“Faster, Cheaper, Better”, Lectra strives to develop “tailor-made” business

From September 26 to 29, the biennial China International Sewing Equipment Exhibition (CISMA) 2017 was held in Shanghai as scheduled. CISMA is the world’s largest professional sewing equipment exhibition. The exhibits include various types of pre-sewing, sewing, and post-sewing machines as well as CAD/CAM design systems and surface assistants, completely showing the entire chain of sewing clothing.

At the exhibition, Lectra highlighted two themes: “tailor-made solutions” and “full-process intelligent solutions from design to cutting.” In the booth, Lectra and Zhuangji’s men’s customization experience store presented the Industry 4.0 smart factory jointly created by Lectra’s mature MTM solutions and Zhuangji’s advanced suit production technology. Andreas A. Kim, General Manager of Lectra Greater China, and Xu Yizhen, Vice President of Professional Services Department of Lectra Greater China, gave their opinions on how to deeply interpret and apply this customized solution in the Chinese market.

Consumer demand and industrial upgrading make customization imperative

There is a very urgent objective demand for tailor-made products. On the one hand, with the development of consumers’ personalized demands, the traditional production model cannot meet the changes in the market in terms of speed, responsiveness and flexibility. In particular, China’s middle class is growing rapidly, and its sense of fashion and purchasing power have greatly improved, making tailoring widely recognized by the public; on the other hand, the current inventory of clothing brands has brought many constraints to corporate production, greatly increasing the company’s There is pressure on development costs and cash flow, so tailor-made products can well meet the demands of both consumers and industry.

Accelerate the large-scale development of tailor-made business

The concept of tailor-made has appeared a long time ago. Compared with full customization in Western countries (high-cost tailor-made clothes, completely personalized service form), tailor-made is a customization model with scale advantages. This is also the result of the gradual accumulation and application of digital industries with the development of science and technology. Talking about the current development of tailor-made business in China, Andreas A. Kim quoted the description in “Crossing the Chasm”. He believed that MTM has crossed the gap between the first and second stages and is accelerating from In the process of transitioning from the early adopter stage to the mainstream application model, the future development of tailor-made products will gradually transition from the privilege of a few high-end brands to brand standards.

Lecron technology helps optimize customized business

It is understood that Lectra’s R&D investment in technology is 10% of sales revenue. This number is much higher than other similar competitors. Lectra’s MTM solution was also born from this great effort.investment in R&D. From a specific operational level, Xu Yizhen summarized 3 advantages that Lectra’s MTM solution brings to customers: faster, cheaper, and better. Why faster? Through the input of measurement data, it only takes 1 minute to publish it, which greatly shortens the delivery cycle; why is it cheaper? It is to reduce the inventory quantity with the increase of customization business, so as to reduce the operating cost of the enterprise; better quality is to bring better fit to the clothing through Lectra’s technology, as well as the durability of the process, thus improving the overall performance. Improve the quality of clothing.

However, technology is not the only way to solve all problems. It does not mean that the introduction of advanced technologies and tools will lead to the ability to customize. This also requires enterprises to have certain data accumulation and transformation preparations. As Xu Yizhen said: “Some companies that have not done branding need to have a clear definition of the basic model and determine the standards before preparing to make variant rules. They need to have soft skills. Then Lectra will help you digitize the soft knowledge. It’s not just about selling these software to customers, it’s more about discussing with customers to understand their real needs and ultimate goals, and based on our many years of experience and understanding of this industry, we can really help them solve their business pain points.” This is the value brought by Lectra’s professional service team in addition to technology.