This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
What emerging trends are shaping the future of apparel manufacturing?
In my opinion, there are three trends reshaping the apparel manufacturing landscape. Number one is redefining the manufacturing corridors.
Traditionally, China has been the factory for the world. This is changing for several reasons—from geopolitical tensions, from tariffs, but also because China is not very interested in being in low-value-added activities. So new hubs like Bangladesh and Vietnam are rising very quickly. More important, brands are pushing the contract manufacturing to have local presence on all these continents—a factory in Morocco, in Nicaragua and Honduras, in Bangladesh and Vietnam.
Number two is the use of advanced technology—artificial intelligence, also robotics, anything that is positioning these manufacturing activities with competitive advantage. Some brands are creating a manufacturing digital maturity index and ranking all the contract manufacturers based on how digital they are.
Number three would be sustainability, circularity. Apparel has traditionally been a very polluted industry. Today it is responsible for 10 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions. This is definitely something that is changing. When you go to visit one of my clients’ factories, they don’t take you to the factory right away, they take you first to the biomass power plant, to the water recycling plant. They’re very proud of all that—they truly want to focus on sustainability.
With consumer demands shifting, how are digital tools helping apparel manufacturers stay ahead?
AI is now helping everybody in manufacturing. Specifically for apparel, I would say it’s more in demand forecasting, predicting inventories, finding the best scheduling for all the sewing lines, all the mills, and optimizing schedule changes.
Some of my clients even go beyond these advanced planning systems, into digital twins—using AI to basically reduce the lead time for sampling from weeks to days. They can truly estimate the material usage and the cost, and you can have sampling much faster.
With the increasing complexity of global supply chains, how can apparel manufacturers optimize their footprint design to enhance efficiency and resilience?
I think they need to focus on three things. Number one is the decentralization of their operations. Before, it was about global sourcing, having a huge operation in Bangladesh or in Vietnam or Sri Lanka. That is no longer the case. Brands are pushing you to open factories in India, in Honduras, in Nicaragua, and make sure you are resilient enough to fit their needs anyplace in the world.
Number two, I would say, is about vertical integration. Some of my clients even buy the cotton from the US, and control the whole supply chain, traceability, and quality end to end.
Number three is strategic supplier relationships. When you were able to deliver on quality on time, it was a cost question. Now brands are creating strategic relationships with some of the suppliers. One of them, for example, is building a windmill park to produce green energy for the contract manufacturer—creating a long-term relationship that is very much appreciated in this changing world.