By Timothy Aeppel
(Reuters) – Will a robot ever make your blue jeans?
There is a quiet effort underway to find out — involving clothing and technology companies, including Germany’s Siemens AG and Levi Strauss & Co.
“Clothing is the last trillion-dollar industry that hasn’t been automated,” said Eugen Solowjow, who heads a project at a Siemens lab in San Francisco that has worked on automating apparel manufacturing since 2018.
During the pandemic, the idea of using robots for more manufacturing back home from overseas was gaining momentum as the snarling supply chains highlighted the dangers of relying upon distant factories.
If there was a way to reduce handwork in China or Bangladesh, more clothing manufacturing could be moved back to Western markets, including the United States. But that’s a sensitive topic.
Many apparel makers are hesitant to talk about the quest for automation — since that sparks worries that workers in developing countries will suffer. Jonathan Zornow, who has developed a technique to automate some parts of jeans factories, said he has received online criticism — and one death threat.
A spokesperson for Levi’s said he could confirm the company participated in the early phases of the project but declined to comment further.
FLOPPY CLOTH PROBLEM
Automation poses particular challenges in sewing.
Cloth is flexible and can be made in a variety of thicknesses. Robots simply don’t have the deft touch possible with human hands. Five researchers who spoke to Reuters said that robots are on the rise, but it will take many years for them to master fabric handling.
But what if enough of this could be automated to close the cost gap between the United States of low-cost foreign factories and the United States? That’s the focus of the research effort now underway.
Siemens was born out of efforts to develop software that would guide robots through flexible materials like thin wire cables. Solowjow said that Siemens quickly realized clothing was one of their most lucrative markets. According to Statista (an independent data platform), the global apparel market has a value of $1.52 trillion.
Siemens partnered with the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute (Pittsburgh), which was established in 2017 and is funded by the Department of Defense. This institute helps old-line producers find new ways to utilize the latest technology. They found a startup in San Francisco that had a promising solution for the floppy fabric problem. Sewbo Inc. stiffens the fabric using chemicals, rather than teaching robots how to use cloth. This allows it to be used more like a bumper for a car during production. The stiffening agent is removed from the garment after it has been completed.
“Pretty much every piece of denim is washed after it’s made anyway, so this fits into the existing production system,” said Zornow, Sewbo’s inventor.
ENLISTING ROBOTS
This research effort eventually grew to include several clothing companies, including Levi’s and Bluewater Defense LLC, a small U.S.-based maker of military uniforms. To test the technique, they received grants of $1.5 million from the Pittsburgh robotics Institute.
Other efforts are being made to automate sewing machines. Software Automation Inc, a Georgia startup, has created a machine that can sew T shirts by pulling the fabric over a specially-equipped table.
Eric Spackey, CEO at Bluewater Defense, a uniform manufacturer, participated in the research with Siemens, but is skeptical of Sewbo’s approach. “Putting (stiffening) material into the garment—it just adds another process,” which increases costs, said Spackey, though he adds that it could make sense for producers who already wash garments as part of their normal operation, such as jeans makers.
The first step is to get robots into garment factories.
Sanjeev Bahl opened a small factory of jeans in downtown Los Angeles two year ago. He has been studying the Sewbo machines, and is now preparing to put his first experimental machine into operation.
He led his workers through his factory in September. He pointed out the old-style machines that were being used by many workers and suggested that the new process is suited for them.
“If it works,” he said, “I think there’s no reason not to have large-scale (jeans) manufacturing here in the U.S. again.”
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(Reporting from Timothy Aeppel in New York. Editing by Dan Burns, Lisa Shumaker.
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