StitchWorld Editorial Issue May 2019

‘Smart Garment’ is now being talked about a lot in the industry, the market of which is expected to reach US $ 4 billion by 2024 with 45 per cent CAGR, according to ABI Research. This growth of smart garments is outpacing other categories in the domain of wearable technologies. Although the current developments of such clothing are based more on performance-wear and winter sports category around Western Europe, very soon it will encompass the whole gamut of the wearable segment.

As garments are becoming smarter, the differentiating line between a traditional garment and a garment with a gadget is getting blurred. CES 2019, the world’s premier show for not only consumer technologies but also innovators and breakthrough technologies, presented a number of smart garments that caught the visitors’ attention.

Mas Holdings, one of the most respected garment manufacturers of south-east Asia, has shown the path of transformation from the role of a contract manufacturer to becoming a technology company in the garment domain. The writing on the wall is clear; if the garment industry does not start dabbling with technology, the technology companies will start dabbling in garment making. With this strong message coming across, StitchWorld is introducing a new category ‘Smart Garment’ from this issue onwards, wherein we will showcase/feature the interesting developments from around the world, where technology is being used intelligently to make garments smart. In the current issue, we have discussed in detail about the award-winning smart garment, KJUS HYDRO_BOT Ski Jacket, which is claimed to be the first-ever ski jacket with wearable technology.

Digitalisation is another trend emerging faster than ever in the global apparel industry with more and more retail brands as well as apparel manufacturers embracing it. Recently, my team visited Lectra’s VIP Fashion Event held at its headquarters in Bordeaux, France. As per my brief, the attendees were made to realise the significance of digitalisation in the era of ‘hyper-connected consumers’. My team also conducted an exclusive interview of Lectra’s CMO Céline Choussy who emphasised on the significance of AI, ML, IoT, MTM and Robotics and how these concepts have turned into reality through Lectra’s cutting-edge solutions. You will find a detailed coverage of the same in the present edition.

Besides, this issue also highlights the challenges in 3D simulation where the industry’s top stalwarts in 3D share their views as to why the concept is not feasible for all product categories and how the users are miscalculating the areas of strength that 3D body scanning method actually holds.

StitchWorld Editorial Issue April 2019

StitchWorld magazine has just turned sixteen, a sweet journey that started in 2003 with technology and management for the sewn product industry. Its journey in the last five years has been very eventful due to various pressing changes in the industry and the technology ecosystem. The industry has grown beyond our thinking, and keeping pace with the industry we have also expanded our coverage to include woven, knitted as well as stitchless products and technologies alongside our core sewn product industry.

While Industry 4.0 is poised to revolutionise the technology offerings for the industry with smart factory in the horizon, garments are also getting smarter with each year passing-by. We have been covering Industry 4.0 technology very extensively during the last two years with encouraging response from the industry.

 Smart garments are part of the wearable technology system that are showing promise to disrupt the garment manufacturing industry. The way athleisure has disrupted the performance wear category, smart garment will do the same to commodity wear as well as luxury segment.

According to Wearable Technology Group, the three most dominant wearable technologies sold to consumers in 2018 have been smart watches/fitness trackers, earbuds/headsets and smart patches. Nevertheless, the growth of smart garments (from being negligible in 2018) will be faster going ahead than other categories and is likely to integrate with smart patches to form the single biggest category by 2023.

In our teaser article on smart wearables in February 2019 issue, we had reported how garments are merging with gadgets and stealing the limelight in world’s premier showcase CSE 2019. Keeping pace with the future and offering value to our esteemed readers, we have decided to cover smart garments also as a regular feature in our magazine from now onwards. The lead article by Prof. Prabir Jana (NIFT, Delhi) talks about an interesting concept about the use of wearable technology in workplace for augmenting planning accuracy.

Apart from wearable technology, our focus on sustainability is also highlighted in an article based on ‘waterless’ dyeing technology which talks about the eminent names supplying this technology. In a bid to continue with the retail technology write ups, this issue also entails how chatbots and artificial intelligence tools, designed to convincingly stimulate human conversation, are making a difference in the apparel retail industry.

We hope you will enjoy our new foray into wearable technology and smart garments; also please write back to us with your suggestions as well as report any interesting developments happening in the smart garment space.

StitchWorld Editorial Issue March 2019

Already so many garment manufacturing technology fairs happen in India, but the focus is still not realistic India is a mega country with diverse needs and every state is as big as Bangladesh if not bigger, so why question the number of garment manufacturing technology fairs happening in India…

Looking at it from another perspective, each Indian state has so many garment manufacturing hubs that every one of them deserves a separate fair… consider Meerut, Panipat, Jaipur townships in North of India that are still unrepresented at such fairs, and on similar lines, there are many townships in South and East of India which require a technology fair to bring the local industry up to date on latest hardware and software technologies.

The understanding is that these townships comprise smaller players whose needs are also met by very basic technologies, and at most through automation at basic level.

But the factors that are still ignored at these technology fairs are the technologies of the future and the knowledge forum, which start with Industry 4.0, moving on to AI, Data Analytics, VR, additive technology to robotics… a missing platform for understanding how these new systems/ technologies are going to impact the way the industry will work in the future.

Though technologies and discussion forums need not be part of every technology fair since only the big and organised companies would be keen to take cognizance of the newer set of systems and processes at present; for them, having one big technology fair which showcases a route map for the future in any one place within India would be very much reachable.

If today, we do not start updating ourselves on such solutions, in no time, we will find that the industry is left with only small producers that are largely unorganised and unable to cater to the demands of the growing retail in India… Hence, leaving the space empty for import of garments from global manufacturers that are hungry for work and are ready to invest time, energy and resources to meet the needs of an evolving Indian retail market

We are very clear on the future directions and soon you will find StitchWorld fulfilling the role of guiding the industry to address the future… a future which is sustainable and growth-oriented!

StitchWorld Editorial Issue February 2019

ASW is launched to give impetus to our journey as industry’s knowledge partner

Did you notice the change from the usual routine... We have for the first-time ever in the history of the magazine put on the front cover our sourcing show – Apparel Sourcing Week 2019. This highlights our thrust as a group, which understands the apparel industry and its intricate details comprehensively to give qualitative, industry-focused shows to India...

From our years of interaction and involvement with the global apparel and retail industry, we are well aware that it’s not just about manufacturing at a certain price, offering good quality or timely delivery but also about the marketing and product that make the merchandise sell and become the preferred choice for buyers... Apparel Sourcing Week is a boutique show that will provide a platform for such products.

We aim to fill in the requisite gaps and become the much needed bridge to bring Asian manufacturing under one roof for Asian markets along with the traditional markets, besides, allowing companies to interact and discuss business in an atmosphere that is charged and engaging.

No, we have not lost our focus to be the knowledge partner to the industry! In fact the focus is now even stronger and ASW is the first in the series of our planned shows. You can see everything related to ASW at www.apparelsourcingweek.com

With time, you will see many more shows coming up which will be niche and focused and targeted to specific group of people within the industry,based on the inherent understanding and needs of the segment. And technology can never be behind when talking of industry’s directions. In this issue, Team StitchWorld takes a closer look at today’s trend of how apparel businesses are working and being driven by technology trends like Artificial Intelligence, IoT, Beacon technology and a lot more.

Significantly, retailers have been making substantial investment in these technologies to be able to provide a seamless experience to their customers and manage business like never before. The first part of the article –‘Technology trends driving seamless retail’ – will take its readers through 15 retail technologies available in the market that are driving the current retail trend. The second part of the series covering the next set of 15 more such technologies will be included in the upcoming issue of StitchWorld.

The current issue also captures details on the recently concluded technology fairs – DTG and Garmentech – held in Dhaka and the interesting technologies that were there on display. The momentum towards technology in Bangladesh is indeed noteworthy and an inspiration for all manufacturing nations, including India.

StitchWorld Editorial Issue January 2019

New Directions for Industry in 2019
Starting a new year always brings in a sense of nostalgia. Besides reviewing the year gone by, it is a fulfilling experience to seek out directions and potential growth areas.

In technology, the one movement that I see as a potential trend going forward is the willingness to invest in robotics for factory management. Using robotics in sewing may still be far away but garment manufacturers have started looking at home-grown robotic systems in transportation, to save on labour.

Recently, Pearl Global installed robotic systems at its Chennai factory and is very optimistic of the results. I am sure many more factories will follow lead and invest in similar technologies. The days are gone when labour was abundant and cheap… now cost efficiencies are also dependent on how much labour saving can be done.

Another movement that I strongly see in the garment industry is what I had predicted years ago – the convergence of markets into one big marketplace. For a manufacturer, a market is one that is profitable and not necessarily an export market.

There is no debate on the fact that apparel buying in Western world has slowed down. Whereas the share of spending on clothing and footwear in total consumer spending in India is 6.7 per cent higher than what is seen in the US (3 per cent) and the UK (5.7 per cent). Also, the year-on-year expenditure growth in India at 12 per cent is more than double the anticipated global rate of 5 per cent.

In this scenario, is it not more viable to work with the Indian market rather than struggle with issues that are not really in the hands of the manufacturer, to be competitive in the export market, even as the market shrinks!

Every industry observer knows that the garment exports have been hit by many factors over the last two years, starting from demonetisation leading to liquidity crunch, followed by GST implementation and reduction in duty drawback rates. This is in addition to increase in wages of all these leading to the increase in cost of manufacturing.

The impact has been even greater due to the lack of any trade boosters such as the FTA with Europe. These factors, put together, have been a dent in competitiveness, of the global export industry in the past few years.

But last year, the impact of all these negative factors evened out, as GST refunds started coming in; the liquidity issues decreased and exporters learnt the hard way of how to survive on practically no duty drawbacks.

However, the factor that really brought cheer was the depreciation of the rupee, which meant that Indian exporters automatically became cheaper, without any extra effort.

This year has started on a positive note with crude prices, currency and other external influencing factors being stable. But the reality is that export is now very competitive and uncertain, so the best bet today is to address the challenges of local market and grow the business.

StitchWorld Editorial Issue December 2018

Apparel Sourcing Week 2019 – The new initiative from Apparel Resources

Apparel Resources, the publisher of StitchWorld and Apparel Online, has always explored ways to communicate with the industry, be it through in-depth articles in the magazines, workshops and seminars or through industry forums. Now the time has come to take another leap, and it gives me great pride to announce our latest initiative from Apparel Resources – the Apparel Sourcing Week 2019.

The concept is a first-of-its-kind platform to bring together the manufacturing excellence of countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam and Sri Lanka to India for the upward moving Indian retail market.

The growth of fashion in Indian retail is a story of multi-dimensional opportunities, and not only the traditional strongholds of retail, the metropolitan cities are seeing exponential growth in this domain, but also the Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities are showing affinity to branded clothing, resulting in the creation of a whole new market segment of people.

As of today, the Indian fashion retail is worth US $ 49 billion and is projected to reach US $ 75 billion by 2025. The market is being driven by a strength of 1.2 billion people of an average age of 29, having the purchasing power that makes for a robust economy that is projected to became the fourth largest economy in the world very soon and a potential market for manufacturing nations.

On one hand, this expanding market of people who have the purchasing power to indulge in fashion is pushing demand for regular basic garments, due to which one can see and also anticipate growth in categories like trousers, denim jeans, shirts and T-shirts.

What will see equal, if not bigger splurge in demand, are the products in the newer categories that cater specifically to the needs of the upward mobile millennials, like jackets, innerwear/intimatewear, athleisure, activewear/sportswear. Manufacturers will need to get their act together to be competitive and partner with retailers/brands from Indian retail and international players.

If global names like Zara, H&M, Mango, Guess, United Colors of Benetton, GAP, forever21, Levi’s, adidas, Nike, etc., have already made their presence felt, at least 100 more brands/ retailers are set to make their foray in this market in the next couple of years to cash in on the big opportunity. Alongside the global biggies coming up strongly, are the home-grown stalwarts, adding to the new-found market’s vibrancy and escalation.

The Apparel Sourcing Week ’19 will be held in the IT hub of India, Bengaluru, which also happens to be the nerve centre of Indian retail. Over time, Bengaluru has become the testing ground for all major retailers. Apart from its diverse demographic, retail executives say the city has a large white-collar workforce and tech-savvy consumers open to new ideas.The fact that Bengaluru is India’s tech and start-up hub, makes it easier to hire tech talent.

Excitement for the event is building up with retailers upbeat on the opportunity to see a unique and wide mix of manufacturers from Bangladesh, Vietnam and China with their equally diverse product portfolios under a single roof which is sure to make sourcing more exciting and dynamic.

StitchWorld Editorial Issue November 2018

China leads the way to ‘intelligent factories’

If India is thinking to ‘catch up’ with China in the near or distant future as a manufacturing destination… I very much doubt if that is possible!

While we are still caught up in generating employment at the grass-roots, Chinese manufacturers, with the pro-active support of the Government, are focusing on ‘intelligent sewing’ and ‘smart manufacturing’ concepts that are way beyond what Indians are looking at.

We all know that the most advanced machines and equipment from practically any industry are already being made in China and more interestingly, even in those jobs that require ‘hands’, China is thinking far ahead of other countries…

I can speak from my experience in the apparel industry… today not just the garment manufacturers but also the sewing machine manufacturers too are opting for automated manufacturing concepts and even robotic systems.

Though there are 800 sewing machine factories (it was around 2300, 10 years back) in China today, the movement is towards consolidation to bring the numbers lower but with better technology and higher precision, so as to control the entire world’s sewing needs.

The process has already started with identification and support to two major companies from China, capturing the best and most established European sewing machine manufacturers… bringing them into their fold. I am almost sure that in the next five years, the Japanese will also sell out to the enterprising Chinese companies and leave the garment machine manufacturing space, entirely to China.

The next phase of eliminating ‘hands’ has also begun, majorly to address the increase in wages that impacts competitiveness, by funding the ‘smart’ movement in earnest. The movement is not just about digitising the industry, but also about cutting the unnecessary cost and creating systematic changes… in other words, building ‘intelligent factories’ of the future.

The same was evident during my team’s visit to the leading Chinese sewing technology provider Jack which had a number of innovations to show to its visitors inside its ‘first intelligent factory’ of China. The company is a trailblazer in sewing machine manufacturing and visiting the factory was an eyeopener.

Since 2016, Jack has been organising Annual Overseas Distributors’ Meet and StitchWorld has had the privilege to be a part in all the editions. The way Jack hosts its hundreds of guests who come from all across the world is really commendable and appreciable. It only goes on to reflect the thought process of the company, which is well sorted and systematic!

Though industries such as automobile and IT have already started building smart factories in order to digitalise their processes and to keep a watch on every incident in real time, it is only now that the apparel industry is sensing the need for such factories to combat the rising cost challenges and avoid miscellany of information which they face due to the traditional approach. In this issue, we have covered an article based on expert opinion from garment and steel industries to know the practicality of smart factory concept in the apparel manufacturing sector.