February, 2016

In most of the meetings and discussion forums one keeps hearing that ‘it is the man behind the dumb machine that works for you’, and it is true for apparel manufacturing. The industry being labour-intensive, workers always come first; but the question is how much importance is right balance? Is the emphasis on HR overtaking the focus on technology? What could be the reasons behind it? The latest edition of StitchWorld discusses in extensive detail, if we are overdoing HR at the cost of technology. Speaking of technology, every four years technology providers targeting the textile and garment industry gather together at the ITMA in Europe to showcase their latest developments, which eventually travel the world through other events held subsequently. While some of the technologies are upgrades of existing ones, few are very futuristic and difficult to apprehend. Among them there are also some which are new ideas with practical applications for addressing current needs. In the segments that StitchWorld investigated – Knitting and Finishing – there was something new and interesting in all… In Knitting, the innovation was in increased versatility of circular knitting machines to manufacture shoe uppers and the futuristic streak was a combination of spinning to knitting all in one machine. The Finishing domain was all about sustainable solutions. In another interesting read, the readers will find a discourse on Value Stream Mapping as a tool of Operational Excellence. The pages further feature a real-life case study on how the state of lean manufacturing by implementing online finishing was attained by Dimple Creations – a Noida-based apparel exporter.