October 2019 Edition Apparel October 2019 issue | Page 91

NEW AVENUES
lies in its manufacturing processes. This is where
Industry 4.0 has quickly become the norm.
For the uninitiated, Industry 4.0 is the fourth
industrial revolution that has evolved from the
earliest industrial processes, starting with the
first generation of steam-powered industry to
electricification to the emergence of machines,
and finally, digital technologies. Industry 4.0
takes this to the next level by factoring in new
innovations such as mobile networking, smart
sensors, location services, artificial intelligence
(AI), 3D printing, data analytics, cloud computing,
robotics, cyber-physical systems, and the
‘Internet of Things’.
Imagine an apparel factory unlike any that
you have seen before: Completely autonomous
and self-sufficient. This factory would be linked
to distributors and retailers worldwide, using
next-generation applications such as Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP), Project Lifecycle
Management (PLM), Warehouse Management
System (WMS), and more to ensure seamless
operations. Such a factory would receive non-
stop data inputs letting it know which designs
need to be produced in what quantities for which
geographies and customers in an instant. It would
very well be able to receive individual orders
and use optimised manufacturing techniques to
produce a single unit with no waste or extra cost.
Sounds like science fiction, right? Well, only that
it is not. Amazon is on its way to building such a
factory in the next couple of years.
SUPPLY CHAIN AND E-COMMERCE
So while Industry 4.0 can help Indian apparel
transform how it produces goods, the bigger
challenge lies in how the products are sold
to the consumer. Currently, the apparel and
fashion industries make for about two per cent
of the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP), at
upwards of US$ 4 trillion. The total demand for
apparel and fashion is increasingly rising, what
THE BIGGER CHALLENGE
LIES IN HOW THE
PRODUCTS ARE SOLD TO
THE CONSUMER.
APPAREL
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