Digital Textile Success Story — Main Chief Knitting

Main Chief Knitting Co. Ltd. is a fabric company that has been well-established in Taiwan for more than 20 years. Main Chief Knitting’s products are mainly knitted fabrics supplied to garment clients in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Cambodia. The company is also an original equipment manufacturer for many European and American brands.

Challenges

• Main Chief Knitting has tens of thousands of different textiles. Each season, clients will want new and different textile fabrics, and the company’s salespersons need to slowly go through the different textile swatches one by one. Although the company uses Excel files to manage its inventory, the information is incomplete, making finding textile fabrics arduous and time-consuming.
• Before the pandemic, the company’s sales team visited customers in person to show them samples or showcased its products at physical exhibitions. But the impact of the pandemic made it difficult for them to visit customers for the past three years, resulting in a decline in the number of orders and making it difficult for the company to expand its business.
• Setting out textile samples in the small booths at trade shows makes it inconvenient for potential customers to browse the company’s products. Oftentimes, customers need to visit the company after the exhibition to find the textile fabrics they had their eyes on. The samples the customer is interested in can’t be delivered directly to the client at the exhibition.

How Frontier.cool Helped

Boosted the company’s fabric sales

After scanning a physical fabric sample with a standard office scanner, Frontier.cool’s AI can generate a digital swatch in less than five minutes. The information on the swatch is also recorded in the digital swatch file. 

At present, only new fabric products are immediately uploaded to the digital textile sheet. Previous products are currently still undergoing scanning and filing. Salespersons can now log in to TextileCloud™ and quickly find the fabrics that their customers need, providing quality products and services to customers more quickly.

According to Chong He Xiang, a salesperson at Main Chief Knitting, Frontier.cool’s TextileCloud™ platform is very intuitive and easy to use. Currently, TextileCloud™ is used by all Main Chief Knitting’s departments, from sales and development to production management, for various purposes such as product development, textile search, and customer service.

Image courtesy of Main Chief Knitting

With the Collection feature, the company can quickly pack up the fabric samples its customers are interested in and send them directly to the customer. Compared to sending images attached to an email, which has an attachment size limit, Collection allows the customer to view high-resolution images of the textile swatches along with the complete and relevant information. Physical data is also provided, which is essential information for fabric manufacturers and designers.

Helped to make an impression at trade shows with digital fabric swatches

The first time Main Chief Knitting tried showcasing both physical and digital fabric swatches at a trade show was in 2022, at the textile exhibition in Japan. Signages with a QR Code were placed at the booth so visitors could scan the QR Code, link to Main Chief Knitting’s digital material library, and browse more fabric products. 

At this year’s show in October, Main Chief Knitting will expand the application of its digital materials. The layout design for Main Chief Knitting’s exhibition display will showcase its finest products in the booth, giving the space a designed look and allowing customers to clearly view Main Chief Knitting’s products from a distance. 

When a customer sees a textile sample they are interested in; the salesperson can immediately show other similar items to the customer through TextileCloud™. Afterward, the digital fabrics can be packed into a Collection and sent to the customer, enhancing their impression of Main Chief Knitting’s products.

Image courtesy of Main Chief Knitting

Offered immediate convenience and assurance from the Taiwan team’s digital consulting services

Frontier.cool’s digital consulting service accompanied Main Chief Knitting on its digitalization journey from the beginning when the company started introducing the system to its operations. The team has provided various information and counseling services to help Main Chief Knitting during the process. Chong He Xiang said, “Because Frontier.cool is a Taiwanese business, we find it very reassuring that their team can quickly assist us if we encounter any problems. This is not something that foreign brands may be able to do.”

Main Chief Knitting’s Next Steps in Digitalization

Main Chief Knitting will build a complete digital fabric database by interfacing the platform with the company’s internal ERP system, making digital fabric information more transparent and easily accessed. Meanwhile, the textile industry is experiencing a skill gap where there is a significant skill difference between experienced professionals and those new to the industry. If experience can be passed on and a knowledge system can be created by cloud computing the information, it will be more conducive to training textile talents.

To find out more about how Frontier.cool and the TextileCloud™ platform can transform the way you work, get in touch with one of our friendly consultants today!