The CII Centre of Excellence for Competitiveness for SMEs recently organised a conference in Mumbai on “Achieving Sustainable Growth in Textile & Apparel Industry through Manufacturing Excellence” aimed to identify the challenges faced by the Indian textile & apparel industry.
The main theme of the event was to try to achieve worldwide acceptance of the products which are made in India through ‘manufacturing excellence’, which now forms the most important requirement of the Indian textile industry today.
Mr. Subhash Deshmukh, who is the Minister of Cooperation, Marketing and Textiles, announced at the conference that the Government is working on the new textile policy for 2017-2022 by inviting suggestions from different quarters.
“We need to create an awareness of the government subsidies and schemes across all forums,” said Dr. Kavita Gupta, Textile Commissioner and Vice Chairman, Textile Committee. According to her, it is important for stakeholders to get associated with Governmental support. The textile industry should also experiment with technical textiles such as agrotextiles, geotextiles, medical textiles, etc. This should be done on a much larger scale in order to be able to compete with the European nations which contribute to 60% of the overall production of geotextiles.
In his address Mr. R.D. Udeshi, President (Polyester Chain), Reliance Industries and Conference Chairman, said that instead of just making a typical commodity product, the endeavour should be to change the product pattern and add more value to it to make India the largest producer of synthetic fibre globally.
He pointed out that even though the labour costs in the country are reasonably low, they can be improved upon with skill development. This would help in greater efficiency and also in satisfying the customer demand for quality, latest designs and timely delivery. “India is having a robust industry structure and we must do everything for achieving excellence,” he added.
Mr. Arvind Mathur, CEO, Raymond UCO Denim Pvt Ltd., spoke on improving work efficiencies, starting from fibre to fashion. “You cannot compete in the global space if you are not the best in class in your products.”
Mr. Hasitha Premaratne, CFO, Brandix Lanka Ltd., emphasized how his company has been investing in skill development and the latest technologies for the past 20-25 years in order to win the trust of the customers from the US and Europe and then sustain it too. Systems and processes are key enablers for competitiveness in the apparel industry. South Asia is of course a highly competitive manufacturing destination because of its huge population and textile base, large cotton production and an ample talent pool.
Mr. Rahul Mehta, MD, Creative Casuals India Pvt Ltd., stressed the need for industry-driven training programmes which would help in fulfilling the requirement of high-skilled workers and supervisors for the high-end or sophisticated sewing machinery operation.
Mr. Prashant Agarwal, Co-founder, Wazir Advisors, stated that the only way to achieve the ambitious target of $ 400 billion textile and apparel market by 2030 is through ‘manufacturing excellence’, backed by productivity improvement programs, skill development & up-gradation, continuous research & development and governmental support.
Mr. Suresh Hooli, India Manager, Lectra, focused on the four key trends that will significantly impact all the industries around the world. These are the millennials, digitization of business, the emergence of industry 4.0 and China’s expanding economy. These challenges can be overcome by improved speed and performance, making right decisions and a short product development cycle. Automation in a manufacturing set-up will improve profitability because of the potential for producing more with less manpower and reducing extra shifts.
The Centre of Excellence, which focuses on educating industries on the concept of ‘manufacturing excellence’, tries to achieve its aims by undertaking handholding consultancy assignments, workshops and trainings on relevant topics and also by organising conferences which would give the manufacturing industry a platform to discuss issue-specific topics.