A New Textile Production Type - Urban Apparel Production In Microfactories

Abstract

The World of production has changed due to the events of 2020 and 2021. The aftermaths are still being felt in many sectors of the economy. In addition to delayed deliveries due to lack of resources and production stoppages, logistics costs have increased. In addition to these uncertainties in the supply chains, the demand for sustainable and emission-free production by politicians and end consumers is rising. One way of improving the resilience of textile production and at the same time avoiding time-consuming, costly, and emission-intensive delivery routes is to relocate production to the immediate vicinity of customers. In urban hubs, products can be manufactured according to demand and customer-specific requirements. With the digital integration of the customer and progressive development of textile manufacturing technologies (e.g. digital printing and laser finishing), batch sizes between 1-1,000 pieces can be realized, avoiding overproduction. In addition, storage costs and delivery routes are eliminated due to customer proximity. A formal description for microfactories (MF) in the textile production context does not exist yet. This paper aims to define and classify the production form “microfactory” in the production landscape. For this purpose, known types of production are first identified and textile MF is delineated against them. Subsequently, the term microfactory is defined by the Institut fuer Textiltechnik. For this purpose, the requirements are first defined, and then a textile application and possible business models are considered.