Digitalisation is a slow process. And importantly, digitalisation is not an end-goal but an ever-changing, evolving process that – if a company is switched on – is never completed. Technology is constantly developing and there are always new ways to streamline and improve production processes.
Specifically, when it comes to product development in the textile, apparel and fashion industries, 3D technologies have become imperative. Whether it is in the design stage or the fitting stage, 3D visualisation software is streamlining manufacturing processes across the globe, reducing lead times and sampling while increasing satisfaction in sustainability efforts.
Assyst, part of Human Solutions Group, specialises in integrated computer-aided design (CAD) and product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions for efficient product development in the textile, apparel and fashion industries.
Human Solutions Group also includes Human Solutions – a body dimension data and ergonomic simulation in CAD for ergonomic vehicle design, sizing and fitting optimisation in the apparel industry – and AVM Solutions, a creator of enterprise resource planning (ERP) and integrated management systems aimed at reducing lead times in textiles, apparel and fashion.
Assyst’s Vidya software, for example, allows the user to create 3D clothing simulations that the company describes as ‘production ready’. Eva Fröhlich, marketing at the Human Solutions Group, says that the aim of the company and its technology, including Vidya, is to ‘speed up processes’. She continues: “3D is really the key technology to get that speed.”
This is because speed can help to make the manufacturing process more sustainable. Fröhlich notes: “If you speed up everything [in manufacturing], you have reduced the time you need to send the textile all around the world. For example, if your partners sit somewhere in Asia, it takes days or even weeks to just send the stuff to Europe.”
Thus, Vidya’s simulations eliminate the need for samples to be shipped from the manufacturer to the designer and encourages design experimentation and freedom.
This in turn can also reduce logistics and transport costs. She adds: “It’s all about time.” For example, the company’s Digital Fashionboard allows users to work together on designs in real time, irrespective of geographical location. The technology has been labelled as ‘the successor to the analogue mood-board’. Sketches, images and existing designs can be compiled and data from the company’s integrated PLM system is connected directly to it. Collaboration is something that is integral to digitalisation, as in the West, so is localised production.
Drivers
The need for increased localised production is one of the drivers behind digitalisation and the implementation of 3D technologies and microfactories, like that of the Human Solutions Group at Techtextil & Texprocess in Frankfurt, Germany, in May 2019. This offers a good example of how localised production could work in the present, not just in future concepts.
Fröhlich says: “If there is a customer saying, ‘I want a shirt’ and they have an idea of a design, they can work with someone who is able to use Vidya and immediately start the production of that product.”
Individualisation is a fundamental part of this. “Moving production closer to the consumer is important because you can do an individualised shirt [for example] which is produced really close to the customer in a short time,” Fröhlich continues.
It has been proven that consumers will keep personalised, individual products for longer than they retain a mass produced product. Manufacturing garments with a longer lifecycle is a huge part of sustaining a greener, circular economy. Fröhlich says: “The consciousness for green labels is growing. Many of our solutions fit into this. Also, the virtual try-on [that we showcased at Techtextil] works really well, especially for online shops. Many people are different sizes and suit different colours.”
In an era where consumers increasingly order online and send their garments back, Fröhlich says that it would be useful to have ‘reliable virtual try-on’ technology. “Consumers may still return products because they think it doesn’t suit them, but the number of returns will be reduced when a consumer has a proper size recommendation [from the try-on technology],” she adds.
As mentioned, time pressures and cost reduction are major drivers behind the growth of 3D in textile and apparel manufacturing. Fröhlich explains: “Every company needs to reduce costs and create new collections faster. Today we see a blouse or something special at the Oscar ceremony for example and everyone wants what that any actress was wearing.” But by the time brands have picked up the trends and produced a collection, the next fashion trend is out, adds Fröhlich.
“Trends come and go too quickly [for current production processes]. You have to capture the moment. 3D makes it easy to speed up processes that [previously] have taken months and weeks, up to a few days.”
Change management
However, the main challenge facing the implementation of 3D technology is convincing companies and employees to embrace the change. Fröhlich comments: “At the moment, there are not many [trained] people that are able to work with the technology. Of course, when you go into a company there are people who have been doing their job for a very long time and they’re doing a good job. To them, we come and just offer a new solution. It’s a completely new process that has to be set up.
“The implementation of 3D is always connected to change management – the software itself is easy to handle – but to change the minds of the employees, that’s a part that takes a lot of work.”
However, she notes that there are not many companies in the industry that do not work with 3D in some way or another. And, we have not yet seen the full capability of the technology as it continues to be developed by companies such as Assyst and Human Solutions.
“[The technology] has the potential to change whole processes in everything: not only the way garments are produced but also the way we shop, the way we order. It’s really a key technology changing everything,” Fröhlich concludes. “I think today we don’t even know where this might lead us in the future.”
Source: www.wtin.com