The Textile Association (India), Mumbai Unit organized an International Conference on “Automation and Robotics in Textile & Apparel Industry” on Friday, 15th November 2024 at Hotel the Lalit, Mumbai. The Conference received overwhelming response with 350 delegates in attendance. The theme of Conference, topics, presentations, and speakers were highly appreciated by one and all. Some of the highlights of the conference are described as under.

Pic: Welcome Address by V. C. Gupte, Conference Convenor & Chairman, TAI, Mumbai Unit.

V. C. Gupte, Chairman, TAI, Mumbai Unit and Convener of the Conference welcomed Chief Guest, Roop Rashi (IA &AS), Textile Commissioner, Ministry of Textiles, Govt. of India, Keynote Speaker, Navdeep S. Sodhi, Partner, Gherzi Textil Organization, Zurich, Awardee, Speakers, sponsors, Press, Media, and delegates. Mr. Gupte welcomed and congratulated the awardees Pradeep Dodhia. Managing Director, Dodhia Synthetics for “The Industrial Excellence Award”. Mr. Gupte explained the programs organized by TAI Mumbai Unit over the past few years initiating with Industry 4.0 as the future needs of the textile trade and industry. He described that automation and robotics have become buzz words in the textile industry during the last decade and developing strategies for minimizing labour, enhancing productivity and quality. He mentioned that TAI, Mumbai Unit has always selected contemporary & innovative topics in all the conferences organized and presentations by high profile speakers. This conference is also no exception to the set tradition especially the theme being of international importance.

Pic: Presidential Address by Rajiv Ranjan, President, TAI, Mumbai Unit.

Rajiv Ranjan, President, TAI, Mumbai Unit in his presidential address, described the role of automation and robotics in the future advancement of productivity and quality. Initiatives such as automation in the textile value chain adopted by the organized sectors have yielded the results and minimized labour intensive operations. However, MSMEs must pick up momentum to actively involve in technology upgradation and reap the benefits of automation. He also said the apparel industry due to induction of modern machines have adopted the Automation to a larger extent. In this pursuit, the present program organized by TAI, Mumbai unit, he said will, give an insight of the automation and robotics in achieving the higher level of productivity, reduction in manpower deployment and enhanced quality norms thereby achieving better cost benefit ratio.

Pic: Address by Conference Chairman, G. V. Aras

G. V. Aras, The Conference Chairman and Trustee, TAI, Mumbai Unit briefed about the details of the conference, including topics and speakers. He said every attempt has been made to address the theme from the perspectives of organized industry and MSMEs apart from international perspectives. He described that over the last more than a decade, Automation Technology has helped the Indian Textile Industry in increasing the productivity, improving efficiency, improving quality of the output, optimizing the resources and reduction of costs. Mechatronics and Artificial Intelligence has long been in use by the textile machinery industry while producing the state of the art textile machines. The apparel manufacturing industry has been one of the fastest amongst the textile value chain to use automation in the production lines. In the light of the above, this conference is organized in the opt time to discourse on the need to adopt automation, Robotics and AI. He informed that the conference will be addressed by knowledgeable speakers and panelist from the related field who would bring their rich experience in sharing with the delegates.

Pic: Key Note Speaker Navdeep S. Sodhi, Partner, Gherzi Textil Organisation addressing the gathering.

Navdeep S. Sodhi, Partner 'Gherzi Textil Organization, Zurich in his keynote address described the changing dynamics of the textile value chain in the 21st century wherein the automation, Robotics, AI have far reaching implications on the operations and management of the textile and apparel Industry. In this regard, he discussed the journey of automation and robotics in the international perspectives in respect of future developments of textile and apparel industry. Since India is a potent manufacturing hub with conducive ecosystem and policy interventions, Indian textile and apparel industry is poised to make a quantum jump. He emphasized that automation can be adopted in all the sectors of the textile and apparel industry and is the need of the immediate future of the textile trade and industry. 

The Industrial Excellence Award

The Textile Association (India), Mumbai Unit has set a precedent by felicitating the textile professionals/industrialists for their outstanding contribution to the textile industry. In present Conference, the TAI, Mumbai Unit felicitated Mr. Pradeep Dodhia, Managing Director, Dodhia Group with “The Industrial Excellence Award” for his contribution in the field of textile and Apparel industry. Mr. Pradeep Dodhia in his remarks, emphasized the role of the textile and clothing sector in the light of international scenario. He thanked the TAI Mumbai Unit, for recognition and honouring him.

Pic: Guest of Honour, Priyavrata Mafatlal, Managing Director, Mafatlal Industries Ltd. addressing the gathering.

Priyavrata Mafatlal, Managing Director, Mafatlal Industries Ltd, who was the Guest of Honour, addressed the gathering. He expressed his appreciation for the chosen topic of the international conference by the TAI, Mumbai Unit.   He emphasized that modern textile industry needs to adopt the technology and machineries with automation features for exhibiting competitiveness in terms of quality and productivity. It is an era of advanced technology driven enterprise which implies that the automated or robotics involved machineries-based technology in manufacture and other activities in the supply chain. He complimented the TAI Mumbai Unit, for organizing the conference on the topic of current interest to the textile trade and industry.

Pradeep Dodhia, Managing Director, Dodhia Group receiving The Industrial Excellence Award by the hands of Chief Guest Roop Rashi.

Roop Rashi, (IA &AS), Textile Commissioner, Ministry of Textiles, Govt. of India, the Chief Guest of the event addressed the delegates. She described the importance of the theme of the conference regarding holistic approach for the development of the textile and clothing sector. She highlighted the synergy of machinery development and promotion in achieving the productivity and quality. She emphasized the importance of the automation and robotics in achieving high productivity and improved quality. She complimented the TAI, Mumbai Unit for choice of the topic and organizing the international conference as it is an important topic of current interest to the textile trade and industry.

Pic: Chief Guest Roop Rashi, Textile Commissioner, Ministry of Textiles, Govt. of India addressing the gathering.

Informative technical sessions

There were two Technical Sessions – each Session had 5 papers and a Panel Discussion.

Technical Session I

Technical Session I was chaired by Dr. G. S. Nadiger, Chairman, Professional Award Committee, Textile Association (India) who moderated the session. There were five papers, and oral presentation was made by the authors.

Pic: Release of Book of Papers

Pic: Technical Session I – Speakers (Sitting L to R): Gilberto Loureiro, CEO & Co-Founder of Smartex.ai, USA, Sathyanandan P., Vice President – Sales, Sieger Spintech Equipment's Pvt. Ltd., S. Anandhakumar, Vice President – Sales (Exports), Sieger Spintech Equipment's Pvt. Ltd., Dr. G. S. Nadiger, Chairman, Professional Award Committee, The Textile Association (India), Victor Macovei, Area Sales Manager, Color Service s.r.l., Italy, Sudhir Mehani, Chief Digitalization Officer, Marzoli India, Mr. Fabian Altorfer, Sales Manager, M/s Steinemann Central Vacuum Systems, Switzerland.

S. Anandhakumar, Vice President-Sales (Exports), P. Satyanandan Vice President (Sales) and Ramanathan, Sieger Spintech Equipments Pvt. Ltd presented a paper on “Automation opportunities in the Textile industry”. The authors presented the potential scope in automation in the textile value chain including composite units. The paper was well received by the delegates as witnessed in the question answer session.

Sudhir Mehani, Chief Digitalization Officer, Marzoli, India, made a presentation on “Building Smarter Factories: AI and Path to predictive maintenance’ ‘Machine health Management ‘. Artificial Intelligence and ISO, IEC standards were discussed. Author brought home the ease of adopting AI and other tools in automation in textile machineries.

Fabian Altorfer, Sales Manager, Steinmann Central Vacuum Systems, Switzerland, made a presentation on “Steinmann Central Vacuum Systems- Automated Textile Waste Management Solutions” As one of the leading machinery manufacturers globally, presentation focused on automated textile waste management solutions in line with Steinmann Central Vacuum Systems. Presentation covered various types of textile waste and explores automated waste handling solutions across processes like air-jet spinning, open-end spinning, and winders. Key points included the benefits of Steinemann’s Central Vacuum Systems, disposal logistics for different textile processes, and its global presence. The presentation also highlighted variations in disposal methods, demonstrating Steinemann's comprehensive approach to waste management in textile manufacturing.

Gilberto Loureiro, CEO and Co- Founder of Smartex ai, USA made presentation on “Automation in Action: The power of Smartex Inspected Fabric Towards Zero waste Textile Supply Chain” The presentation focused on the use of automated Smartex Inspected Fabric adopted in the manufacturing cycle which can reduce waste significantly at different levels of manufacturing including garmenting, knitting and Dyeing through AI enabled real time inspection of fabric. The quality assurance through automation can also lead to enhanced production and quality thereby better profit margins.

Victor Macovei, Area Sales Manager, Color Service s.r.l; Italy made presentation on “Automatic Dosing and Dispensing Systems”. Speaker highlighted the scope and goal of dye house automation through automotive dosing and dispensing systems, Presentation focused on saving of dyes, chemicals, labour and improvement in quality and productivity.

At the end of the technical session, the questions were welcome from the delegates. The clarifications/answers were provided by the respective authors. At the end, the chairman of technical session summed up briefly the deliberations in the session and thanked the authors who had prepared and presented their papers. 

Technical Session II

Technical Session II was chaired by Professor (Dr.) Ashok Athalye, Department of Fibers and Textile Processing Technology, ICT, Mumbai, who moderated the session. Like Technical Session I, there were five papers, and oral presentation was made by the authors.

Pic: Technical Session II – Speakers (Sitting L to R): Harshavardhan T., CEO, Count AI Pvt. Ltd., Thirupathi S., Managing Director, Indo Texnology Pvt. Ltd., Umesh Prasad, Director, UV Hitech Pvt. Ltd., Dr. Ashok Athalye, Professor – Textile Chemistry, Department of Fibers and Textile Processing Technology, ICT, Navin P. Agrawal, Sr. Vice President, Textile Engineering - Fabric Forming, A. T. E. Enterprises Pvt. Ltd., Parag S. Kothari, Chairman & Managing Director, Jaysynth Orgochem Limited, Mangesh B. Raut, Director – Sales & Marketing, SoftCore Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

Umesh Prasad, Director, UV Hitech Pvt. Ltd, enlightened the audience on the importance & significance of “Storage Automation Opportunities for the textile Industry”. He covered various aspects of inventory management and highlighted the resultant benefits in terms of value addition. A few industrial case studies enumerated the practical outcome and the resultant advantage of adequate and optimum storage automation. He emphasized that the tailer made solutions are needed in the automation of the storage as each situation is discreet.

T. Harshavardhan, CEO, Count AI Pvt. Ltd. and his associate from the affiliated organisation IndoTexnology Pvt Ltd presented the ‘Cascading benefits of Automatic Inspection of Textile Materials. The defects associated with the circular knitting process resulting in fabric construction damage causing significant wastage of material and financial loss. Online inspection linked with process control can automatically stop machine working to control the occurrence of fabric defects.

Navin P. Agrawal  Sr, Vice President, Textile Engineering- Fabric Forming, A.T.E Enterprises Pvt. Ltd. made the presentation on “Machine Upgradation- Need of Time”. In his presentation, he described automation  or application of robotics in the machines is normally linked to modernization namely replacement of machines with automatic machines. This case leads to constraints in terms of budgetary limitations on the part of the textile or apparel unit. Instead of capital intensive proposition, the author proposes to upgrade the available machines to tune for automation. With his experience of implementing in different textile units as case studies, he illustrated the possibility of automation through machine upgradation, and automation that can be done economically. ATE team have been working on this hypothesis as an alternate development strategy for the textile and apparel industry.

Parag Kothari, Chairman and Managing Director, Jaysynth DyeChem Ltd. discussed ‘Automation in Textile Printing’, emphasising the developments in the fasted growing segment of Digital Printing. He elaborated on the features and benefits of using Pigment Ink-Jet printing and the advantages in terms of substantial reduction in water footprint, energy conservation enhanced productivity and the resultant Point of Sale usage. He described the conventional printing technique and digital printing and brought advantages of digital printing and some of the challenges involved. He brought home the theme of automatic printing through digital printing technology.

Mangesh Raut, Director- Sales and Marketing, Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd made presentation on “Technology Transformation for Textile and Apparel Industry” . In his Presentation, he informed that the use of various Information Technology Based management tools such as SAP, IOT ERP pave path for automation. He emphasised the software  developed by his company ‘SOFTCORE’. A number of case studies wherein the company has worked  in regard to textile and apparel units were showcased. The presentation impressed upon the technology transformation leading to integrated solutions in the overall enterprise management.  

At the end of the technical session II, there were questions from the delegates and the clarifications/answers were provided by the respective authors. Prof. Athaley, Session Chairman, summed up briefly the deliberations in the session and thanked the authors who had prepared and presented their papers.

Panel Discussion Session

The theme of the Panel Discussion was on “Automation and Robotics: Challenges and Opportunities” bringing together a diverse group of industry experts, technology innovators, and business leaders. The event drew an enthusiastic audience, reflecting the growing importance of technological transformation in one of India’s most significant economic sectors.

Pic: Panel Discussion Session (Sitting L to R): S. Rajendran, Senior Vice President, Business Head – Textile Engineering Processing, and Accessories, Zonal Head – South India, A. T. E. Enterprises Pvt. Ltd., Amit Mittal, Management Consultant & Advisor, Independent Director, Madasky Consulting, Rajesh Relekar, Asst. Vice President – Marketing (Pulp & Fibre Business), Birla Cellulose, Grasim Industries Ltd., Rajiv Ranjan, President, The Textile Association (India), Mumbai Unit, K. B. Prasad, Vice President, IIGM Pvt. Ltd., Kailash R. Lalpuria, Executive Director & CEO, Indo Count Industries Ltd.

The Panel Discussion was moderated by Rajiv Ranjan, President, The Textile Association (India), Mumbai Unit.

The panel discussion served as a valuable platform for industry stakeholders to explore the impact of automation and robotics on the textile and apparel industry. The event highlighted the sector's readiness to embrace change while addressing the challenges that come with integrating advanced technologies into traditional workflows.

The panel included some of the most respected personalities from the industry:

1. Kailash R. Lalpuria, Executive Director and CEO, Indo Count Industries Ltd.
2. Rajesh Relekar, Vice President, Birla Cellulose, Grasim Industries Ltd.
3. S. Rajendran, Senior Vice President, Business Head- Textile Engineering Processing and

   Accessories, Zonal Head- South India, A.T.E. Enterprises Pvt. Ltd.

4. K.B. Prasad, Vice President, IIGM Pvt. Ltd.
5. Amit Mittal, Management Consultant & Advisor, Independent Director, Madasky Consulting

Rajiv Ranjan skillfully steered the discussion to cover a wide range of topics, from the technical advancements driving automation to the economic and social implications of robotics adoption in India’s textile sector.

The panel discussion delved into several critical areas, offering valuable insights for all delegates. Below are the highlights:

1. Opportunities in Automation and Robotics

The panelists emphasized the potential of automation and robotics to revolutionize the textile industry by:

• Enhancing efficiency and productivity: Automated processes like robotic sewing, cutting, and fabric handling drastically reduce time and cost.
• Improving quality control: AI-driven systems ensure consistent product quality, minimizing defects and waste.
• Driving sustainability: Advanced technologies allow for precise resource utilization, reducing water and energy consumption.

2. Challenges in Implementation

Despite the promise of automation, the panel acknowledged several challenges:

• High Initial Costs: The adoption of robotics involves significant investment, making it inaccessible for many small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
• Skill Gap: There is a pressing need to upskill the workforce to operate and maintain advanced systems.
• Job Displacement Concerns: Automation raises concerns about labor displacement, particularly in India, where the textile industry is a significant employer.

3. Government Support and Policy Initiatives

The panelists called for stronger government policies to enable smoother transitions to automation. Key suggestions included:

• Expanding incentive schemes for automation investments.
• Creating training and upskilling programs for workers to bridge the skill gap.
• Strengthening support for SMEs to adopt robotics through subsidies or shared resources.

4. The Role of Collaboration

One of the recurring themes was the importance of collaboration between industry players, technology providers, and the government. Such partnerships can:

• Accelerate the adoption of cutting-edge technologies.
• Foster innovation tailored to India’s unique needs and scale.
• Create a supportive ecosystem for both large and small manufacturers.

The discussion was followed by an interactive Q&A session, where attendees had the opportunity to pose questions to the panelists. Questions ranged from the technical feasibility of specific automation solutions to the socioeconomic impact of these technologies on India’s textile workforce. The panelists provided thoughtful and comprehensive responses, further enriching the discussion.

The event was widely appreciated by attendees, who represented a broad spectrum of the industry, including manufacturers, exporters, designers, technology providers, and policy-makers. Participants lauded the panel for addressing the challenges of automation with a balanced perspective while highlighting opportunities that could drive growth and sustainability.

In closing the session, the moderator summarized the key takeaways, emphasizing the importance of:

• Investing in technology to stay competitive in the global market.
• Fostering innovation to address unique challenges in the Indian context.
• Prioritizing sustainability in all automation initiatives.
• Preparing the workforce for a technology-driven future.

Pic: The Distinguished Audience

The event concluded with a resounding message: while the path to automation in the Indian textile and apparel industry comes with challenges, it also presents unparalleled opportunities for growth, efficiency, and sustainability. Stakeholders must act collectively and decisively to harness the potential of these transformative technologies.

There was good interaction by speakers with the delegates during question answer sessions/Tea & Lunch break resulting thereon effective delivery of the thought sharing on the theme of conference “Automation and Robotics in Textile & Apparel Industry”.

Pic: Vote of Thanks by Haresh B. Parekh, Hon. Secretary, TAI, Mumbai Unit.

Haresh B. Parekh, Hon. Secretary, TAI, Mumbai Unit proposed vote of the thanks to everyone who have contributed for the success of the international conference which was attended by around 350 participants.