Driving Down Costs In Textile Value Chain Through Innovation

Event & Conferences

Driving Down Costs In Textile Value Chain Through Innovation

SDC EC in India successfully conducted a half day seminar on 26th September 2019 for Bhiwandi cluster at Satkar Grande. The topic of the seminar was close to everyone's heart "Driving costs in value chain of textile through innovation" The event was well attended by the industry representatives who are all looking at ways to innovate to drive down costs. The keynote speaker for the day, Gautam Makharia, Joint MD, M/s Pushkar Chemicals, emphasised on the 3 P's of sustainability and how innovation alone can bring about profits through a zero-waste cycle wherein, the by-product of one can become the raw material for the next process/product. He demonstrated how Pushkar has created this cycle so that they are able to bring down the costs of the products and be present in a number of verticals in the industry. The chief guest Punit Makharia, Chairman & MD of M/s Pushkar Fertilisers & Chemicals talked about how stability and sustainability was important to create wealth. He gave the example of how the polluting industries in China are being phased out since they were more focussed on manufacturing more and more with total disregard for the disposal of the waste. Dr Mahapatra presented a lecture on sustainability - using the right kind of dyes which not only ensures we have the colour depth using lesser amount of dyes, but also ensures lower water and power consumption , which then results in lower cost of dyeing. He introduced H&M approved reactive black dye which gives the same depth at 5-6 % as compared to 13% of conventional black dye. He also talked about using innovation in the fibre sector such as soya bean fibre which has properties similar to silk, and milk fibre from waste milk. Mitesh Shah, Sales Head, SF Dyes and Sunil Sharma from Archroma expressed concern that the garment industry which is slated to grow to US$ 2.6 trillion by 2025 must innovate to become sustainable. They presented the various innovations in dyeing and in finishing concepts which not only allow for savings in process time (one bath) but also allow the garments to be cared for in an easy manner using less water for washing & less energy for ironing. Introduction to ITMACH was given by D.J. Gohain. He announced the dates for ITMACH India to be held on 5-8 Dec 2019 wherein it will be a marketplace to interact with potential new & existing investors from India & neighbouring countries. ITMACH will cater to categories such as machinery for spinning to garmenting, dyes and chemical manufacturers, testing, transport, accessories for waste recycling, etc. The panel discussion was chaired by Sanjay Sathe from Archroma, which included Sunil Chari, Director Rossari Biotech, Kalpesh Jain from Silkon Group, Dinesh Jain Director, Rishabh Apparels, Dakshesh Desai, VP, Business Development, Sohan Dyechem and Abhirup Khetrapal from Bombay Crimpers. There were very interesting viewpoints shared by Sunil Chari with regards to what the chemical industry is doing in terms of innovation so that processors like Abhirup can benefit to bring down their process costs. Abhirup also emphasised upon the awareness of process houses to innovate in-house process and systems to create less waste and improve profitability. Dinesh who talked about how garment industry is also looking at sustainable fashion, while Dakshesh shared his experiences from colour communication being made so much easier with the use of latest tools, which leads to faster and more accurate shade matching leading to time saving and right first time. Kalpesh also was in sync with the other panellists and emphasised as to how innovation in all aspects of textile value chain contribute to the costs of a garment and how we need innovation to bring down costs and increase profitability for all stakeholders.