Apparel Online Bangladesh Magazine December Issue 2018 | Page 51

RESOURCE CENTRE
targeting to build smart factories
within to combat cost challenges.”
IROOTECH is a Shanghai-based
IoT solution provider which is
currently catering to transport
and automotive industries but,
with the rising attention of smart
manufacturing within apparel
sector, the company will soon start
providing IoT solutions to this
industry as well.
Speaking on the same subject,
Yang Jinchun, Vice Chairman
of China Garment Association,
expressed that the rising cost of
apparel manufacturing in China is
a major concern and over the last
few years, despite EU, USA and
Japan growing in their apparel
import, China has been witnessing
negative trend in these major
markets. “The situation will further
worsen if necessary steps are not
taken. Smart manufacturing is
the key which should include data
collection, integrated resources
and continuous innovation in order
to revamp garment manufacturing
within the country,” opined Jinchun.
“Intelligent sewing is one of
the many aspects to make
manufacturing ‘smart’ and that
cannot be overlooked in the
process,” said He Ye, Chairman
of China Sewing Machinery
Association (CSMA). She further
explained that by 2017, China
had around 800 sewing machine
manufacturers and most of them
are not innovating the sewing
processes, therefore, the garment
industry has actually not been able
to catch up with the changing trend.
So, to transform companies within
China, CSMA carried an intelligent
sewing factory and technical
service alliance project in 2017 on
20 manufacturing companies from
clothing, automotive, home textiles,
shoe and interior sectors.
The project included the revision
of relevant standards in the
field of intelligent sewing and,
with the help of this project,
CSMA found some bottlenecks
and constraints that need to be
Team Vibemac celebrating at the end of Jack Overseas Distributors’ Conference
removed. “Weak foundation of
software and hardware; lack of
professionalism and traditional
way of looking at problems were
common issues observed in all 20
factories,” said He Ye. However,
with strategic route, training as
well as proper root cause analysis
of the problems, the factories
have started transforming into
intelligent factories. He Ye
commented, “In order to accelerate
the development of the intelligent
industry, our association has
already started to explore and
promote relevant work in the
sewing sector. We have organised
teams to conduct regular
benchmarking analysis of status
quo of the industrial intelligent
sewing research and development.”
It’s worth mentioning here that
10 factories, till October 2018,
completed successful evaluation
after the project, while the
remaining 10 are soon to
be evaluated.
Ruan Jixiang, Founder, Jack
Group, while concluding the
ceremony, in his passionate
presentation, disclosed the role
of Jack sewing machines to help
China attain ‘intelligent future’ for
its garment industry. Ruan came
up with two plans: technical and
business development. “Deskilling
of workers, quality in garments,
flexible production and fast delivery
are the needs of today’s garment
ESSENTIALS
Hundreds of visitors
from all parts of
the world were
divided into six
groups and each
group was led
by at least three
of Jack’s team
members who
handled all the
technical queries
of the visitors.
The entire factory
premise was
well-organised
and visual
communication
inside the factory
was its strong
point. In its entire
factory, Jack
promotes 6S rather
than working on
5S principle.
industry which we aim to achieve
in our technical plan, while our
business development plan includes
strategies which are designed
to implement technical plan on a
broader scale,” explained Ruan.
Factory visit…
A factory visit can be made a fun-
filled activity provided the host is
someone like Jack. Hundreds of
visitors from all parts of the world
were divided into six groups and
each group was led by at least
three of Jack’s team members
who handled all the technical
queries of the visitors. The visitors
here got to know some unknown
yet captivating facts about Jack.
With the help of US $ 20 million
investment, Jack’s Xiachen-based
factory is known as the China’s first
intelligent production line of sewing
machine shells, a breakthrough
in the manufacturing of sewing
machines. The entire factory
premise was well-organised and
visual communication inside the
factory was its strong point. Most
of the time it is observed that
factories promote 5S when it comes
to ‘Quality Management System’
implementation overlooking the 6th
‘S’ which is Safety. But, that’s not the
case here. In its entire factory, Jack
promotes 6S rather than working
on 5S principle. Explaining the
importance of this kind of practice,
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