Singapore-Based NTX to Launch Sustainable Printing Facility at University of Oregon
The University of Oregon aims to elevate Portland’s status as a hub for textile innovation and design through a partnership with Singapore-based waterless printing and dyeing technology firm NTX.
NTX will open its first U.S. facility near the university’s recently announced Northeast Portland campus, giving graduate students and brands alike access to cutting-edge sustainable textile processing technology in a facility where they can prototype products and produce small production runs.
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Alongside its longtime global supply chain partner Luen Thai, the company plans to cut the ribbon on the NTX Portland Bridge Innovation Lab in partnership with the university next year. The facility, known as “Bridges,” will include the firm’s latest technology and machinery, including NTX Cooltrans, a sustainable alternative for textile coloration that cuts water use by 90 percent and dye use by 40 percent, NTX Eco-Denim, a denim production technology that also slashes water and chemical consumption, and NTX AI, which optimizes several textile production processes for greater efficiency and quality with a lower environmental output.
Recognized as the birthplace of Nike and situated in a hometown of headquarters for Adidas, Columbia Sportswear and Allbirds, the university has become an incubator for the next generation of sports product designers. Since launching its Sports Product Management program in 2015, the school has graduated 500 students—96 percent of whom have entered the industry, according to Ellen Schmidt-Devlin, the program’s co-founder and executive director.
Calling Portland the “Silicon Valley of the sports and outdoor industry,” 27-year Nike veteran Schmidt-Devlin said the facility represents an opportunity for NTX, a boon to local industry and a resource to university students. Since the pandemic, many brands want to be closer to their manufacturers and technology partners. “Now these Tier One and Tier Two manufacturers are understanding if they’re going to be working closely with brands, they have to go to them,” she said.
Schmidt-Devlin said NTX, which has worked with Reebok, Adidas, Nike and Lululemon, has several incentives to enter the U.S. market. The company views the partnership as a way to showcase its resource-efficient technologies. Working with a university allows the technology maker to gain a footing on neutral ground, giving it a space where it can work with multiple clients at once.
“We can serve more like a Switzerland—they’re not building it here for any one company,” Schmidt-Devlin said of the new facility. “They’re building it for the future innovators… and also as a resource for everyone here.” The Pacific Northwest is the de facto nucleus of the sport and outdoor sector in the U.S., with more than 500 brands calling it home.
Schmidt-Devlin said Bridges will expose Oregon students to first-of-its-kind technology, setting them up for success once they enter the industry as product developers, designers and merchandisers. They will be able to prototype designs on fabrics from polyester to rayon and non-synthetics, experimenting on knits and wovens using printing and dyeing processes that are normally carried out in Asia.
NTX and partner Luen Thai are also looking to staff the facility with two dozen local sportswear and product experts, who will be trained in the technology when the facility opens, Schmidt-Devlin said. On Wednesday, the partners were in Portland to announce that they had selected a location, and will begin shipping and setting up machinery, eyeing a launch for next year’s fall semester.
“Dyeing technology hasn’t really changed in 1,000 years,” NTX co-founder, chairman and managing director Kalvin Chung said at a leadership luncheon for students on Wednesday. The stainless steel machinery and chemical processes used today aren’t much different from the water-intensive primitive methods used in the Stone Age, he said. By contrast, NTX’s dyeing processes cut water from coloring processes by “at least 90 percent.”
Chung expects water will be eliminated from dyeing methods altogether in the next decade. “We foresee that within the next 10 years this is going to become a commercial reality,” he said.
“In a few months time you’re going to have equipment over here—you’re going to actually see it, touch it, get involved with some of our actual business,” Luen Thai CEO Raymond Tan added.
Bridges aims to address “two very important pain points in the industry—inventory, and how to design correctly to the market,” he said. NTX’s printing and dyeing technologies drastically accelerate production and fulfillment, and proximity to the American market will allow students to prove their concepts in real time.
Brands have long contributed to the massive issue of apparel waste by continuing to produce products that go unsold, he added. “In order to solve that problem, you must be able to design very close to the market and execute, launch and sell at the right price—and get feedback based on what the market needs,” he said. “This is the experience that we’d like to bring to this university.”
“Our graduates are set up to be changemakers, leaders and entrepreneurs,” said Jane Gordon, vice president at University of Oregon Portland. “This is possible by encouraging them to research, explore, and create using the latest technologies and processes in the industry.”
“The partnership with NTX takes those endeavors to a whole new level,” she added. “What NTX does with low-carbon textile production and other technologies will allow students in these programs to be at the forefront of sustainable product and technology development.”
