The long winding road to Industry 4.0
The apparel industry may be reaching the end of an era. Its linear supply chain is under pressure to go circular. The amount of waste it generates can in no way be considered optimal. There must be a better way. This is the thinking inspiring innovation at large and small organisations and among seasoned and neophyte players alike
From steam-powered to electrical, and then to electronics, each new turn of the industrial revolution has brought higher yields and lower costs, in a word, progress. The next step is said to be the digital revolution, aka industry 4.0. For apparel applications, the challenge is that these new technologies are mostly virtual whilst the industry they seek to transform still relies heavily on manual manufacturing.
Attempts to digitise, streamline, automate and accelerate various stages of the denim industry supply chain have been under way for years. New technologies have increased yields and helped lower energy and water use, thereby reducing costs. But they generally address a single phase of a very long process. Stringing them together is seen as a first step towards the factory of the future.
Laundry 5.Zero, Jeanologia’s answer to the need for integration, also saves quantities of water and chemicals. Combining a series of machines including laser and ozone finishing, it draws on many of the innovations the company based in Valencia, Spain has introduced since it launched laser finishing in 1994. “The entire system generates only 1 litre of water per jean made,” says the company’s marketing manager Carmen Silla. The system represents an important investment for a company, but it can also help bring down costs, she says.
Laundry 5.Zero is a key element of a platform Levi Strauss rolled out in 2018 known as Future-led Execution (F.L.X.). This operating model enables the brand to stock unprocessed items and apply various types of finishing as called for by sales or trends, when needed, via the automated system developed by Jeanologia. This can now be done anywhere in the world, and even in the middle of the desert, says Ms Silla, referring to the Levi Strauss facility located in Henderson, Nevada.
This solution makes it possible to shorten time to market. The rise of e-commerce, and its impact on consumer attitudes, is one of the more disruptive technologies to have hit the apparel industry. Online sales remain low, accounting for 14% of total sales in the US in 2019, according to a report by research organisation Digital Commerce 360. In France, industry federation FEVAD estimates that online sales represented 10% of all commerce in 2019. In fashion, though, online sales are growing fast; they were up 18.5% in 2018 and now represent 34.4% of US apparel sales, as Digital Commerce 360 data indicates.
Now that the internet has made it possible to sell directly to consumers, the next logical step is then to tailor a product to the needs of each individual, optimised by new technologies, or industry 4.0. Unspun, a start-up based in San Francisco and Hong Kong, is seeking to do just that with its customised, inventory-free, on-demand manufacturing service for jeans.
“We started with jeans and with the issue of fit, which we think makes the most sense as it fills a gap in the market,” Walden Lam, a co-founder, tells Inside Denim. “We seek to address the needs of consumers who have difficulty finding jeans that fit and eco-conscious customers who want to know where their garments are made.”
Founded in 2017, the young company sells through its website but also has a permanent store in San Francisco and opens temporary shops in Hong Kong. The physical stores allow the brand to take a 3D scan of a customer to create a custom fit product (sold at $250). Manufacturing is then mostly traditional, Candiani supplies the denim fabrics, cutting is automated, but sewing manual. The jeans are made in the San Francisco area for North American customers, and in China for Hong Kong clients. Thousands have been produced, says Mr Lam. Unspun’s launch range offers only raw denim styles, but the company is looking into the possibility of adding ozone and laser finishing to future products.
The truly game-changing technology Unspun is working on is the possibility of weaving jeans on demand. Mr Lam says that nine engineers are currently developing a 3D-weaving machine capable of manufacturing a pair of jeans from the legs up. The goal is to “stay true to the denim heritage” by making a true denim fabric with an indigo warp and an undyed weft. This is a major challenge for the team, and Mr Lam admits that “the result may push the boundaries of traditional denim”. Unspun has three prototype weaving machines in tests, but various technical details have yet to be ironed out. The company would like to be able to commercialise the first machines towards the end of this year.
Automated sewing
Despite its diversity, the jeans market is largely dominated by variations of five-pocket styles. This has enabled the industry to automate a certain number of sewing operations, specifically back pockets and bar tacks. Moving beyond these very basic steps is proving difficult. “Admittedly, robotics can assist workers, however full automation in our sector is nearly impossible to achieve because of the many stitching details, customisation options, variety of styling along with other aspects that cannot be easily handled by automated processes or machines,” says Munir Ahmed, Genesis director and co-owner of M&J Group, based in Bangladesh.
This is what Softwear Automation, a maker of robotic garment manufacturing machines, is also finding. In its early days, the Atlanta-based start-up tried automating the side seams of jeans, says Pete Santora, chief commercial officer. But the company found this did not meet manufacturers’ needs. The machinery did not fit into the supply chain and did not solve some of the more challenging aspects of jeans production, such as sewing waists or integrating zippers. Automating a single stage of the process is not enough to bring factories back to the US or Europe and does not have a significant impact on time to market, staff, carbon footprint or need for shipment, he says.
Research and development at Softwear Automation is now focusing on T-shirt manufacturing. “It is more complex to manipulate a knit fabric than a denim one, but T-shirts have fewer operations with less overall complexity compared to jeans. Jean automation will also greatly benefit from the automation of T-shirts as many of the operations are similar,” says Mr Santora. “We have automated all the individual operations for T-shirts and devised a new way to sew in the round which gives us a much greater range of styles. Once we implement that technology into a factory we will begin applying it to new products like jeans.” The company says it has also developed a method to prevent the fabric from wrinkling. Mr Santora believes the T-shirt producing machines could be ready for launch later this year and has its eyes set on producing nearly one third of all T-shirts, or one billion, in the US in near on-demand conditions.
In the long term, Softwear Automation is betting on the possibility of building micro-factories. “A retailer could install a manufacturing unit in its distribution centre or warehouse, which could help lower minimums,” he says. This he believes could work well for jeans as much of their added value is in finishing.
Tomorrow’s micro-factories
Smaller on-demand facilities are seen as one way to address the issue of overstock in fashion. Excess garment inventory is estimated to be on average 30% of production, some say it has even reached 40%, and this does not include waste produced before sewing.
The installation of agile manufacturing units in warehouses relieved of excess stock is the plan that Bill Grier, CEO and CTO of AM4U Inc (Apparel Made for You) is working on. His Purchase Activated Manufacturing (PAM) concept separates the traditional garment manufacturing supply chain into two phases. The first run of a product range would be made conventionally, offshore. Further runs would be programmed according to actual demand and manufactured on site, in just a few days. “The first factory fills the shelves, the second replenishes stock based on point-of-sale data. Our micro-factory can occupy the space of former extra inventory in a distribution centre, which then becomes a replenishment centre,” says Mr Grier.
The technology developed by AM4U relies on a colouring process that is said to use frequency instead of inks, something to do with a physical property of materials that is akin to stored energy. “This colouring process is waterless and chemical-free and it’s fast, a colour can be changed in two minutes,” says Mr Grier. The process can be applied to natural fibres, after application of a patented resin coating. The actual colouring process has yet to be finalised, as Mr Grier says the hand feel is not quite right.
The system has been tested in the US by a manufacturer of children’s pyjamas specialising in licensed movie and toy characters. “The unit was able to produce up to 174 items a day based on data provided by stores,” says Mr Grier. The PAM process can also be applied to denims, he says. Trials were conducted on jeans made in cotton with 20% Repreve, a recycled polyester by Unifi. “They felt like real denims and the print washed down like on any jean,” he says.
These innovative manufacturing processes, when ready, do however require that the fashion industry rethinks its approach to product design. Mr Santora mentions the possibility of reducing the number of seams in a product. Mr Grier believes that fashion has up until now been defined essentially by cut, or style, and that this is now shifting to decoration, or colour. These views might not be shared by all.
New tools of trade
Many stages of the product design process have already been digitised, but challenges remain with regards to quality of rendering or a team’s computer skills. The newest software programs seek to digitise the entire process from first sketch to final prototype. This is believed to help reduce the inordinate amounts of time, energy, materials and transportation dedicated to product development.
Myr (Match Your Rags) has gradually expanded the possibilities of its design software program launched by industry veterans in 2017. New features include an upgraded graphic engine to achieve “the real effect of dyeing and garment washing,” as Valter Celato, a co-founder, tells Inside Denim. The company has also shifted from 2D to 3D rendering on a transparent avatar, to offer designers more freedom and the ability to test an idea without making a prototype. It is also working on an application for shops that will offer various customising options and will enable retailers to place orders directly, he says. Ultimately, Myr seeks to shift one phase of manufacturing to industry 4.0 by providing an energy, time and money-saving digital solution to product design.
Design options are a part of the digital laser finishing devices developed by Italian laser specialist SEI Laser, based in Curno. The new Matrix system launched at ITMA last year includes 3D design software, laser patterning, automated cutting, stacking and tagging. “This solution can be useful for on-demand manufacturing as it can reduce the design and sewing process to two days, and there is no need for water or chemicals,” says sales manager Andrea Monti. A maker of laser equipment for many industries, SEI says its technology is up to three times faster than conventional machines.
Welcome to the cloud
Major suppliers of digital and automated apparel industry solutions, including Gerber, in the US, and Lectra, in France, have developed software and machines that are increasingly integrated into a single end-to-end platform. With more progress in technology, these programs are moving to the cloud and are being offered by subscription, the Software as a Service or SaaS model. “This means brands no longer need to necessarily invest in IT infrastructure,” says Yvonne Heinen-Foudeh, marketing and communication director for Gerber Technology. The company’s answer to changing market trends is a fully integrated end-to-end ecosystem, which features CAD, 3D, PLM and industry 4.0-enabled smart machines. “Our new software subscription offering is another example of how we give our customers the power they need to compete and win in today’s on-demand world,” she tells Inside Denim.
Many of these solutions are designed to simplify and streamline the supply chain to make it possible to produce on demand and closer to the buyer. Though they address many key stages of the design and development process, the actual apparel manufacturing stage remains mostly conventional and manual.
This issue currently verges on the critical, as demand for experienced sewers is high. Lack of seamstresses and sewers may reduce the probability of seeing factories returning to the Europe and the US, but it may also impact the future of manufacturing in China.
Automation is one solution. “Manufacturing could conceivably be relocated to the West, but only if on-demand becomes important. If a product is cheaper to make in Asia, there needs to be a good business model to move it to Europe or the US,” says Pete Santora. He points out that adidas is transferring its highly automated Speedfactories in Germany and the US to Asia, which suggests that technology alone will not change the global supply chain. Sewers may remain in high demand as Softwear Automation looks to automate various peripheral operations related to sewing, such as the placement and movement of fabric.
Building tomorrow’s supply chain will admittedly be a long process. “The industry is in transition,” says Ms Heinen-Foudeh, at Gerber. “We need to change not only the industry’s work methods but also its mindset,” adds Carmen Silla at Jeanologia.
The next step to making better jeans could be in the new solutions addressing size and fit. These are, for Walden Lam at Unspun, two of the biggest pain points for customers. This could lead to the creation of small manufacturing units tailored to produce on-demand. It could also be just nibbling at the edges of what industry 4.0 will turn out to be in the denim industry.
