Computer aided cutting in Indian garment industry: a change agent

Abstract

Indian Apparel manufacturing is clearly divided between organized and unorganized sectors. While the big manufacturers like Arvind, Madura, Park Avenue, Monte Carlo and leading exporters like Shahi Exports, Orient Craft, Richa Global, Gokaldas Exports, Pearl Global etc. (the list of domestic and global supplier is much longer) are running their business in an organized manner and have invested lot of money in technology, each of the garment manufacturing hubs in India have small manufacturers who generally work as the vendors to some of the exporters and also cater to domestic markets, running with low capital having less use of advanced technology. The industry is now talking about ‘Industry 4.0’, a name given to the current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies. It includes cyber-physical systems, the Internet of things, cloud computing and cognitive computing. Industry 4.0 is commonly referred to as the fourth industrial revolution (Figure 1).