Top 5 Challenges and Solutions To Scale Up Your Textile Digitization

In the current technology-driven market, balancing growth and adopting modern digitization tools is no longer an option for brands in the textile and fashion industries. However, there are several challenges and barriers to overcome to start their textile digitization journey.


In reality, digital transformation requires modern technology tools, expertise, and guidance. Having no roadmap and unclear expectations will doom your efforts and become a disaster. Digital transformation strategies are a long-term vision of any business to
  • Address their pain points
  • Improve process efficiency to scale up their companies
  • Deliver more customized personal experiences
  • Make things more efficient than ever before to remain competitive and relevant in the industry.


We have listed the top 5 textile digitalization challenges and how to overcome them. Let’s have a look at them:

1. Incapability to Scale 


This is mainly due to the non-adoption of innovations and implementing time-consuming workflows employed by standalone material scanners that can cause: 
  • An inability to digitize a large number of fabrics rapidly and efficiently
  • An increase in the number of fabric swatch books and the waste of disposing of outdated fabric swatch books
  • Increase the number of textile prototyping times and unnecessary stock fabrics.
Solution: Digital Twin Supply Chain


A digital twin supply chain (a virtual model of a physical product or process) can help model the data and predict outcomes by using machine learning algorithms to help with the performance of predictive modeling of the supply chain to create what-if scenarios. 

Embrace Frontier.cool’s new TextileCloud™ to unleash your creativity and start
  • Navigating digital textile samples through the TextileCloudTM with over 100,000 digital materials to choose from, review the textile samples, look up material information and attributes within the platform
  • You can digitize your textile fabrics easily and rapidly using your scanner to upload the information to the "TextileCloud™" backed by AI technology which converts your 2D file into a 3D file. This process can boost efficiency and start scaling up your digital product creation.
  • 3D Fabric Design viewer: This incredible feature allows you to unleash your creativity, customize your fabrics design, adjust colors, and choose from different types of garments models (t-shirts, dresses, jackets, shirts, shoes) that you wish to see the 3D view of your chosen fabric to simulate the end design outcome. 
  •  Digital twin technology: work with realistic physical properties and digitized material qualities.



2. Ineffective Strategies and Leadership


Digital technology transformation initiatives with no clear roadmap and strategy could  become a disaster. C-level executives play a crucial role in the decision-making process. Thus, sharing the significance of digital transformation across the organization is essential.
Here are the potential barriers to C-level executives and key decision-makers:
  • They fail to embrace digital transformation and are unclear about the strategy & changes it can bring to the table
  • They are not involved, so they can not view the 360-degree picture of digital technology transformation
  • Communication gaps can not bring employees and C-level executives on the same page.
Solution: Share the Digitization Vision with Stakeholders
 Let C-level people know the blueprint of the digital transformation journey
Make them understand and embrace the vision and goals of digital transformation to achieve scalability goals

Start allocating responsibilities beforehand to cut down process disruptions and silos in communication. It can enable them to move forward and remain competitive.


3. Lack of Transparency, Efficiency, Traceability, and Interoperability in the Supply Chain


These are some of the supply chain's Top challenges: 
  • Lack of transparency
  • Inability to respond quickly to marketing demands
  • Lack of visibility for accurate forecasting
  • Pain points of excess waiting times and unnecessary costs that continue to plague conservative ways of supply chain management. These outmoded models will soon become a thing of the past
  • Inability to manage and make sense of the large volumes of data scattered across processes and partner organizations.
Solution: Digital Supply Chain Adoption
The primary aim of supply chain innovations is to bring real-time visibility across logistics vendors, suppliers, buyers, and inventory. It uses advanced technologies and actionable insights and functions to make data-driven decisions on material sourcing and accountability to embrace the growing complexities of digital supply chain management.

                   

    Source: Oracle


Digitization To Achieve Supply Chain Management 4.0


To effectively facilitate the digitization of supply chain management, Frontier.cool AI-powered technology ensures maximum flexibility and adaptability for all supply chain partners.
Frontier.cool enables brand managers and designers to 
  • Boost agility, transparency, and interoperability.
  • Co-work, co-design, and co-manufacture
  • Upload 4D digital fabric swatches into Frontier’s digital library.
  • Review these swatches and collaborate as part of an ongoing real-time process. Hence, It makes the material sourcing and communication process more efficient.
  • To alleviate the pain points of old-fashioned models, Frontier.cool assists with the transition to Supply Chain Management 4.0. and supports saving on costs.
For further information about digital transformation, schedule a call with Frontier.cool today.





4. Inability to Record and Monitor the Fabric’s Environmental Impact


The fashion and textile sectors were responsible for 2.1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2018, according to one Mckinsey research. This amount is about the same quantity of GHGs per year as the entire economies of France, Germany, and the UK combined.
TheIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) created an agreement with the main Fashion industry players to reduce the fashion and textile sectors' GHG emissions to 1.1 billion metric tons of CO2 equivalent by 2030 to drive decarbonization and bring real and lasting change for the better in the fashion industry. However, they have some barriers to overcome:
  • Struggle to disclose the fabrics' CO2 emissions
  • Failure to quantify the amount of land, water, or energy used to produce an individual item can be time-consuming and costly
  • Struggle to provide concrete data from across the supply chain, leaving customers skeptical about how reliable such claims of sustainable practices are
  • Struggle with fabric sampling and shipping eco impact
Solution: Embracing New Technologies to Estimate the Environmental Impact of Fabrics.

Companies can now embrace new sustainable data technology tools such as Frontier.cool to 

  • Choose fabrics that cause less harm to the environment 
  • Deliver comprehensive material-level impact measurements, thanks to the latest innovative technologies. 
  • Use data regarding CO2 emissions, water consumption, energy usage, and land use. 
  • Improve transport pollution problem caused by sending physical fabric swatch books and sample fabrics.

5. Budget and Time Limitations


These barriers are against digital transformation
  • Unclear and unmeasurable goals
  • Ineffective allocation of the precise time to guarantee good results
  • Business owners don’t set enough budget for digital technology transformation 
  • Business models do not derive customized digital transformation solutions.
Solution: A Realistic Project Plan
Digital transformation is one of the best solutions to overcome this challenge as a long-term strategy to meet your goals and divide the entire process into multiple time-bound tasks. So, you would get total control over the project within the time and cost.

Undeniably, stakeholders should know what’s going on in the project and the timelines, and employee collaboration is vital in achieving digital transformation goals. You can also train your internal staff for a successful digital transformation.


Conclusion


If you are on the edge of deciding to transform your company's digital landscape, look no further. It is the best time to invest in technology and make it agile to scale to join the world of digital creation and enjoy the fruits of digital technology transformation.
During continuous improvement and innovation, you can introduce new business models to deliver the best customer experience.
It's time to move the digital technology transformation from your priority checklist to the right now list to leave no room for regrets.
For more tips to successfully join the digital product creation to improve your workflow, interoperability, transparency, and building a sustainable digital supply chain. 
Sign up for our webinar to learn: 
How to overcome these barriers to joining the world of digital product creation


2022-11-17
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