Celebrating 15 years of upraising the industry on latest technologies, Garment Technology Expo, or GTE as it is popularly known, has reconfirmed its position as a trendsetter for the Indian apparel industry especially for North India as many medium-level exporters as well as manufacturers of the domestic market made a beeline to the event to see what ‘new’ technology suppliers had to offer. A big boost to the event was the Pan-India visitation, be it from Delhi-NCR, remote areas of Uttaranchal, Rajasthan or from the upcoming belts around Kolkata. While the new and smaller visitors were very happy with the displays, few technology experts and regular visitors of technology fairs were disappointed at not seeing anything really different, as their expectations from the fair were much higher compared to other visitors.
Today, the leading technology providers in the industry have taken a historic turn as they are channelizing their forces to focus on automation. While Juki is aiming to cater to the Indian market with automats, TYPICAL launched for the first time its pattern sewing automats in the Indian market. Even in the cutting room, the sentiment is upbeat. Investments in the spreading room automation are becoming the norm and soon the cutting process will follow suite, expect the cutting room solution providers. The transformation, of course, comes across in the wake of rising labour costs, and the business moving out of China. The ripples of change do not just affect the shop floor though, as the focus on IT solutions is impressive. A distinguished development in point is the launch of YuniquePLM by Gerber for the Indian market.
A tangibly significant proactive approach towards adopting and understanding technology is coming from the domestic sector. The push however, as decoded by technology providers, comes from the fact that today the manufacturing for domestic market is done largely by big companies like Arvind, Madura and ITC – that have already had their tryst with quality through their export business. The lessons learnt are now being transferred to the domestic market business as the customer knows quality apparel and is willing to spend, understand the technology providers.
Visitors look for value
‘Be Lean and Green’ and catch the small but interesting development was the focus of many export houses who visited the show. Sanjay Gulati, MD, Growel Impex, Noida exploring material handling/traceability systems at the event was of the opinion, “Further dollar depreciation and more systematic approach of Indian manufacturers should bring more orders to India in the coming days. To grab and successfully deliver these orders one should have to be lean and green.”
Textile Association of India (TAI), Delhi is very active in the Indian textile industry. Vikas Bhargava, Vice Chairman and Rikhil Nagpal, Joint Secretary of the association visited GTE 2016 and shared, “Textile companies are keen to invest in garmenting too, and they just need some support, motivation and proper guidance.”
Apart from few advance models in machines and technology there were some small but interesting development in the show that attracted visitors. “I have found a Chinese vendor who manufactures trimmer-cum-scissors suited just for this purpose and which will add value to my operations,” shared Animesh Saxena, CEO, Neetee Clothing, Gurgaon. He was also looking for upgrading the washing infrastructure at the factory.
New firms or people who are less exposed to technology or machinery showcased at GTE, seemed excited as such large knowledge-sharing platforms are very rare in India. “This is my first ever visit to GTE and I am more than happy with the technology displayed here. I will try to come every year,” said Srinivas G., Lance Innovations, Hyderabad, who has 40 machines at his factory.
Rahul Malik, Senior VP, (Strategy & Product Development), CTA Apparels, Noida, along with his team was busy exploring options in washing and value addition segment mainly. The company has plans to invest in digital printing and processing technology. Few exporters came to the event without any specific need or requirement and their only concern was finding ‘something new’ which their factories didn’t have and can prove beneficial. Pranab Mahajan, Director, Mahajan Overseas, Panipat and a regular visitor of the fair echoed the same opinion, “As of now we don’t require any specific machinery or technology but whatever we will find interesting, new and viable, we will adopt that.” He also added that he did not find anything new or special which could impress him at this edition.
Few visitors exploring advanced technology were busy interacting with the technologist to understand the technology, like Sanjay Sethia, MD and Ravi Shanker, GM – Operations of Spectra Fashions, Kolkata who spent a good amount of time at the booth of Turel Group. “We have plans to adopt some very innovative technologies in future and GTE is a good platform in this regard,” they said. On the other side, Suresh Dureja, Director of Manufacturing, Roots Canada Ltd., Toronto (Canada) was not too happy with the overall technology on display. “I was expecting a larger number of technology suppliers with specialized machines and machines for seam sealing. I have not seen any good machines for saddle stitch either. The exhibition should have more companies that offer really advance machines,” he suggested. Roots Canada Ltd. is manufacturing leather jackets, bags and luggage.
GEAR (Garment Exporters Association of Rajasthan), Jaipur brought many garment exporters to GTE, Pradeep Nahata, MD, Karni Exports was also one of them. Sharing his experience, he said, “Though the exhibition is ‘satisfactory’ as few developments in technology are worth exploring, there is nothing ‘new’ or ‘totally different’ which we can look at for the future.
Good visitation of technical teams
Groversons Apparel which is soon coming up with a new factory of 200 machines in Tronica city (Ghaziabad) is also working to adopt innovative cutting room solutions. Jatindra Grover and Vineet Nagpal, (both GM) of the company, were seen interacting with many technology suppliers at GTE. “We are ready to adopt technology that can save cost and increase productivity. Here at the fair we liked bonding process and mainly heat transfer printing solutions,” they said. A group of industrial engineers, Anupam and Dhruv of Meenu Creation, Noida; Pawan Kumar of Vamani Overseas, Faridabad; Harendra Kumar Tiwari, Production Manager, Open Hand, Delhi; and Ashok Kumar, Manager – IE, Richa Global Exports explored various things. One of them was UBT in overlock machines. Babul Singh, IE of Team Kiren, Noida who was also seen at the fair with his big team shared, “Most of the machines displayed here had been already seen earlier, but one machine was interesting as it cuts the seam margins in overlock and gives a look of a flatlock, especially in knitted garment.”
Students and faculty of many institutes, like NIFT, Kasturba Institute of Technology (KIT), Delhi and GD Goenka University to name some, were seen at the GTE.
Brijesh Kumar Singh Production Manager and Saurabh Srivastava, IE&PPC Manager, Blackberrys, Gurgaon informed, “We saw stitching machines which have their electric panel in-built, and monitoring system which counts the number of stitches the operator has done. It is something good.” On the other side BP Trivedi, GM – Production and Devendar Kr. Upadhyay, Sr. Manager, Cantabil Retail India Ltd., were of the opinion that the fair was missing on packaging solutions, especially automatic folding.
Value addition: Sublimation taking the lead
More than 50 visitors from Indore visited the show. Still dominating in kidswear segment, Indore is now moving towards sublimation printing as embroidery is on a downward trend. Mayank Maheshwari of Krishna Sales, Indore confirmed, “In last one year Indore has seen almost 10 installations of sublimation and this number is going to be increased very soon, and in very good numbers.” Krishna Sales has also appointed service engineers for sublimation and other allied technologies. Same is the case of Kolkata. Sunil Agarwal of Shree Balaji Company, Kolkata, offering more than one lakh pieces per month of ladies garments (Indo Western) informed, “There are 15 good fabricators in Kolkata doing sublimation printing and in coming years this number is going to increase. Even we are getting our sublimation done on job work.” In fact, value addition is a segment which always attracts the visitors; laser cutting machines and advancement in multi-head embroidery are major attractions.
As the winter season is decreasing in India, heavy winter wear is no more a priority for manufacturers, especially those who are having specialization in these products. Therefore, they are now moving towards lighter weight products which can be used in less cold conditions. “Most of the woollen garments manufacturers have piled up stock from this season; so now focus is on lightweight winterwear. I am looking for the machines of the same which can save little cost also,” shared Sachit Arora of Goji Berries, Ludhiana, offering 1,500 garments per day. Few domestic firms offering niche products are also adopting advance technology like Vijay Kumar, AV Enterprises, Delhi, offering dog sweaters/shoe & dog bed, rain coats, etc. informed, “From last three months I am looking for pattern sewer as I have some special requirements. I went to China also for this and now I got the pattern sewer which will serve my purpose completely.”
The show also witnessed good mix of visitation from various textile associations, faculty of fashion/textile colleges, NGOs working in garment sector, training institutes, few medium-level retailers planning to enter in garment manufacturing, consultants, Government officials, etc.
