BANGALORE, INDIA: Lectra Technologies, a global leader in software, CAD/CAM equipment and related services dedicated to the fashion business, has been serving its customers throughout the world in a broad array of major global market sectors including automotive (car seats and interiors, airbags), furniture, aeronautical and marine industries. 

With over 350 customers in India, Lectra provides high value-added services to its customers through its unequaled full-line technology solutions that enable companies to automate, streamline, and accelerate product design, development, and manufacturing.

For the apparel/fashion industry, Lectra’s array of competencies spans the entire value chain, integrating process optimization and collection lifecycle management. With the fashion industry in India composed of a large number of SMBs, Lectra's unique solutions have been catering to this segment in a big way. 

“Fabric is the single factor of major cost in apparel making. Lectra's solutions ensure profit by saving up to five percent of fabric requirement and also increase productivity tremendously,” says Prashanth L.J., managing director, Lectra Technologies India Pvt. Ltd. 

In an interview with CIOL, Prashanth takes us through Lectra's  line of business, solutions for the Indian apparel/fashion industry. Lectra's solutions encompass business processes enabling companies to automate, streamline, and accelerate product design, development, and manufacturing. Excerpts:
 
CIOL: Tell us about Lectra's products for Indian SMBs in the apparel/fashion industry?

Prashanth L.J.: At Lectra, we have been catering to the fashion industry for 35 years. Our range of software, equipment and services has continuously evolved to answer the specific needs to all industry players whatever their size, business activity, geographical location and types of marketed or manufactured fashion products. 

We know, by fact, as fashion technology market leader, that the fashion industry is composed of a large number of  SMBs, many of whom have been loyal customers for a long time and have helped us develop solutions perfectly adapted to their needs.

On the software side, we are offering a range of 2D and 3D design, engineering, prototyping, product development and material consumption management solutions adapted to all types of fashion products (apparel, footwear, luggage and leather goods) and to all levels of user expertise.  

Regarding the manufacturing and multiply cutting side, our Vector range launched at the beginning of 2007 has been clearly adopted by SMBs.

VectorFashion FX and VectorFashion FP dedicated to SMBs are our best sellers, they target just-in-time garment producers working for “fast fashion” brands, dealing with a wide variety of models and small to medium order quantities for each. Their ability to cut faster, with higher quality, at a lower running cost than any of other cutters, justify this success.

In addition, the Vector embedded “smart services” makes remote assistance for advises and maintenance easy and fast, a characteristic particularly appreciated in countries where time is a key constraint.

CIOL: What is the uniqueness of Lectra's solutions?

PLJ: The uniqueness of Lectra solutions resides in the following:

Our technology focus on the fashion industry allows use to provide the most comprehensive and dedicated range of tools to create, develop a product and manage fashion collections taking into account the specific requirements of different fashion industry segments.
 
Lectra’s manufacturing solution is unique by the fact that all departments linked to the cutting room share data, driven by the expert cut order planning system Optiplan. It makes warehouse, ERP, pattern design, marker making, spreading, and cutting working together to streamline production process, reduce downtime to its minimum, and save as much material as possible.
 
This configuration generates significant money savings, justifying a faster ROI for companies willing to optimize their production process.  In short this is the intelligent cutting room by Lectra.

Service proximity to fashion customers wherever they are located through a worldwide network of industry experts.

The newer technologies offer ROI within couple of months by showing savings in raw materials and also reducing the time to market. The management team of Indian SMBs very well know that the only way to be competitive in the export as well as domsestic market is to adopt newer technologies.

In the apparel business, India  is facing tough competition from other countries. Mass production apparel manufacturers must constantly meet demands to cut costs and also be very productive in order to maintain their competitive edge. Buyers trust those companies which can deliver samples in time for approval and deliver cost effective quality products in time. 
 
The integrated Lectra solutions provide precision, with substantial fabric savings and productivity improvement for better decision making and planning to meet the market needs. The solutions have helped in improving customer's processes to reduce fabric consumption, adopting new ways of material requirement calculation, optimize the planning of production orders and thus monitor fabric consumption throughout the lifecycle of a product.

Looking at these advantages, the Indian SMBs are either in the stage of evaluating or implementing Lectra solutions.

CIOL:  With the impact of economic slowdown hitting the industry across verticals, do you see a dip in the spend by SMBs in adopting new technology?

PLJ:  Following the economic slow down, the market condition has compelled SMBs to look at alternative solutions to be competitive and a step ahead of their competitors. They are deferring their expansion plans and thus there is a dip in the spend. But they are strengthening their existing infrastructure, implementing proven technology to optimize their processes. In the apparel industry too the same holds good  and they are reduce fabric consumption.
 
CIOL: Are there any new products/solutions in the pipeline aimed at the SMB segment?

PLJ: As mentioned earlier, SMBs represent a large part of our installed base and we make sure that we keep our customers satisfied. For instance, on our core software ranges: Modaris (pattern design), Diamino (marker making) and Kaledo (textile and Fashion design), we provide new releases on a regular basis with a strong focus on making the work of fashion professionals quicker and more comfortable through constantly improved ergonomics and embedded fashion intelligence (pre-packaged contents, processes and work flows).

On the manufacturing side, our Vector range regularly extends and benefits from new options, such as, for example, offloading graphical help system for Vector, that facilitates cut parts sorting: it displays to offloading operator on a  dedicated screen cut parts that must be put together for sewing assembly: a good way to eliminate a bottleneck and avoid costly errors.