ThreadSol concludes first edition of Apparel Tech Up Sri Lanka

After Apparel Tech Up in Bangladesh, India, Vietnam and Indonesia, ThreadSol hosted the first edition of Apparel Tech Up for the Sri Lankan apparel industry on 20 July at Cinnamon Grand, Colombo. 

The event was aimed to discuss the latest trends in global apparel retail and manufacturing and subsequently how new age technology like Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and Mobility can aid Sri Lankan apparel manufacturers. 

The event saw a large turnout from the apparel manufacturing fraternity of Sri Lanka with the presence of over 90 high management representatives from 42 manufacturing groups including Felix Fernando - CEO Sirio Ltd; Rakhil Hirdaramani - Director Hirdaramani Group; Murad - CEO and Jehan Mutaliph from MAS Bodyline and Sadiq Omar, Shiraz Omar and Hasib Omar from Brandix. The audience also included technology providers Fast React Systems and GSD.

Head of Emerging Markets, ThreadSol Anas Shakil  discussed the changing landscape of retailers and consumers of fashion products, the inevitable rise of e-commerce and the plausible impact on manufacturers. 

He said: “The trends all over the world are changing. Amazon (an e-commerce company based in the US) holds a 6.6% share of the fashion retail in the US and it is expected to rise to 16.2% in the next five years. This impact of fast fashion will greatly affect the global apparel manufacturing. From our analysis of 154 factories across 15 countries, we see the number of styles per season is rising at a CAGR of 17.9%. By 2020, manufacturers will have to plan twice the number of styles as they do today, whereas the overall quantity will remain constant.”

In his keynote Founder CEO of ThreadSol, ManasijGanguli, a technocrat with 15 years of experience, explained how ThreadSol products using AI, Big Data and Mobility can drastically change the landscape of apparel manufacturing in the world. 

‘Big Data, Artificial Intelligence are concepts that are essential for the apparel industry to adopt to stay cost competitive. The information is available, just requires the right systems to mine it and use for data driven decision-making.  We at ThreadSol are committed to continually innovate to help our customers succeed in a fast-evolving industry,’” added Ganguli. 

Singapore-based ThreadSol innovates solutions to decrease fabric waste and enhance profitability for apparel manufacturers. Since 2012, ThreadSol solutions- intelloCut and intelloBuy have been successful in saving up to 10% manufacturing cost in over 120 factories in India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Jordon, Philippines and Cambodia. In Sri Lanka, ThreadSol is already working with large manufacturers like Hirdaramani Group, MAS Holdings, Brandix, Maliban, Hela Clothing, Omegaline, etc.