microfactory

The textile and clothing industry (TCI) is facing a number of challenges due to current global trends such as the progressive individualization of customer wishes, increase in product variants and decrease in lot sizes which require highly flexible value chains. Here, digital networking across the entire value chain offers great potential for innovation. By establishing flexible production systems focusing on decentralized manufacturing as well as on-demand products, the TCI can shape new concepts that contribute to sustainability and even add to social value. In order to promote such flexible production systems, Microfactories have recently been subject to research and development which offer new possibilities for the TCI in the form of Digital Textile Microfactories. This paper presents recent digitally-driven technologies for Microfactories in the TCI, with a focus on 3D knitting as well as digital textile printing, and aims to answer the question of how such Microfactories can ...