Technology

As the global economy and the Ready-Made Garment (RMG) sector recovers from the Covid-19 crisis, the need for fast, detailed, and accurate planning and control of manufacturing processes is more acute than ever before. Coats Digital’s market leading FastReactPlan software solution will play a crucial role in ensuring that the Azim Group is able to navigate through the COVID-19 crisis and emerge stronger by responding quickly, efficiently, and sustainably to customer demands.

Established in 1975, Azim Group manufactures garments for leading brands in the United States, Europe, Asia and South America. Its clients include American Eagle, Tommy Hilfiger, Perry Ellis, Aeropostale, Bershka, Pull & Bear, Kohl’s, Walmart and Amazon. Currently, the Group comprises of 13 multi-category garment manufacturing units located in Dhaka and Chittagong, supplying woven, sweater and denim products, as well as a further 2 four-tier factories which support a vertically integrated manufacturing model.

Azim Group is committed to becoming a benchmark for garment manufacturers in Bangladesh and beyond. Core values of excellence, integrity and responsibility are deeply embedded within the company. Its vision is to be a role model for environmental and social responsibility. Azim Group’s active engagement with various global programs such as the ZDHC, The Higg Index and Amfori BEPI, is a testament of its commitment to the highest sustainability standards. Azim Group factories are certified by Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), Organic Content Standard (OCS) and OEKO-TEX Standard 100.

With a firm belief that digitalization has an important role to play in the sustainable and efficient use of key resources including people and materials, Azim Group will utilise FastReactPlan from Coats Digital to optimise capacity planning, with materials and pre-production activities dynamically driven by the latest plan on a JIT, LEAN basis.

Our response to the challenges arising from the Covid-19 crisis is key for the sustainability of the RMG sector in Bangladesh. After ensuring the health and safety of our people, we must drive forward with innovative strategies which will enable us to operate more efficiently and flexibly. FastReactPlan will allow us to optimise our planning with a highly visual and sophisticated system across multiple processes, and solve the major challenge of drastically shrinking delivery lead times. Farhan Azim, Deputy Managing Director, Azim Group.

Azim Group is a pioneer in the Bangladesh RMG Industry and we are delighted to work with their world-class team to support the company on its journey of digital transformation. Their journey will start with digitalizing production planning and control, and then we will look for further opportunities to support the team with the Coats Digital ecosystem of connected solutions, driving increased visibility, flexibility, speed and cost-efficiency.

In the face of unprecedented pressures within the global apparel industry such as increased speed to market, growing product complexity and order fragmentation, increased cost and most recently Covid-19, we look forward to supporting Azim Group in digitalising their key business processes and helping them emerge from this worldwide crisis stronger than ever. Ayan Barua, Business Development Manager, Coats Digital

FastReactPlan is developed exclusively for the fashion, textile and apparel industry and can be configured in multiple ways to reflect industry best practice and specific business requirements. The Azim Group project will include detailed planning of the sewing lines as well as the scheduling of cutting, laundry and finishing processes within its denim specialised subsidiary, Global Outerwear Ltd, using the highly visual, sophisticated tools of the FastReactPlan planning board.

The Global Supply Management (GSM) Team has selected Coats Digital’s VisionPLM to boost productivity and drive connectivity across the supply chain, supporting the business on a Global level. The GSM Team supplies workwear to Sodexo’s employees from chef’s jackets, aprons and lab coats to headwear and polo shirts.

To support it through a period of rapid growth, Sodexo Services Asia decided to invest in a Product Lifecycle Management solution to help streamline product development, purchasing and production management processes.

Sodexo GSM Team: “Whilst our internal and external demands for uniforms are growing fast, we were struggling to keep up with product development and production using disconnected manual processes and tools. Managing key business processes on spreadsheets, reports, documents and catalogues was slow and resulted in significant inefficiencies and inaccurate data. As well as the inherent inefficiencies of this approach, there were examples of out of date catalogues being used and margin control and management was a real challenge.”

“Something needed to change and we needed to streamline and automate key processes in a way that supported more effective collaboration across regions and with supply chain partners, as well as giving us fast access to accurate information.” After reaching out to a number of providers, the GSM Team selected Coats Digital’s fashion specific Product Lifecycle Management solution, VisionPLM.

Xaar, the leading inkjet printing technology company, has launched a highly advanced, simple to install printhead, following close collaboration with its global OEMs. Designed to deliver exceptional 720 dpi print resolution quality and performance across a range of applications including ceramics, glass, packaging and label applications, the new Xaar 2002 has been developed specifically to provide fast and easy integration and is ready to use straight out of the box.

Using drop in printhead alignment, mechanical tolerance improvements allow the printheads to be dropped into the printbar easier, making set-up times faster, and machine builds quicker. Developed following OEM and customer feedback, the ‘plug and print’ capability significantly reduces set-up times and helps save time and money.

In addition, thanks to its new advanced Tuned Actuator Manufacturing – TAM2 – and Xaar AcuChp Technology, the Xaar 2002 also delivers visibly improved colour uniformity across the width of the printhead, further reducing printhead installation and set-up times, therefore maximising uptime. Print speed is greatly enhanced with the Xaar 2002, enabling lines to be run faster. By using the full capability of the printhead, much higher firing frequencies of up to 36 kHz are now possible, delivering significantly increased printing speeds of up to 75 metres per minute at 720dpi.

Graham Tweedale, General Manager of Xaar’s printhead business unit said; “After extensive collaboration with our global OEMs we worked hard to ensure the Xaar 2002 delivers the operational improvements they have asked for. “With its simple installation and significantly reduced set-up times, we believe the Xaar 2002 printhead offers the speed and performance our customers now demand for the print applications they provide.”

Each Xaar 2002 printhead can be customised by OEMs, ensuring visibility of their brand on the print engine. Furthermore, the Xaar 2002 is serviceable, lowering the total cost of ownership and providing an excellent return on investment.

Designed for use across a variety of applications and ink types the Xaar 2002 is available in three printhead variants – the Xaar 2002 Plus, Xaar 2002 Premium and Xaar 2002 Advanced, providing customer choice and flexibility for a range of print applications.

The Xaar 2002 printhead also incorporates Xaar’s industry leading TF Technology, High Laydown and Ultra High Viscosity printing capabilities. These provide users with significant performance improvements when compared to other printhead designs. Xaar’s unique TF Technology allows a broader range of ink or other fluids to flow directly past the back of the nozzle at very high flow rates. This prevents the nozzle from drying out, increasing the printhead’s nozzle open time, thereby ensuring the printhead is continuously primed for trouble free start-up, even after periods of non-use.

Incorporating many of the performance features requested by customers, the Xaar 2002 is the first printhead to launch under Xaar’s new leadership team and demonstrates the focus on its new strategy. “The Xaar 2002 range offers all round ease of set up and use, while delivering the exceptional print quality, unsurpassed reliability and unique technologies Xaar is renowned for,” concluded Graham. “Saving time and maximising print results for our customers, whatever their application.”