Recession forces textile sector to take IT route

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Bangalore: The demand for cost-cutting information technology (IT) solutions in the Indian textile industry has increased after the sector took a brutal hit owing to the economic downturn.

The bigger garment companies that bag regular export orders have been replacing their workforce with IT-backed automated machines to increase production to compete in the global market.

The global cutting machine-cum-software solution providers including France-based Lectra and the US-based Gerber Technology have established their footprint utilising larger companies' interest in cutting cost.

Talking to FE, Jaichand, director of Tirupur-based baby knitwear major Jay Jay Mills, said the company had two knitwear units, one each in Tirupur and Sri Lanka. The company has fitted Lectra machine at the Tirupur plant and Gerber machine at the Sri Lanka unit. The production has increased to 2 million pieces per month in each plant from 1 million pieces in the past one year.

He said the IT-backed machines were helpful in downsizing the workforce at least by 400 persons to 2,000 employees at present at Tirupur plant. "But we should use fine quality fabric and own regular export orders to feed these machines," he said. His company has regular export orders from global retail giants the US-based Wal-mart, Target and UK-based Tesco.

"Even at the current recession, we managed 15% growth in 2007-08 and 25% growth in 2008-09 clocking a turnover of Rs 150 crore", Jaichand said.

He said wastage in fabric has been saved by resorting to CAD/CAM (computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing) solutions.

Currently, India has more than 10,000 textile units, spanning from cotton knitwear, hosiery and synthetic readymade garments. But on an average, only 20-25% operations in these units have been automated, said LJ Prasanth, managing director of Lectra Technologies India Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of Lectra.

He said the company was present in India through its partner for the last ten years. Following growing demand for its CAD/CAM products in India, the company has set up its direct office in Bangalore last year to offer across the table technical assistance to customers.

More than 800 textile units in India are currently using Lectra's software and machine products. He claims that textile units could save around 15% cost by using the company's software solutions.