News and Features

COVID-19: How apparel tech firms are extending support in tough times

17 March 2020

Apparel Resources

COVID19

The world never expected 2020 to kick off with this much cruelty on businesses and supply chains. COVID-19, or Coronavirus Disease, is wreaking havoc not just in China which is the origin country of this virus, but in other parts of the world as well including Italy, Iran, USA, India and Kuwait, to mention a few. Due to Coronavirus, a number of business trips have been cancelled or rescheduled. The factories and offices are consolidating their internal situation and are not keen to risk any cross infection from any outside visitors to both office and factories. The world is taking precautionary measures and some companies are closing their operations temporarily just to keep their employees safe from this deadly virus.

China is the world’s largest garment manufacturing destination as well as sewing technology developer and the world relies on it to make a substantial share of their clothes and machinery. The situation of manufacturing operations in sewing technology companies’ premises wasn’t too improved till Februaryend, as a lot of companies are stationed in Wuhan which is an epicentre of Coronavirus spread, and the city, along with its province Hubei, remained shut till then and it’s still lockdown there. However, the determination of the technology providers is such that they are defying all odds to provide services to their clients as much as they can.

The companies are bound to take further effective measures to promote the resumption of operations in China in a stable and orderly manner. Though some companies in the industry are still facing problems such as shortage of workers, poor supply chain, weakening consumer demand and reduction in orders, the remote access has kept them on front foot in these challenging times. “We were unable to go outside and were instructed to work online from our homes to stay connected with our overseas clients,” told Felix Zhou, Marketing Manager of Wuhan-based cutting technology company YINENG TECH.

Similarly, China’s leading sewing technology company Jack contributed its bit to effectively fight the epidemic. Apart from instructing its employees to work from home, the company donated RMB 500,000 to the Red Cross Society of Jiaojiang district and purchased more than 10,000 sets of medical protective suits through overseas channels which will be delivered to the front-line medical staff of the country. “We were working from home in February, but now the production in our Taizhou-based factory has been resumed,” informed Lucian, Regional Manager, South Asia Department, Jack.

Apart from China, the country which has been severely impacted is Italy where more than 13,000 infected people have been identified and over 1,000 people have died. It’s needless to mention that Italy is a home for world renowned technology companies such as Vibemac, Morgan Tecnica, IMA, FK Group among many others and all of them have shown determination in this tough time. Jeans automation pioneer Vibemac is fully operational with all its services through its Cloud platform. Vibemac, in its official post, stated that some of its workers can work from home, ensure the continuity and quality of services and at the same time comply with the provisions protecting the health of all our employees and the people with whom they come into contact.

Another Italian company IMA which is a prestigious name in supplying cutting technology to the fashion and textile industry has also informed its customers across the world that despite the emergency situation in the country, it is still operational through smart working, remote connection, video-conferencing service and is taking all precautionary measures that are required to follow at this difficult moment.

Since COVID-19 has been spreading to the USA as well, Tukatech Inc. has also taken precautionary measures for the companies it is working with across the globe. The recent announcement of Tukatech has brought some cheers to the fashion industry as those CAD users who are using a dongle license key of Tukatech now have an opportunity to switch to a cloud license at no additional cost, as informed by the US-based technology bigwig. This decision of Tukatech will now give flexibility to companies located worldwide to work from anywhere with a basic broadband connection.

The cloud license grants access to Tukatech software using a login id and password and eliminate the need for using a physical dongle key. It efficiently works on PCs as well as laptops and the user does not need to have an access of a dedicated workstation. Informing about the decision, Ram Sareen, Founder and CEO, Tukatech, stated, “As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. We want to help our industry partners stay afloat through this unsure time and give our customers the luxury to continue running business remotely.”

The Singapore subsidiary of a leading sewing technology brand Pegasus is also following the same way to stay safe in this crisis. Pegasus Singapore is in compliance with the DORSCON Orange level precaution which was announced by the Government of Singapore. So twice daily temperature checks, provision of hand sanitisers and masks by the company are in place.

Comments