SOMMARI O Olim pias Gentile utente, non ci sono aggiornam enti in questa sezione della rassegna stam pa Com petitor Gentile utente, non ci sono aggiornam enti in questa sezione della rassegna stam pa Settore L industrie textile m ade in Jordan vise l Europe The I nternet of Eyes Will Change Everything in Retail. Again. Tessile in Serbia: paradiso per gli investitori, inferno per i lavoratori Turkish Mill Taypa Tekst il Spends $800M on Algeria Textile Plant as I nterest in Africa Grows Morocco's race to be a fast fashion sourcing destination Nei vestiti di ZARA l sos degli operai non pagati How Big Will On- Dem and Manufact uring Actually be For Apparel Sourcing?
Olim pias Gentile utente, non ci sono aggiornam enti in questa sezione della rassegna stam pa
Com petitor Gentile utente, non ci sono aggiornam enti in questa sezione della rassegna stam pa
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The Internet of Eyes Will Change Everything in Retail. Again. by Tara Donaldson Posted on November 3, 2017 We ve heard of the Internet of Things, but the latest buzzword on the block is the Internet of Eyes the idea that inanimate objects will soon have the ability to see. That was a topic of conversation at the Decoded Fashion New York Summit Wednesday, and Evan Nisselson, general partner of investment firm LDV Capital, said this future visualization of everything will mean better understanding our lives. Which also means better understanding consumers lives. The war over artificial intelligence will be won with visual data and the Internet of Eyes, Nisselson said. Winning that war will come down to who owns the connected camera. Because most of what the human brain analyzes is visual, for artificial to become human-like enough to sub for actual people, it will be about the ability for computers to translate high quality visual data. By 2022, there ll be at least 45 billion cameras in the world, Nisselson said citing a recent LDV Capital report. Nearly all inanimate objects will begin to see, creating vast amounts of visual data across the visual technology ecosystem, the report noted. That means mirrors will be able to see if we ve had too much alcohol, cameras in smartphones will be able to tell your heart rate, and cars will have as many as 30 cameras and be able to detect people s expressions in cars nearby to know whether that person poses a danger.
Cameras in windshields will be able to scan an Uber driver s eyes and tell the passenger that the driver is angry or tired and that it might not be the best idea to ride with them before they get in the car. As it stands, retail is resting on heaps of data it doesn t know how to deal with, but what emerges as a result of the Internet of Eyes, will be vital for retail to better understand itself and its new consumer. It s going to be part of manufacturing, it s going to be part of everything we do, Nisselson said. In other words, the bots and drones and automated everything are coming and they ll be driving processes in factories, warehouses, at retail and to address the consumer. Cameras will be integrated across the supply chain from ship-to-shore cranes to warehouses and retail smart shelves, LDV s report said. The sector that stands to be most revolutionized by the Internet of Eyes, however, will be e- commerce. Amazon s Echo Look is their first step to empowering customers to shop on the platform using nothing but a camera. The Look lets their customers buy products via selfies, and it provides the company with trends of visual data so their artificial intelligence algorithms can learn our favorite clothes, styles and products, LDV said. And Google s Assistant is right on the heels of that. We are prepared to watch the battle between big companies fighting to control your cameras and interpret our visual data, in the hopes to increase revenue, and to make our lives easier, and more fun, LDV said. Before long, banal things like finding the right shoe size and paying for product with plastic will be non-issues as consumers will soon be able to buy shoes by photographing their feet to be 3-D mapped for custom fit, and goods in stores will be paid for with little more than selfies thanks to facial recognition. The camera will become the point of sale within five to 10 years, Nisselson said.
Tessile in Serbia: paradiso per gli investitori, inferno per i lavoratori Posted on 10/11/2017 by Monica Ranieri in Economia Centinaia di lavoratori serbi percepiscono paghe esigue per cucire vestiti per grandi aziende europee. Agli investitori stranieri vengono generalmente concesse sovvenzioni statali, mentre il governo chiude un occhio davanti alle loro infrazioni legali: è quanto sostiene il Deutsche Welle sulla base di una relazione compilata dalla Clean Clothes Campaign. Bassi salari, straordinari non pagati, responsabili di produzione soffocanti, capi aggressivi, festività e vacanze annuali trattate come un lusso: sono queste le condizioni nell industria tessile e calzaturiera in Serbia. D altro canto, lo stato sovvenziona gli investitori stranieri a destra e a manca, mentre i diritti dei lavoratori vengono violati. Questo secondo Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC), un importante organizzazione internazionale che propone campagne per migliorare le condizioni di lavoro nell industria tessile in tutto il mondo. L industria serba e calzaturiera impiega circa 100.000 lavoratori, e oltre la metà non sono registrati. La città di Novi Pazar è un perfetto esempio di questo. La città è famosa per la sua grande produzione di denim e la maggior parte dei lavoratori qui non sono registrati, sostengono gli autori della relazione. L 80% della produzione di abbigliamento e calzature è impostato per l esportazione, il che, a prima vista, appare come un ottimo risultato. Oltre il 37% dei vestiti e delle calzature vengono esportati in Italia, il 13% in Germania e circa il 10% in Russia. Tuttavia, il problema consiste nel fatto che questi produttori implementano il regime di perfezionamento passivo, generosamente supportato dall UE: tale sistema consente ai paesi UE di esportare materie prime e semilavorati in paesi come la Serbia dove la trasformazione finale è economica. Successivamente, i prodotti finiti vengono importati dai suddetti paesi dell UE. Interviste a 110 lavoratori presso fabbriche di scarpe e capi di abbigliamento in Ungheria, Serbia e Ucraina hanno rivelato che molti di loro vengono costretti ad ore di straordinario solo per raggiungere gli obiettivi di produzione. Eppure, anche facendo questo, non arrivano a percepire più che il salario minimo legale. Molti dei lavoratori intervistati hanno segnalato condizioni di lavoro pericolose, come l esposizione a calore e prodotti chimici tossici, condizioni scarsamente igieniche, lavoro straordinario non pagato e illegale e trattamento abusivo da parte della direzione. I lavoratori riferiscono di sentirsi intimiditi, ed essere sotto costante minaccia di licenziamento o di trasferimento. Quando i lavoratori serbi chiedono perché nel calore dell estate non c è l aria condizionata, il motivo per cui l accesso all acqua potabile è limitato, perché devono lavorare il sabato, la risposta è sempre la stessa: quella è la porta.
È chiaro che i principali marchi internazionali del settore tessile stanno approfittando di questo sistema a basso reddito. Le fabbriche menzionate nella relazione producono per molti marchi globali come Benetton, Esprit, GEOX, Triumph e Vera Moda, tra gli altri. I lavoratori intervistati riferiscono di salari netti (incluse ore di straordinario) che vanno da 25.000 a 36.000 dinari, con una media di 30.000. Le interviste suggeriscono un lavoro straordinario mensile di circa 32 ore (il massimo legale per settimana è di 8 ore + il 26% del sovrapprezzo). Se calcolato sulla base di 32 ore di straordinario al mese, quantità media riferita dagli intervistati, non tenendo conto dei buoni pasto o del trasporto, la retribuzione fissa netta per il normale orario di lavoro senza straordinari ammonterebbe a circa di 24.4082 dinari (pari a circa 200 euro). (Nova EKonomija, Clean Clothes Report, 09.11.2017) Report Clean Clothes Campaign Serbia https://cleanclothes.org/livingwage/europe/factsheets/serbia
Turkish Mill Taypa Tekstil Spends $800M on Algeria Textile Plant as Interest in Africa Grows by Arthur Friedman Posted on November 8, 2017 credit: Taypa Tekstil Interest and investment in African textile and apparel manufacturing is growing. In its latest move, Turkish denim manufacturer Taypa Teksil, supplier to brands including Levi s and Calvin Klein, is investing $800 million in what it says will be the largest textile facility in Algeria, according to multiple news reports out of Turkey and North Africa. Tyapa, headquartered in Istanbul, and with facilities in Turkey, Egypt and Algeria, said the action is a bid to double production capacity in North Africa and diversify its product offering. Taypa is one of the largest producers of denim in Turkey, exporting 80 percent of its production to around 50 countries. It is also setting up a ready-to-wear facility in the Balkans, which it hopes to commission by the end of 2018, reports noted. The company hopes to begin construction of its facility in Algeria in 2019. The project will be undertaken in three phases, with completion expected by 2025. The site, in the Relizane region of Algeria, will be a fully integrated facility producing a variety of yarns, fabrics and finished product. Annual production capacity is expected to be 30 million pieces, half of which will be for the Algerian market, and the remainder for export to the European Union and U.S. Taypa s has already invested $20 million in ready-to-wear production in Egypt, where its annual production capacity is about 6 million units. The company is said to also planning be planning to open an office in New York at the Turkish Trade Center, where it will conduct the marketing for its Egypt operations. An office is also
planned for London, which will host marketing, as well as departments such as showrooms and a design unit. Rand Merchant Bank s recent Where to Invest in Africa 2018 report s Investment Attractiveness Index saw Algeria fall to 13th place from 10th on the list of countries with the most desirable investment environment. Egypt displaced South Africa as the top destination largely due to the North African country s superior economic activity score. Algerian neighbors Morocco and Tunisia, at third and nine on the list, both show an improved business sand political climate ripe for investment, the report noted. Ethiopia, a country dogged by sociopolitical instability but still a favorite of many foreign investors, including U.S. and Chinese apparel and textile firms, displaced Ghana to take fourth spot, mostly thanks to its rapid economic growth, having moved past Kenya as the largest economy in East Africa. According to a study by the African Centre for Economic Transformation, Promoting Manufacturing in Africa, Ethiopia s manufacturing industry has been growing thanks to cheap hydropower, government commitment to a strategy of transformation from an agriculture-led economy to industrial, and massive growth in infrastructure development and foreign direct investment. Ethiopia s Hawassa eco-industrial park has attracted 18 global apparel and textile companies. Construction of the park cost more than $250 million and was built in less than a year. Covering an area of 1.3 million square meters, the addition of the park is expected to bring Ethiopia s revenue derived from textiles and garments to $1 billion over the long term from the current $150 million annually, according to the Ethiopian Investment Commission
Morocco's race to be a fast fashion sourcing destination 7 NOVEMBER 2017 BY EMILY SUTHERLAND Full screen Drapers explores Morocco s bid to the become the next sourcing hub for fast fashion. The global sourcing map is being redrawn. As rising costs and concerns over compliance begin to bite in China and Bangladesh, newer markets, such as Myanmar and Vietnam, are vying to become the next big sourcing heavyweights. However, the need for an increasingly fast, flexible and reactive supply chain is leading many retailers to investigate markets considerably closer to UK shores. Morocco is poised to take advantage of this shift. Accessible from the UK and much of Europe in the relatively short flight time of three and a half hours, the north African country has a clothing and textiles sector that prides itself on speed, and has expertise in denim, wovens and knitwear. It is also jostling to become a sourcing hub for Europe s fast fashion industry, taking advantage of its geographical location. Morocco is already a key sourcing market, along with Portugal and Turkey, for Spanish giant Inditex, which is renowned for its ability to get trend-led product into stores quickly. Morocco s focus on fast fashion was evident at the latest edition of sourcing show Maroc in Mode, which took place in Marrakech on 27-28 October and showcased the nation s manufacturers. Many of the show s 128 exhibitors specialise in fast fashion and supply brands in the Inditex Group, including Pull & Bear, Zara and Bershka. The textile and clothing industry is an important one for Morocco. It employs 183,000 people, representing 26% of the country s industrial jobs, and produces 1.1 billion garments every year. The Moroccan government and the Association Morocaine des Industries du Textile et de l Habillement (AMITH), which represents the nation s fashion manufacturers and hosts the trade show, plan to enlarge the sector still further. As part of an ambitious strategy to build the industry up by 100,000 employees and 500m ( 440m) by 2020, leading Moroccan manufacturers have been chosen to act as what AMITH refers to as locomotives, guiding and advising smaller companies on how to modernise and improve production capabilities.
The sector has also been divided into a series of specialist areas known as eco-systems, which include fast fashion, knitwear and denim. Each area has a different focus denim, for example, has been set the task of creating 14,800 new jobs by 2020. Mohamed Laghmouchi is the managing director of Tangier-based woven and knitwear specialist Nova Moda II, which works with Zara and its premium counterpart, Massimo Dutti. Exhibiting at Maroc in Mode, he argues that Morocco s proximity to Europe makes it particularly well suited to the fast fashion market: Morocco is the solution for producing fast fashion. Many of the customers I speak to are currently working in Asia and China, but are increasingly worried about lead times, which are just too long. The real problem for them is the waiting time to get the product. Mohamed Tazi, director general of AMITH, also believes geography will help to promote Morocco in the eyes of European retailers: The Moroccan clothing export sector will continue to benefit in 2018 and 2019 because of deep changes facing clothing retailers. Many are caught between two business models: those who are very reactive, such as Inditex, and those who can compete on value, such as Primark. Other brands, which don t fall into those two models and have to adapt, are seeking to increase proximity sourcing in a bid to keep up and mitigate the risks facing their businesses. It allows retailers to order the right quantities of the right product. Proximity is not the only competitive advantage providing a boost to Moroccan manufacturing. Turkey was once the near-sourcing market of choice for many British and European retailers, driven by its abundance of raw materials, short lead times and expertise. However, political instability in the country, which last summer led to some retailers cancelling sourcing trips because of safety concerns, has helped to give Morocco an edge. AMITH s Tazi is keen to stress that Morocco is not basing its strategy for the sourcing sector on another country s misfortune, but admits that it has helped: Retailers don t want to put all their eggs in one basket, and they are exploring alternatives. German etailer Zalando was among the European businesses spotted at Maroc in Mode. Katie-Anne Allabarton, a buyer for Z Label, Zalando s own-label division, says: We were looking at Morocco anyway, but we do also have a lot of production in Turkey, where there is some instability. The Far East also doesn t have the price advantages that it used to. We don t currently produce anything in Morocco we came on a bit of a fact-finding and information-gathering mission to see what was here. Fellow Z Label buyer Michael Hansell adds that Morocco s proximity is a key factor: We have to be able to react really quickly to trends and to what s happening in the wider market. But local manufacturers emphasise that there is more to Moroccan sourcing than speed. As Jalil Rais, director of Marisa, which supplies Sandro and Paul Smith, says: Proximity is an advantage, but it s not the only one: lots of countries are near Europe and most of the
world can be reached easily by plane now. Instead, he points to technical expertise: There s a lot of know-how in Morocco. The quality of the product is good, as is the level of social compliance, which is very important for UK retailers. Also, Asia and China are not the same Asia and China as 10 years ago, particularly when it comes to price. The minimum monthly salary in Morocco is between 260 and 300 ( 229-264) considerably higher than Vietnam, where minimum wage levels are set to rise by 6.5% to VND2.76m-VND3.98m ( 92.10-133) next year. The minimum wage in China varies dramatically by region, ranging from RMB2,030 ( 230) in Shenzhen, the most highly paid province, and RMB1,160 ( 132) in Heilongjiang, the lowest. A lot of my clients are exploring moving production away from China, often because it s just too expensive to get people out there [to visit factories], confirms Máire Morris, director of Morris Fashion Consultancy, which advises premium brands on sourcing and manufacturing, and who was also at the show. However, she argues that Moroccan manufacturing is not always of the highest standard: Having been to Maroc in Mode to see what it was possible to do in Morocco, I m not sure the quality is there for my clients, because they tend to be near the top of the market. Morocco has ambitious plans to become a global sourcing hub specialising in fast fashion and denim. Its proximity to the UK is a key advantage as retailers continue to move towards near-sourcing, but the country also needs to offer high-quality product to rival the sector s leaders. Moroccan manufacturing by numbers 183,000 people employed in the Moroccan textile industry 100,000 more by 2020 1.1 billion garments produced each year 128 exhibitors at Maroc in Mode 1,779 visitors to Maroc in Mode
How Big Will On-Demand Manufacturing Actually be For Apparel Sourcing? by Tara Donaldson Posted on November 6, 2017 Photo credit: Ziel The apparel industry is inching closer to custom-made clothing with each technological advancement and increasingly taxing consumer demand. And though on-demand manufacturing won t remedy all of the apparel industry s speed to market ills, it stands to serve considerable purpose in automating the processes and products best suited to it. The win with on-demand is two-fold: the customer gets exactly what they want, and the brand only has to make exactly what they want. That means little waste, no excess inventory and no accounts receivable risk. Companies are losing money because of inefficient supply chain processes and the consumer is changing its behavior, said Marleen Vogelaar, founder and CEO of Ziel, an ondemand manufacturing company making private label activewear product. It s retail as a service for smaller and midsize brands, as Vogelaar puts it. Massive minimum order quantities lead brands to buy beyond what they need in order to make a sale. But that leads to excess inventory, which leads to markdowns, which leads to brand dilution. And no brand can really afford that. The apparel industry is moving to smaller orders more often, and making closer to the customer for quicker deliveries and that s prime space for on-demand manufacturing to move in.
What we see happening is we see hyper-local offerings from flagship stores, we see testing of colors, we see buying 20 percent less than Asia so our clients can have a higher sellthrough and we can supply them with the right color and quantity when it s needed, Vogelaar said speaking during a panel on innovations in technology at the Sourcing Journal Summit. Adding to that, she said, And the great thing about on-demand manufacturing and some of the things that s changing in the market, is you have to meet where the consumer actually is. And that consumer hangs out online, they hang out on Instagram, on the mobile phone, they hang out at concerts and fitness things. You have to meet them where they are in the moment and not just in a store. And buy going on demand you can connect that. According to Vogelaar, roughly 20 percent of apparel that s currently being made could be done with on-demand. XRC Labs, a consumer goods and retail accelerator focused on finding and helping fund the future movers in the space, invested in Ziel because it believes in the model. A model, XRC Labs founder and managing director Pano Anthos likens to Starbucks. We look at the Starbucks model for coffee and Starbucks does not command 100 percent of all coffee sales, right? But when you go into a Starbucks, you get whatever Starbucks coffee you want at a ridiculous margin, Anthos said. Who else has turned a commodity into a $5 liquid, literally? But it s because you get what you want, it s a language that you understand, and it s on demand. How on-demand works at Ziel At Ziel, on-demand orders are fulfilled in quick rotation, with no minimum order quantities and with a lead time under 10 days. In another four years, Vogelaar said that 10 days will shrink down to two. If you look at how long it really takes to make a garment let s say five hours to give it really, really a lot of time, she said. But what you see with most of these processes if you analyze the supply chain on average, most of the time things are in rest. Ziel doesn t have to leave things lingering and eating up precious speed to market. The company receives orders and sends them out to their production partners on a daily basis. And if all of a sudden production orders were being sent to production on an hourly basis, that change in speed to market would be radical. On-demand manufacturing will mean a shorter, more local supply chain, and it will mean cutting costs too. The fundamental issue with on-demand in all of these concepts is labor. The U.S. doesn t have enough seamstresses, they cost too much, and so we have to go to China to make this or Asia, or something like that, said Pete Santora, chief commercial officer for Softwear Automation, purveyor of the sewbots Adidas has enlisted to make 800,000 T-shirts a day in its humanless Arkansas factory, starting next year. It s labor costs that have driven companies to source in far reaching corners of the world, with executives racking up airline miles and hotel loyalty points to visit their suppliers. But Ziel doesn t have to stretch across the world to produce its product. The most important thing is that we bring the cutting and the dying in house with the sewing. In order to do that we will need to have a few different factories over the U.S., Vogelaar said.
Then you make it in the U.S and then you can start giving people a stable margin and quicker rotation. Where on-demand will work best On-demand, according to Vogelaar, will be best for smaller companies that don t have the skill or the scale, but also for bigger brands that don t yet know how to get out of their own way. Even for larger brands who are very well known, they want to have hyper local store offerings, they want to be able to test products before they do a lot of things, they want to do collaborations with artists and influencers but they have supply chains that take eight to 10 months and they can t do that, she said. For things with shorter shelf life and things with higher emotional value for the consumer, and where the collections are smaller, on-demand starts becoming an opportunity. And when it comes to speed in the supply chain, 10 days can hardly yet be beat. From a customer perspective it s slow, but as a brand to get something in 10 days from a vendor, it s really great, Vogelaar said. We have to move toward fulfilling the consumer expectations there and it s possible because the technology is not that complicated. It s really about changing the supply chain. Will we ever see on-demand at scale? As Vogelaar has explained, on-demand isn t for all apparel, but for the trendy items, the smaller runs and replenishments, it could drastically improve supply chain speed and flexibility. When Amazon was granted the patent for its on-demand apparel manufacturing system in April, naturally, more players started paying closer attention to the option. Amazon s system would be able to start producing apparel promptly upon processing a consumer s order. Based on what s ordered, the custom-clothing manufacturing system would create a tech pack, print patterns and assembly instructions, then arrange those panels for a textile printer to print before moving on to cutting and assembly. Once various textile products are printed, cut, and assembled according to the orders, they can be processed through a quality check, photographed for placement in an electronic commerce system, shipped to customers, and/or stored in a materials handling facility for order fulfillment, Amazon s patent says. By aggregating orders from various geographic locations and coordinating apparel assembly processes on a large scale, the embodiments provide new ways to increase efficiency in apparel manufacturing. The question for most brands and retailers that aren t made of Amazon money is: when will the investments necessary for on-demand balance out with the benefits, from a cost perspective? According to Vogelaar, it s already there. If you lose your 20 percent write-offs, if you lost your 40 percent excessive marking down, if you lose that and you don t have that problem and you actually have the ability to sell 10 percent more because you can actually sell exactly what the customer wants, she said. Then yes, [the products are] more expensive from a cost of goods made perspective than if you make it in Asia, but because my client does not have those write-offs and markdowns, they actually have stable margins. Every time they sell something, they know what they re going to earn. And it s a good margin.