The Indian apparel and textile industry (both export and domestic markets) recently reached the US $ 100 billion mark and continues to grow at a promising rate of around 9 per cent, reaching a turning point where the demarcation line between manufacturers, retailers and brands have blurred, prompting the need of reduced costs and speed to market, thereby marking critical changes in the sector. Lectra, the world’s leading technology solutions provider, hosted a seminar recently focusing on the changing needs of apparel industry in India and the solutions they can offer.
The seminar, which aimed at increasing interaction with existing customers, prospects, partners and schools in the Delhi-NCR area, was another in the series of seminars held in Tirupur and Bangalore in the past month to enhance face-time with customers, pan-India. The seminar brought together around 30 professionals from the NCR industry including representatives from Orient Craft, Pee Empro Exports, Radnik, Blackberry’s, to name a few companies. Dr. Prabir Jana, Professor, NIFT Delhi and the technical team of StitchWorld were also present at the interactive session.
The Lectra team stressed the importance of integrated solutions, which includes design, pattern making (2D and 3D), marker making, cut order planning, spreading, cutting solutions and PLM solutions. Addressing the industry, Dr. Hari Kenkare, Marketing Coordinator, Lectra explained, “Geographical orientation, speed to market, business model changes, safety issues and rising costs are some of the key challenges faced by the industry today and technology can help the companies propel towards the next generation of opportunities, that is where Lectra comes in to support their customers by continuously mapping the pulse of the market and devising solutions to give them a competitive edge.” Hari also emphasized that the conventional 5Fs which form the core of the industry today – Fabric, Figure (design), Fit, Finish and Finance – will no longer be the drivers of change in the near future, with the new 5S concept of Sync (collaboration), Sensors, Social commitments, Seamlessness and Sustainability, directing the industry to reinvent itself.
“Geographical orientation, speed to market, business model changes, safety issues and rising costs are some of the key challenges faced by the industry today and technology can help the companies propel towards the next generation of opportunities.”
Hari also demonstrated the development in shading function in marker making; manufacturers often had no option than to use fabric with selvage-to-selvage or centre-to-selvage shade variation. In manual marker layout, patterns are grouped and placed in similar shaded zones but computerized marker making module was unable to handle such requirements. Now Lectra marker making module Diamino will allow users to define shading zones, and the programmes will automatically arrange patterns in groups to ensure no shade variation between components in single garment. “This feature will help manufacturers tremendously where in spite of having CAD, manufacturers are forced to make marker manually due to shade variation problem,” said Dr. Prabir Jana. “Traditionally pattern making is considered to be one of the most cumbersome process as it requires a lot of modifications and aligning to achieve the perfect fit, now the measurements can be connected to the patterns via measurement charts and the flat 2D pattern can be converted to 3D and back again, these added functionalities not only make the life of a pattern maker much easier but also reduce the number of physical samples needed,” stated Dr. Hari.
Prasenjeet Shambharkar, Solutions Specialist at Lectra, who takes care of technical activities, processes and training activities also shared his experiences with customers and how Lectra is helping them to improve productivity, save fabric and reduce lead-time. Highlighting a significant achievement by one of their customers, who already had an integrated cutting solution, Prasenjeet shared that the main challenges faced by the company were marker efficiency, fabric and machine utilization. The company’s production data was analyzed on the parameters of marker efficiency, machine utilization, productivity (underlay paper, lay height, machine speed) and cutting quality to figure out how much can be improved on fabric saving after which it was integrated to the new technology, resulting in an increase in marker efficiency by 4 per cent which implies to around 400 kg of fabric saving per day. Width variation was another issue tackled by the new solution giving an added saving of 1 per cent. End loss of 10 cm was minimized to 4 cm by different spreading methods like block spreads, simple spreads and step spreads which also contributed towards fabric saving. “Conventionally a lot of manufacturers use single lay and single marker but in automation you can use various types of spreading methods according to the requirement to minimize end losses,” he explained.
“Conventionally a lot of manufacturers use single lay and single marker but in automation you can use various types of spreading methods according to the requirement to minimize end losses.”
Prasenjeet also gave the visitors an in-depth insight into the new Vector cutter machines that gives information about the cutter utilization, daily/weekly production and scope of improvement in cutting capacity via the productivity chart.
In a first of a kind revelation by a company Prasenjeet talked about the qualitative and quantitative parameters that Lectra follows while suggesting the most optimum solution for a customer. Service and maintenance issues; predictive maintenance were also discussed at length. It was interesting to learn that a Lectra machine is equipped with about 150+ sensors that transmit data in real time to the International Customer Support Centre and allows the specialists to predict servicing and preventive maintenance issues much before it actually happens and that majority of the problems are handled via continuous remote assistance.
Raising his concern over the practical training for the software, Sharad Jain from Radnik Exports enquired about the level of training required for CAD/CAM operators to efficiently use the software and machinery. Prasenjeet ensured him that the company’s training modules were customized to individual needs of the factories and the operators, which primarily captures data regarding the process and the skill set of the operator and then providing the optimum training module suitable to fill the gap.
The seminar was quite interactive and the visitors applauded this unique initiative and suggested for organizing such events more frequently as it helps in increasing awareness about the direction in which the industry is heading and what to look out for in the future rather than on just promoting the product.
