Kornit Advances Apparel Toward ‘Perfect World’ With On-Demand Production
With microtrends flitting in and out of fashion and an increasingly fickle consumer, predicting demand for traditional mass manufacturing has become a trickier prospect.
In a one-on-one chat with Sourcing Journal managing editor and technology editor Jessica Binns during the Global Outlook event, Don Whaley, vice president, marketing at Kornit Digital Americas, discussed how companies can leverage on-demand production to more closely align inventory to sales. Kornit’s mass customization technologies support high-volume, short-run production, coming close to a just-in-time model. “The right product gets to the right market at the right time in the right amount,” said Whaley. “So that’s, call it perfect world, and I believe we’re on a path.”
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Kornit Digital’s solutions include direct-to-fabric printing that transforms rolls of white and now black fabric into printed textiles. Meanwhile, direct-to-garment printing embellishes finished articles of clothing, with all-in-one machines that pretreat, decorate and cure. The machines are automated, with smart features that can adjust curing based on the type of garment, thereby protecting quality. There is also minimal switchover time between design settings, allowing for quick transitions between different styles, such as size and colorway variations.
The company’s latest launch is the Apollo, which can customize 400 garments per hour with just one operator. Whaley noted that in general, direct-to-garment production leads to more production per worker due to the automation, and the result is more consistent since it eliminates human error.
Kornit worked with a 500-store U.S. retailer that caters to a youthful clientele with streetwear to reduce the inventory risks associated with difficult to predict design reception from consumers. With an in-house digital production model, the brand initially makes a smaller run to test new styles. It can then respond to store sales on a daily basis, producing only what it knows will sell and minimizing markdowns.
As Whaley noted, preventing inventory misalignments is not only a financial strategy; it also has implications for the environment. He pointed to the ballooning clothing dump in Chile’s Atacama Desert that is now visible from satellites, a physical indication of the industry’s excesses.
In addition to reducing the waste related to overproduction, Kornit’s systems themselves are sustainable, with low water use and low VOCs. “What we’re doing is really enabling…that environmentally friendly and more sustainable business model as well as the production methodology,” said Whaley.
Whaley noted that despite interest in models such as nearshoring, actually making the move away from a “robust and deeply entrenched legacy supply chain model” is challenging. He added, “Fundamentally, there’s a lot to undo.”
For creators that do not want to set up their own factories or production infrastructure in a market, Kornit is developing a global fulfillment network that will have standardized quality and output, which brands and influencers can tap into. “We can help them find a producer in that local market, which can tailor the product and obviously the quantity produced and localize that supply chain to the market, which can increase, obviously, the flexibility of SKUs and variety of products offered to that specific market, but also derisk the supply chain,” Whaley said. “So we’re working aggressively to build that out.”
