Individual On-Demand Produced Clothing: Ultrafast Fashion Production System

In the textile and clothing industry, global value-added networks are widespread for textile and clothing production. As a result of global networks, the value chain is fragmented, and a great deal of effort is required to coordinate the production processes. In addition, the planning effort on the quantity and design of the goods is high and risky. Today the fashion industry is facing an increasing customer demand for individual and customizable products in addition to short delivery times. These challenges are passed down to the textile and clothing industry decreasing batch sizes and production times. Conventional clothing production cannot fulfill those demands especially when combined with more individual designs. Hence new sustainable and economical production concepts have to be developed. Together with the adidas AG, Herzogenaurach, a flexible and automated in-store production concept for knitted customized merino wool sweaters has been developed. With “Industrie 4.0” technologies, an urban and customer close production system has been developed. The analysis of the economical key performance indicators shows how such a new production system performs against a conventional production in Asia and where potentials are hidden.