November, 2015

China today is fighting a crucial battle; the increasing wages and infrastructure cost notwithstanding, CISMA 2015 was packed with optimism. Though the participating sewing machine manufacturers were less in number, all the majors expect an average of 15-20% growth in the year to come, which shows that the industry is geared up for a good year ahead. The latest issue of StitchWorld carries a detailed review of some interesting technologies that were on offer at the recently concluded CISMA. It was only a matter of time before the Industry 4.0 wave hit the apparel manufacturing machinery. Advanced CAD/CAM solutions have already touched the M2M communication frontier and there are sewing machines that can be monitored through mobile phone online apps. In this edition, SW assesses how far the Industry 4.0 innovations have materialised for knitting machines. Conventionally, Industrial Engineers have used stopwatch (could be continuous, snapback, three-watch, methods time measurement, digital, or computer), boards for holding watches and papers, video recorders, and forms to record data. In another interesting read, SW also assesses and explores the possibilities that have come to the fore with time study apps claiming to offer multiple functionalities.