Businesses across industries are adopting digitalization more than ever before in order to stay relevant in a competitive climate and meet consumers’ ever-increasing expectations. It is also relevant in terms of properly working in a country such as India, which is growing as a global economic superpower. Given the growing relevance of utilising digital tools for business progress, companies in a variety of industries, including finance, banking, real estate, and healthcare, are giving it significant consideration.
The apparel industry is commencing its digitization journey, and a larger revolution is expected with the integration of existing technologies.
Because of the instant commercial consequences it achieves, digital technology is gaining acceptance. These business outcomes respond to changing business requirements, increase transparency in global supply chains, and achieve critical mass customization on shorter time scales. It shifted the business model away from traditional printing and toward digital printing. This results in shorter lead times, increased design flexibility, improved quality, and data-driven business processes.
The textile sector is being impacted by digitization, which offers substantial benefits in terms of establishing new and agile business models for the garment industry. Today’s textile manufacturers and equipment suppliers face growing production and energy costs, diminishing margins, shorter production schedules, and increased quality and flexibility demands. Digitalization is the key to process excellence – and hence to cost and resource savings. Manufacturers can boost their output, improve their competitiveness, and respond to changes more swiftly thanks to the capabilities of digitalization.
Accepting Digitization
The textile and garment sectors were late adopters of digitization and still have a long way to go. Large corporations have already begun to make a name for themselves in the garment industry, but small and medium-sized businesses must ramp up digitalization and incorporate it into their overall technologies.
- More orders for all runs: Digital textile printing can be used for short, long, or even micro runs. Web to print owners and printers who want to expand into digital textile printing have a great opportunity ahead of them. They must respond to the changing needs of textile producers or distributors, which means they must accommodate long runs as well as micro runs to produce more orders in a cost-effective and efficient manner. Individually, there is a demand for individualised fashion, but there is also a market group that requires cost optimization and bulk customization. The two categories are distinct, yet there is a growing trend to develop digital textile printing businesses.
- Buy now, see now: There is a disconnect between the garments displayed at fashion shows and their regular market delivery. This time lag can last up to 6 months. This gap can be closed by giving end-users with the appropriate technologies to order clothing or fabrics as soon as they view them. Established fashion houses and designers who wish to profit from this gap and give customers access to the showcased fashion brands could be ideal partners for printers in this market. This see now, purchase now approach necessitates a significant shift in production timelines, which must be reduced from short to short.Digital textile printing may be a solution for this shift to meet the needs of this niche market.
- More On-Demand Manufacturing: Web to print and variable data printing are two technologies that are assisting customers in printing mass-market products in a customised and on-demand manner. With increased demand in the categories of personalised home decor, clothes, and packaging, the textile industry is seeing remarkable growth. This raises the issue of reducing production waste and lowering expenses. Customers and organisations may easily explore this area thanks to direct web to fabric portals combined with technology such as online purchasing and shipping. The incorporation of augmented reality technology can be considered as a key breakthrough in text processing in the future.
- Adoption of Green Technology: For more sustainable business models, more and more firms are striving to incorporate green manufacturing and technologies. Digital textile printing uses the same set of standards and techniques to reduce water usage, pollution, and energy consumption. According to some research, digital printing saves water use by 60%, energy consumption by 55%, and CO2 emissions by 95%. These advantages are augmented by an 80% reduction in lead time for printed goods, an 85% reduction in waste, and a 90% reduction in chemical usage.Printers emphasising sustainability and green manufacturing will undoubtedly occupy the digital textile printing niche, which promises green and sustainable printed products.
Employing data in real-time
Goods passing through a production line constantly bring with them information in the form of process parameters such as distortion, temperature, yarn density, weight, and residual moisture. These values are recorded by appropriate measurement methods. The systems can interact in real time with other machines that use this information to regulate the fabric using I 4.0. “Real-time management is the true main actor of digitization, and it delivers enormous benefits,” Mahlo’s Head of Sales understands. These benefits include more uniform goods, improved control, less scrap, and lower raw material usage. Lower prices and higher product quality are the primary results, which result in increased customer satisfaction.
Digitalization has the potential to contribute to sustainability from raw materials to finished clothing by optimising processes and reducing wasteful material consumption. “This is a point that is gaining traction, particularly among end users.”
Conclusion
The textile and apparel industry was a late adopter of digitization and still has a long way to go.Digital textile printing is profitable for small and medium-sized businesses that serve medium or small business orders (maybe up to a thousand) in a shorter production time. Web-enabled printing businesses will champion this sector because of their familiarity with customer-centric applications, digital technologies, and cost of integrations.
Digitization is impacting the textile industry and offers significant benefits in terms of introducing new and agile business models for the apparel industry. It enables them to change print designs without changing the setup costs, reduce wastage, and accelerate production turn-around with no minimum order sizes. Large corporations have already begun to make a name for themselves in the apparel industry, but small and medium-sized businesses must ramp up digitization and integrate it into their overall technologies.
References
- Textile Industry: Digital step ahead – The Textile Magazine (indiantextilemagazine.in)
- How Digitization Impacts On Textile Industry Growth So Far | Business Hours (bussinesshours.org)
- Chance for process excellence: How digitization is changing the textile industry – The Textile Magazine (indiantextilemagazine.in)
Author:
Ms. Kshipra Gadey
