Dr John Oyekan, lecturer in digital manufacturing in the Department of Automatic Control & Systems Engineering at the University of Sheffield, gives his insight on digitalisation within the textile & apparel industry.
As most events have been cancelled this year thanks to Covid-19, WTiN has decided to host its first virtual trade show to keep the textile and apparel industry connected. The Innovate Textile & Apparel Virtual Trade Show will take place between the 15th and 30th October 2020, and the show will feature manufacturers of textile technology as diverse as manmade fibre production through to garment assembly, alongside material producers for apparel, sportswear, personal protective equipment (PPE) through to smart fabrics and more.
In order to get a taste of what has been happening specifically in the world of materials, we speak to Dr John Oyekan, lecturer in digital manufacturing in the Department of Automatic Control & Systems Engineering at the University of Sheffield. Oyekan has a BEng (Hons) in Electronics Technology, an MSc in Embedded Systems and Robotics, and a PhD in Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, Mechatronics, Robotics and Automation Engineering. Oyekan has had a passion for these subjects since he was young, and now his research interests span artificial intelligence (AI), digital twins and nature-inspired algorithms for robots, to name a few.
In this special episode, Oyekan talks about what digitalisation can do primarily to support the textile & apparel industry, specifically focusing on AI and digital twin technologies. He explains that these new tools can help companies to become more efficient, intelligent and sustainable, and that significant financial savings could also be made. Elsewhere, he discusses the relationship between humans and robots, explaining that humans can never be fully replaced and that the ideal scenario is for robots to complete the repetitive manual tasks, leaving humans time to carry out more meaningful work. Oyekan also gives some advice on how to go about introducing digital technologies into a company, and his thoughts on virtual trade shows such as WTiN’s Innovate Textile & Apparel.
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