Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 8, 1994 TAG: 9405100026
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By GREGORY WRIGHT KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
And shoppers will be able to walk into a computerized booth at a mall, have their body size scanned, and get a custom-made shirt in as few as three days.
Officials at the Textile/Clothing Technology Corp. research consortium are betting that innovations such as these will revolutionize the ailing domestic textile and apparel industry and make U.S. companies once again more competitive against Asia.
``We're going to change the world from weeks and months to hours,'' said Joseph Off, managing director of the Cary, N.C.-based group.
Textile/Clothing Technology Corp. is a 13-year-old consortium of fiber, textile, apparel and retail enterprises that educates the industry about new innovations to improve production.
The nonprofit group has an annual budget of about $7 million. Most of the funds come from its 185 member and associate member companies.
One development the group is advocating is agile manufacturing. Under this method, clothing retailers will be able to order clothing via computer at a manufacturer's factory. The consortium is demonstrating the method at trade shows.
The manufacturer, using already available quick production techniques such as laser fabric cutting, will produce the exact number and styles of clothing the retailer requested in record time.
Peter Butenhoff, a former DuPont executive who is president of Textile/Clothing Technology Corp., said this quick response will allow retailers to get customers ``hot-selling'' items more quickly.
Because retailers will order only exactly what they need, agile manufacturing will cut down on the shipping costs and storing items that don't sell. These expenses can account for almost 30 percent of the price of a garment.
And because U.S. manufacturers will be able to ship products to stores more quickly, they will gain a competitive edge over clothing makers in China, Hong Kong and other Asian countries.
Asian manufacturers have lower labor costs, but it often takes weeks to months for them to manufacture and ship products to the United States. U.S. retailers also have to pay more to transport the products from halfway around the world and store excess inventory.
``We have recognized that we can't compete on the basis of cost alone,'' said Michael Fralix, director of manufacturing and educational services at Textile/Clothing Technology Corp. ``We can compete on quality and delivery.''
The United States has lost about 500,000 fiber, textile and apparel jobs over the past 10 years, mainly because plants have moved overseas to get cheap labor.
But Butenhoff said techniques such as agile manufacturing will create jobs because they will allow clothing to be made more quickly and cheaply in the United States.
Meanwhile, Off said technology such as the body scan is still being perfected and could become widely available in about five years. He said that technology could solve the problem of sizing - only 25 percent of the garments consumers buy off the rack fit well.
Gay Millson-Whitney of Saks Fifth Avenue in New York City said U.S. retailers would be quick to adopt agile manufacturing techniques. Butenhoff said already other retailers such as J.C. Penney, L.L. Bean and Lands End have expressed interest.
Millson-Whitney said a problem facing retailers is that they order clothes for an entire season after attending fashion shows. But customer preference is fickle, and that long skirt that looked stunning on a Milan runway may not go over well with American shoppers months later. She said agile manufacturing will help solve that problem.
by CNB