Industry 4.0

2017-08-17

Big order for Softwear Automation' s fully automated sewing workline

Softwear Automation announced their premier customer partnership with TianYuan Garments Company of Suzhou to produce T-shirts in the USA using their fully automated Sewbot workline. China Daily USA reported that both companies signed an agreement to develop the fully automated T-shirt production line at Tianyuan's newly acquired plant in Little Rock, Arkansas, on July 19.

The sewn goods worklines by Softwear Automation are constructed with a family of patented SEWBOTS™ to produce the optimal single piece flow for the products. Each SEWBOT™ has a distinct set of skills and capabilities to address fabric handling and construction and is built around the patented Threadvision™ and Qualisight™ technologies.

TianYuan Garments Company of Suzhou will make T-shirts for Adidas on the new production lines. The system is scheduled to be fully operational by the end of next year. In October 2016 Tianyuan already has announced the company is going to invest $20 million in the 100,000-square-foot Little Rock plant it had acquired. In time, it should bring 400 new jobs to Arkansas.

"From fabric cutting and sewing to finished product, it takes roughly four minutes," said Tang Xinhong, chairman of Tianyuan Garments on a press conference. "We will install 21 production lines. When fully operational, the system will make one T-shirt every 22 seconds. We will produce 800,000 T-shirts a day for Adidas. With complete automation, the personnel cost for each T-shirt is roughly 33 cents. Around the world, even the cheapest labor market can't compete with us. I am really excited about this!"

The signing ceremony was witnessed by a Chinese textile delegation led by Xu Yingxin, vice-president of the China National Textile and Apparel Council.

Xu said that establishing a clothing factory in Arkansas enables Tianyuan to satisfy instant order demands from its clients. He praised Tianyuan's working with American partners in automation as a smart move at a crucial junction in the technology revolution.

"The idea of Industry 4.0 and Intelligent Manufacturing is gradually becoming the reality," Xu said. "It is revolutionizing labor-intensive clothing manufacturing."

It is SoftWear Automation' s vision to disrupting the $100 billion sewn products industry by creating autonomous sewn good worklines for Home Goods, Footwear & Apparel. The Atlanta-based machine vision and robotics startup spun out of Georgia Tech after 7 years of research and development working on projects with DARPA and the WALMART Foundation. SoftWear’s fully automated Sewbots allow manufacturers to SEWLOCAL™, moving their supply chains closer to the customer while creating higher quality products at a lower cost.