The Future Direction of Garment Machinery: Increasing Production Efficiency

Production efficiency has always been one of the problems that plagued garment companies. Especially after the market has transformed into a modern model of “multiple varieties, small batches, high quality, and fast delivery”, this problem has become particularly prominent. In recent years, despite the rapid development of China's garment industry and its impressive achievements, the overall production technology is still relatively backward.

Clothing production goes through hundreds of processes from design, cutting, sewing, and finishing. In terms of style design, according to the traditional manufacturing methods, from the establishment of the version to the specification of several specifications, the company usually takes 2 to 3 days. Cropping is the first process in the garment manufacturing process, which plays a decisive role in the quality and grade of apparel products. At present, many factories still follow the traditional mode of operation, that is, several rows of chopping boards and a few scissors. The others can see a lot of cloth and cutting staff. A small-scale factory operation also requires more than a dozen cutting workers, and a small scale will require 30 to 40 people. In the event of any mistakes, omissions, or quality problems, the entire sewing shop will be “squeaked.” Sewing is a very critical link in the production of garments, with the highest number of people, but the highest controllability. It is human-centered, and everyone's speed is fast and slow, and product quality is both good and bad. Due to the uneven technical level of operators, it is easy to affect the speed of production. It is self-evident that the setting of a full-size dress is a meaning of a piece of clothing. Most of the factories are still using irons with a lower production efficiency. They have higher skill requirements for operators. If they are used improperly, they will often fail to meet the requirements. And rework.

For garment companies, time is life, delivery is the soul. Waiting every minute, every time you rework, is the cost of profits. With the further development of high-efficiency, automation and intelligence in garment production technology, some companies have begun to explore new ways to rely on technology to improve their efficiency.

By taking advantage of the high-speed computer computing and storage capacity of the computer in the garment CAD, the conventional garment design has the disadvantages of low manual operation efficiency and large amount of repetition, which can improve the design efficiency by about 20 times. Through the use of apparel CAM, the process of preliminary screening, sewing (adhesive ironing) and tailoring is eliminated, and in addition to enhancing the external image of the company and increasing the trust of customers, the most important thing is to give clothing companies Production brings efficiency and improves product quality. After it is combined with CAD, cloth, etc. to form an overall cutting workshop, women's and suit companies can increase their efficiency by 20% to 30%, and knitted garment companies can increase their production efficiency by more than 10%. Through the application of special equipment such as automatic bag opening machines and automatic bagging machines, a number of processes are combined into a coherent mechanical action and a single molding, which effectively reduces the labor intensity of workers, reduces the dependence on skilled workers, and greatly improves the product. Quality and production efficiency. Through the introduction of the hanging transmission system, the auxiliary time for the operator other than sewing is reduced, and the production is automatically balanced, which can increase the production efficiency by more than 20%. The ever-changing science and technology have brought about earth-shaking changes in clothing production.

In this regard, our apparel companies should learn more from Ningbo Shenzhou International Group Holdings Co., Ltd. As the financial crisis continues to spread to export-oriented textile companies, Shenzhou International, a typical representative of labor-intensive apparel processing companies, reported a double-digit decline in the nation’s textile and clothing industry in the first quarter of this year, with its sales, profits and taxes. Revenues are maintained at a growth rate of around 30%. According to its Chairman, Ma Jianrong, Shenzhou International has 50% of its profits for technical reform each year, and the investment for the introduction of high-efficiency equipment and technological transformation in the last five years is as much as over 2 billion yuan.

However, technology itself has no value, but it is just a means to achieve goals and complete business. Techniques that cannot be used as furnishings are merely dummy. In many of our garment factories, high-tech equipment is only a tool for publicity. Some companies, even though they have clearly understood the benefits of high-tech equipment, are still in the early stages of their use, and some have less than 50% utilization. Some people say that foreign equipment is just that. Some people say that foreign equipment is not suitable for China, and even worse, foreign equipment is not acceptable. In fact, how important the advanced technology plays in the enterprise depends on the following factors: whether the company has skilled operators; whether the company has established a mature and systematic management mechanism for personnel and equipment; whether the company has passed effective management Means to make equipment utilization and output saturated; whether the company is willing to increase investment in equipment development in order to tap its maximum potential; whether the company can retain talent, the rational use of talent.

The business environment facing the external competition is still increasing, and the problems such as the increase of internal production costs are also becoming increasingly apparent. We hope that this special report on “clothing production equipment and production efficiency” can give some inspiration to companies that are thinking and looking for change.