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Kornit Digital has appointed Amaya Sales as an additional distributor for the United Kingdom. The distribution agreement covers all of Kornit Digital’s direct-to-garment printing systems.
Amaya specialises in the supply of high quality garment decoration equipment and associated software and accessories. The company provides complete service to the embroidery and digital print garment industry, from small business start-ups to large established set ups. Amaya has over 30 years’ experience in the industry combined with the expertise to help and to advice in all aspects of the business.
Kornit’s goal is to work with leading partners in all regions and the appointment of Amaya is an important milestone in the process of shaping up its European network of sales partners. The goal is to optimize the Kornit user experience in all regions of Europe.
For Amaya adding Kornit to its range of products completes a collection of top of the range brands in the garment decoration industry. Amaya will promote the leading Kornit range of products. On the digital print side of its business, Amaya will be able to offer equipment to companies ranging from small right up to the largest high production printing requirements.
Kornit Digital develops, manufactures and markets industrial and commercial printing solutions for the garment, apparel and textile industries.
Seeking to supply products to fast-fashion retailers throughout Europe.Japanese trading house Marubeni enters Europe's clothing market via Turkey. It is expected to spend 7 billion yen to 10 billion yen next month for a 45 per cent stake in the Istanbul-based company, Saide Textile. It will be the trading house's largest-ever investment in a fashion enterprise. Marubeni will send two people to Turkey to support operations.
Saide Textile designs and produces clothing, even manufacturing the sample products. Saide designs and produces clothing for major European SPAs. The Turkish company's annual sales have doubled in four years to around $180 million. From its offices in London, Saide looks plans products for production at partner factories in Turkey. It can finish the process from planning to delivery in as little as two months.
Marubeni business generates yearly sales of about 200 billion yen AS IT supplies garments to Japanese apparel companies from seven partner factories in Asia. To improve its ability to propose new products to Japanese retailers, Marubeni will use Saide's London office to challenge rival trading houses Itochu and Mitsubishi, which are doing good in apparel. On the other hand, Saide will gain access to Marubeni's partner factories in Asia, where labor costs are lower. The Turkish company aims to reach about $270 million in sales in four to five years thus getting a bigger production network from which to export to Europe.
Retailers of private-label apparel, or SPAs, Inditex continue to enjoy rapid growth owing to the popularity of their fast-fashion brands. A similar business model Uniqlo casual wear chain, follows. According to the World Trade Organization clothing exports from Turkey totaled $15 billion in 2015, Turkey is the world's seventh-largest clothing exporter thanks to its proximity to the European Union.
Mimaki’s 3D printer, 3DUJ-P, is based on Mimaki’s advanced UV inkjet technology.The 3DUJ-P offers high definition modeling with a maximum size of 500 x 500 x 300 mm. It is the world’s first truly full-color modeling solution and supports up to ten million different colors with the ability to achieve 84 per cent of the FOGRA39L color gamut with high definition printing.
The printer also includes a clear ink for stunning effects and a water-soluble support material that can be simply washed away.
Mimaki also has a new high-speed direct-to-textile Tiger-1800B printer. The machine has been demonstrated with both sublimation ink and reactive ink. It is updated to simultaneously load both textile pigment and sublimation dye inks. This enables the use of a single printer to print directly on a wide range of textiles without the need to change out ink systems.
In the textile market, there is a growing demand for shorter run and customised textile products. The Mimaki line of textile printers will enable fashion designers and interior decorators to quickly and cost-effectively meet these needs with very high quality. The printers are also being used for sampling, speeding time to market without breaking the bank.
Mimaki solutions have many different and interesting applications that are not common in traditional business but for which Mimaki solutions are ideal. This includes printing on innovative and unusual substrates.
Huntsman Textile Effects officially revealed an underground water tank that helped to address the shortage of water faced by Luna village. The newly constructed 500 KL underground water tank stores potable water to meet the needs of thousands of villagers.
Rohit Aggarwal, President of Huntsman Textile Effects at Huntsman Textile Effects shared his thoughts that water being essential and so he commented that it is their responsibility to create value for our stakeholders and to make a sustainable and vibrant world for future generations.
B.R Naidu, Zonal Officer, Central Pollution Control Board says that this initiative by Huntsman is a sustainable move as this will solve the perennial issue of water for Luna village for years to come.
The Luna village received water from Narmada water project but due to insufficient storage capacity, the water was drained away in nearby pond. In close consultation with major stakeholders like Sarpanch and Gujarat Pollution Control Board, Huntsman’s Baroda site management proposed the construction of a water storage facility as a long-term solution for the village.
The project was operated on a Public-Private-Partnership model and took close to two years to complete. Luna village takes over the running and maintenance of the water tank after the construction complete and all final inspections successfully concluded, Huntsman invested and managed the construction of the tank, working hand-in-hand with the Gujarat Water Board who undertook the laying of pipelines, drilling of wells and other underground work required for a complete water solution.
Huntsman Textile Effects runs a range of other community initiatives from its facility in Baroda, including its award-winning Anandi program.
Industrial thread maker Coats has developed a line of 100 per cent polyester continuous filament sewing threads designed to offer greater versatility and a clean seam appearance in outdoor apparel. One of its new thread innovations – the Coats AS range of threads are being designed to meet the needs of outdoor performance sportswear, woven outerwear and fashion jackets.
Epic AS and Gral AS are aimed at outdoor performance sportswear, woven outerwear and fashion jackets. The construction of the threads delivers high seam strength and excellent performance. Both the threads have lower static and dynamic friction values, which help minimize the attraction of down towards the needle in dry factory conditions. This results in less down leakage through the needle holes.
In drier atmospheric conditions the lower static and lower dynamic friction values of Gral AS and Epic AS minimize the attraction of down towards the needle, helping to prevent down leakage through needle holes. The lower dynamic friction values of Gral AS and Epic AS also enhance the uniformity of the stitch formation allowing neat and well-balanced seams.
The AS range of threads allows for improved sewing performance on complex materials due to its higher heat shield along with outstanding sewability. It provides solutions for oil-sensitive materials such as C0 fabrics. Lower tension settings can be locked so that the stitch balance can be improved and neater and flatter seams can be achieved.
At the Strategy 4.0 press conference Daniel Harari, CEO Lectra, presented its company strategy up until 2019. The company has identified four mega trends. At the Strategy 4.0 press conference Daniel Harari, CEO of Lectra, laid out the company’s strategy until 2019.
This four mega trends will already fundamentally changing the fashion, automotive and furniture industries. The Lectra’s strategy is closely aligned to this. The online magazine will have the Millennial, who as employees and buyers, are breaking all the established rules, have different needs and are demanding higher quality, customisation and sustainability, the digitalisation of companies which paves the way for intelligent, networked technologies driven by the customer demand for high-quality, customised yet affordable products, the switch to Industry 4.0 with a digital supply chain, from creation to production, with networked communications and the realignment of the Chinese economy, triggered by the country’s economic rise.
Daniel Harari shared his thoughts that the companies have to respond flexibly to change and thanked to Lectra’s soft and hardware solutions and industry expertise, the customers are now ready to face these challenges. The current company strategy creates the foundation for their future, he concluded.
Practical technology-based products seeking immediate field trials and ground-breaking technology concepts are among the winners of the inaugual 2017 Tech eChallenge Wool Innovation program.
Bringing young minds to everyday issues faced by woolgrowers, the collaboration involves Australian Wool Innovation (AWI), the Entrepreneurship Commercialisation and Innovation Centre (ECIC) at The University of Adelaide and Charles Sturt University Wagga Wagga (CSU).
Teams comprising students, staff and the wider community undertook an intensive workshop course over the past three months to give them the skills to develop practical, low-cost digital tools to help wool producers improve animal health, welfare and productivity.
Working in teams, participants came up with ideas and developed products they then pitched to a panel of expert judges in the Grand Final held at University of Adelaide.
Taking home the $20,000 first prize is the winning team representing CSU & TAFE Wagga Wagga; Wireless Farms demonstrated a low-cost, Wireless Sensor Network kit for farmers, driven by solar powered wireless links of up to 10km that can be used to transmit data from cameras and a range of sensors including custom-developed water level sensors.
The four runner up teams, who each won $10,000 were:
Woven Optics from ECIC who presented the concept of a 3D printed phone clip-on device that, in theory, enable woolgrowers to measure wool quality characteristics from the paddock and woolshed, in real time.
BreedElite from ECIC who presented a software/hardware weighing and drafting prototype that adds data functionality and analysis from smart phones and tablets to inform real time decision making.
Team Agraph, representing CSU, who presented an intelligent data analysis system that will give farmers easy access to real time customised information on demand via their smart phone or tablet to help decision making; and
Farwatch representing ECIC who presented a remote-controlled camera sensor device incorporating infrared photo capability to monitor water sources.
Australian Wool Innovation CEO Stuart McCullough said “Australian Wool Innovation is delighted to have been part of this innovative approach to attracting the best young minds in the “Tech World” towards thinking about wool. The University of Adelaide - Entrepreneurship, Commercialisation & Innovation Centre and Charles Sturt University have delivered with many of the participants in the 2017 Tech eChallenge Wool Innovation program having brought their skills and enthusiasm from outside the wool industry. The variety and quality of innovative digital ideas to improve the productivity and profitability for Australian woolgrowers has been great to see.”
Prof Noel Lindsay Pro Vice Chancellor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Adelaide added how partnering with AWI has provided the University with great insight into the real issues that the wool industry faces and it has been a great privilege to inspire young entrepreneurs to look for innovative solutions that can help shape the future of the wool industry. The outcomes have been exceptional and we look forward to being a catalyst for generating future innovations in the Wool Industry.
Head of CSU’s School of Agricultural and Wine Sciences, Professor David Falepau said, “the 2017 Tech eChallenge Wool Innovation has shown us just a glimpse of the solutions out there for everyday issues and opportunities faced by wool producers. Opening up wool producers’ challenges to the wider community was key to capturing these great ideas around technologies not immediately thought of as having a wool industry application.”
AWI will now be extending the partnership with ECIC and CSU by supporting a wool innovation stream in the 2017 Australian eChallenge. Commencing in July, the 12-week program will equip teams comprising people from diverse backgrounds, skill disciplines and locations, with the capability to take ideas to improve woolgrower productivity & profitability through to launch via business model and market validation.
The International Labour Organization estimates that around 168 million children all over the world are involved in some form of forced child labour. These issues are especially rampant in textile manufacturing and the cotton production industry that supplies it. This defines as "work for which the child is either too young it is altogether considered unacceptable for children and is prohibited". These issues are especially rampant in textile manufacturing and the cotton production industry that supplies it.
The children are willing to work for very low pay and in dangerous conditions, according to the organisation Stop Child Labour. Failure to address the challenge of child labour can seriously impact on their corporate reputation. According to Helena Helmersson, H&M's Head of Sustainability, these supply chain networks are so complex that "it is impossible to be in full control". With 11 per cent of the world's children still sacrificing school in order to work; this is no time for business to be self-satisfied.
Talking about the corporate responsibility and reputation research indicates that, by going above and beyond the basic requirements for fulfilling their corporate social responsibilities, proactive firms can engender goodwill that acts as an insurance against potential damage to their reputation. Careful reputation management implies that firms setting high standards must continue to live up to them.
By illustrating the reputational benefits of sustainable supply chain practices, they can sign up GoodWeave, which awards companies the right to carry the GoodWeave label if they can show that no child labour was used in the production of their goods.
Global Brands is partnering with Bebe to relaunch a newly transformed e-commerce platform and its international brick-and-mortar stores designed to meet the heightened shopping expectations of the savvy, confident female consumer. The announcement represents the first initiative under Global Brands' direction of Bebe's e-commerce platform, direct-to-consumer divisions and international operations.
The company has also appointed designer Nathan Jenden as creative director to lead this effort. Jenden is known for his eponymous collections, as well as his time as creative director at Diane von Furstenberg. Jenden joins Global Brands Group’s Bebe division after spending over a decade working with fashion icon Diane Von Furstenburg, and then catering to a prominent client list that counted music mogul and mega star Madonna
Global Brands Group has been a strategic licensee and can now seamlessly synergise the international distribution, e-commerce platform and wholesale business. Its efforts will concentrate on an omni-channel distribution approach to service and expand the Bebe customer, both domestically and internationally.
Ethiopia has recently announced that its flagship Chinese-built Hawassa Industrial Park, designed and constructed in an environment-friendly manner, will be model for other industrial park projects throughout the country. It will model the country's other industrial parks on the Chinese-built Hawassa for its eco-friendly operation.
The east African country hoped that the park would help its aspiration and commitment to build green economy, the park applies the latest technology for treating and recycling about 90 percent of its water usage as it is created and operated in environment-friendly manners.
According to Arkebe Oqubay, Special Advisor to the Ethiopian Prime Minster.Development of sustainable, competitive export-driven industrial parks is a major target of Ethiopia's vision towards economic development. Oqubay noted that Ethiopia's requires creating a robust and competitive industrial base rapid economic growth which can be continued through the realization of a structural transformation.
According to Oqubay, the Hawassa industrial park would be considered as a model for other industrial parks under construction to implement the Zero-Liquid Discharge (ZLD) technology to promote environmental protection. Hawassa Industrial Park was completed in a record time of nine months built by China Civil Engineering Corporation (CCECC).
Sisay Gemechu, CEO, Ethiopia's Industrial Parks Development Corporation, says that the Ethiopian government aims at enhancing job opportunities, earning revenue and promoting technology transfer.
After the Hawassa industrial park, the government has further embarked on the development of similar parks in many industrial parks that will be inaugurated soon.
