Technology

Result of collaboration between three leading companies across the garment finishing market, smart foam simplifies the sustainable practices, helping suppliers of any segment achieve their sustainability goals.

Garmon, the brand for chemical solutions for the denim and fashion industry owned by Kemin Industries, launches smart foam at The Kingpins Show in Amsterdam. Through an innovative patented technology, smart foam has the goal of revolutionizing garment finishing. The system is designed to minimize natural resource consumption, making sustainable garment production easy and accessible.

Innovative

Smart foam is a patented technology, a result of a collaboration of Garmon, Itaclab and Mactec, three leading companies across the garment finishing industry. With smart foam the chemical carrier is not water, but special foam created with a combination of new technologies:

• Garmon’s tested and selected range of chemicals
• easyfoam and easyfoam pro, Garmon’s special foaming agents
• Foam generating equipment recommended by Garmon

The smart foam system can be used to create everything from traditional finishes to unique fashion concepts and styles.

Sustainable

The main benefit of smart foam is the great reduction of water and energy consumption. Compared to traditional washing processes, the application of chemicals through smart foam allows savings of up to 80 percent of water. All the treatments are performed at room temperature, therefore reducing the energy required.

Moreover, when combined with Garmon certified chemicals, smart foam can be used to perform treatments fully compliant with greenofchange® requirements. Overall, smart foam helps suppliers of any segment achieve their sustainability goals, to better serve the fast-moving fashion industry.

Easy

Smart foam has been designed to be the easiest and most affordable system to save water in garment finishing, making the technological investment accessible to any industrial laundry. Compared to nebulization systems, smart foam is up to 3 times faster to load chemicals in the washing machine, and it doesn’t require sealed equipment, allowing technicians to interrupt finishing treatments and check garments with safety and ease. For this reason, any type of washing machine – from the traditional to the advanced – can be utilized with the smart foam equipment and process.

Jeanologia redefines fabric finishing with G2 Dynamic, the first ozone treatment for continuous fabric, thereby contributing to the consolidation of its objective to attain the dehydration and detoxification of jeans.

G2 Dynamic is the only technology on the market that guarantees a detoxed and sustainable fabric, in addition to reducing water and chemical consumption from 85 percent to 95 percent and energy from 70 percent to 80 percent. For example, if a kilogram of fabric uses between 15 and 20 liters of water, with G2 Dynamic the complete process uses from 0.5 to a maximum of 3 liters per kilo.

This technology has been gaining a lot of traction in the industry, 30 fabric manufacturers have incorporated it into their production process within only three years of its launch. Jean Pierre Inchauspe, the person in charge of G2 Dynamic has pointed out that “the main weavers of the five continents are already using this technology as an indispensable process for the sustainable finishing of their fabrics.”

Jeanologia’s 2025 objective for this technology is to achieve an average saving of more than 8.5 mn cubic meters of water per year. This is the amount necessary for the annual human consumption of more than 3.5 mn people. 80 percent of these machines are being used for the finishing of denim (blue and black) and 20 percent for the finishing of loom state (other colours), the market for “denim fabric” in colour will become more important in the year to come.

With this technology, the company brings to the market a sustainable alternative to several traditional, more polluting and water consuming processes in the textile industry. Furthermore, highlights Inchauspe “[it] improves and boosts subsequent production stages up to the finishing of the garment, making them more efficient and allowing companies to be more competitive, increase productivity and offer a product that is completely sustainable.”

Ozone, a fundamental pillar for a sustainable textile industry

G2 Dynamic is the latest in ecoefficient ozone textile technology, the result of 15 years of innovation in the industry from the fabric to the final garment. After years of applying ozone for garment finishing, Jeanologia has taken the next step using ozone to end the water consumption and chemicals used in traditional fabric finishing processes. The Jeanologia Ozone Center has become one of the fundamental pillars in the new era for denim as an essential element in a 100 percent sustainable textile industry.

Gerber Technology pushes boundaries of innovation with a single, unique platform that fully connects the supply chain from design to production leveraging 2D/3D CAD, PLM and Industry 4.0 enabled Smart Machines. With the release of AccuMark 12.2, which has more than 46,000 users worldwide, the 50-year-old pioneer will solidify its position as the leading end-to-end platform by effectively streamlining the workflow through the ability to increase productivity, identify fit issues, and decrease the lead time from an average of 57 weeks to as little as a few days. This covers not only the area of digital product development but also the connection to both mass automated and on-demand production.

“A seamlessly integrated platform will allow users to not only see pretty pictures but be able to produce garments right away, drastically reducing the development cycle times,” said Mary McFadden, Vice President of CAD Product Management at Gerber Technology. “Our customers can use their own patterns to simulate in 3D, make as many fit adjustments as needed without having to use any DXF, which is a real game changer. With 12.2, we’ve added required features that are going to strengthen the connection with not only YuniquePLM® and our Smart Machines, but also with digital printers, enabling our customers to meet every challenge.”

“Our integrated platform uniquely offers the flexibility, speed, and agility that our customers need now in order to compete and thrive,” said Karsten Newbury, Chief Digital Strategy Officer, Gerber Technology. “Our focus is singularly on the success of our customers so they can tackle the burning topics in the industry including fit, sustainability, and the need for personalization. This requires a tightly-integrated data solution. We’re continuing our aggressive roadmap with the release of AccuMark 12.2, which is going to add great value to our end-to-end platform.”

AccuMark 12.2 has been designed to fully empower the industry by enhancing Gerber’s end-to-end platform through an improved digital print workflow, several new 3D capabilities that will improve fit assessment, and offer better communication among partners and team members. AccuMark 3D 12.2 also includes major improvements in 3D simulations. Our integrated 2D/3D solution provides the most efficient workflow for validating patterns during fit and style development. Patternmakers can seamlessly simulate patterns while making pattern corrections, even on graded sizes.

In order to combat the need for on-demand, personalized products, many companies are starting to leverage digital printing. AccuMark 12.2 offers new enhancements that will improve the digital printing process including the ability to apply barcodes and QR codes to seam allowances and PDF image option that supports spot colours.

The latest installment of the industry-leading CAD solution will also feature major updates to their cut planning software, AccuPlan™, which will further enable their customers to take on the challenges of mass production. AccuPlan 12.2 not only makes it simple to get a precise cut but, when combined with Gerber’s powerful nesting software, AccuNest™, is able to drastically reduce costs and material waste.

“Our pre-press process is at least five times more productive than it was before the AccuMark digital print workflow and we’ve gained, on average, 15 percent yield using marker making to layout the pieces for the print file,” said Jon Hickson of Digital Performance Gear. “Our art team will be twice as efficient with 12.2 since they won’t have to wait for simulations to finish every time they want to send out a concept with different art.”