EFI Optitex focuses on UK market with 3D sampling

By Madelaine Thomas 7 July 2017

Last week, EFI Optitex held its ‘EFI Optitex Exclusive Cocktail Event’ at the Soho Hotel in London. During the event, the company demonstrated its 3D digital solutions for fashion and apparel brands and retailers. EFI Optitex says the event, attended by fashion brands and retailers such as Marks & Spencers, will help attendees to “gain insight about how 3D technology can enable the acceleration of time to market due to shorter product development and production cycles, as well as to decrease costs, create better products and increase competitive advantage.”

EFI Optitex, a provider of an integrated 2D & 3D CAD/CAM apparel platform, launched the O/Cloud Collaborate, a web-based Software as a Service (SaaS) solution offering visual collaboration specifically geared to the fashion industry, earlier this year. The product leverages a photorealistic 3D viewer and streamlines collaboration across the global supply chain, according to the company.

Through a secure, cloud-based environment, O/Cloud Collaborate allows designers, technical designers, pattern makers and other stakeholders at brands, vendors and sourcers to share and visually collaborate on product development samples and related documents and images. This enables retailers, brands and vendors to dramatically shorten their product development calendar, make product decisions earlier and develop better products, as more design iterations can be made in a fraction of the time, says EFI Optitex.

Having an updated, centrally stored SVOT (single version of the truth) for product development, along with a photorealistic digital view of how garments will look and act, allows users to easily identify issues. It also gives them the ability to address and implement design ideas before physical samples are ever produced, the company adds.

“Brands in the apparel industry have been seeking tools and methodologies to shorten the ideation, development and approval workflows for new garments. Most often, the parties involved in the design and development process are scattered around the world, making the meeting of tight timelines a particular challenge,” says Asaf Landau, EFI Optitex’s vice president and general manager. “This new visual collaboration platform cuts development times by many weeks, allowing the world's leading retailers and brands to design better products, faster.”

Guy Alroy, EFI Optitex’s head of products, adds: “Having this platform directly integrated with the CAD authoring tools allows users to be incredibly efficient in exchanging ideas and comments, speeding up the decision-making process and thus the time to market.”

At the London event, EFI Optitex’s Danny Reinfeld, regional director EMEA & APAC, presented on the 3D digital revolution and how this is changing the future of fashion. Following this, Nava Topaz Mizrahi, technical services specialist, EFI Optitex gave a demonstration of the platform.

EFI Event Body Image Nava Topaz Mizrahi, technical services specialist, EFI Optitex gives a demonstration of the platform to attendees

Before a Q&A session and drinks reception, Darren Jacobs, operations director Carmel Clothing presented on its reasoning behind investing in the 3D technology and the improvements it has brought to the business.

Carmel Clothing is a London-based women’s and children’s wear design and sourcing company, which has grown at an average annual increase of 20-30% over the last 10 years. The company’s customers include Dorothy Perkins, Primark, Next, New Look, Topshop, and Sainsbury to name a few.

Carmel Clothing employs over 250 staff in offices in London, Vietnam, China and Romania with divisions across the entire product lifecycle: from design and development, to production, merchandising and sales, according to the company.

For Carmel Clothing, 2D & 3D technology plays an integral part in its vision, a reasoning which led the company to enquire about 2D & 3D CAD/CAM solutions in the market before choosing Optitex in September 2016, according to the company.

Carmel already had a very large office in Vietnam which was using some CAD/CAM digital solutions before it decided on integrating 3D technology at a company level. Carmel introduced Optitex as the company found its 3D solutions offering more options and better suited their needs and strategy. Also, one of its leading customers was already using the Optitex software and had said it was very satisfied with its solutions and customer service.

The office was enlarged in Vietnam and so was the London-based head office with a new design facility and more showrooms created in 2016. Jacobs says he sees the recent incorporation of the 2D/3D integrated platform serving two different stages:

a. On the development stage with 3D meant to reduce the number of physical samples in the design initial phase with virtual 3D catwalks.

b. On the technical (production) stage with 3D meant to reduce “buyers’ changes” and numerous alterations resulting in lots of back and forth and time lost.

Jacobs says he believes that, if a company is to remain a key player in the market, fashion cannot be dissociated from technology any longer. In a world where “everybody is moving to be cheaper and the world becoming smaller, technology will have to play a bigger role,” he says. “Companies will have to become more efficient, and technology will have to play that key role in helping them achieve that.”

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