some even got annoyed on being asked the reason for not moving in that direction… I think it is important for the wise and upfront players to give opportunity to enthusiasm and knowledgeable GenY technologists to present technology for tomorrow!