Skip to content
Fashion

Li & Fung introduces Instant Printed T-shirts

By Sarah Chen
1 min read
Thsirts
Thsirts
In this article (4)

T-shirts will be the primary focus of a new partnership between retail supply-chain company Li & Fung and US sewing technology company software.

The aim is to create a fully digital manufacturing supply chain for apparel and textile products.
Softwear’s digital t-shirt Sewbot Workline is fully autonomous and with a single worker produces one complete t-shirt every 22 seconds – twice as fast as manual sewing.

“This partnership with Softwear Automation is another building block in our end-to-end digital supply chain,” says Li & Fung group CEO Spencer Fung. “Through this collaboration we want to partner with an initial set of manufacturers to create our first fully digital apparel supply chain and use those learnings to scale the technology and create customised systems for our supplier network around the world.”

“We have a shared vision with Li & Fung that the analog will become digital,” says Softwear Automation chairman/CEO Palaniswamy Rajan. “Consumers’ demand to get things faster than ever before is only increasing. With Li & Fung, our revolutionary Sewbots will enable the speed needed for on-demand, made-to-measure manufacturing at scale.”

Questions & Answers

Q.

What is the main goal of the partnership between Li & Fung and Softwear?

A.

The partnership aims to create a fully digital manufacturing supply chain for apparel and textile products. T-shirts will be the primary focus of this new collaboration initially.

Q.

How efficient is Softwear's digital t-shirt production line?

A.

Softwear’s digital t-shirt Sewbot Workline is fully autonomous. With just one worker, it can produce a complete t-shirt every 22 seconds, which is twice as fast as manual sewing.

Q.

What is Li & Fung's strategy for rolling out this new technology?

A.

Li & Fung intends to partner with an initial set of manufacturers to establish the first fully digital apparel supply chain. They will then use these learnings to scale the technology globally for their supplier network.

Reader pulse

Is digital T-shirt manufacturing the future?

22,157 votes so far

Weekly Briefing

Asia's retail intelligence, in your inbox

Tuesday, Thursday and a Saturday Weekly Wrap: the retail stories, numbers and moves that mattered across Asia. Nothing else, and you can unsubscribe in one click.

  • Top industry moves and market shifts
  • Weekly data-driven analysis from across Asia
  • Tuesday, Thursday and the Saturday Weekly Wrap

Read by retail operators, investors and brand teams across Asia.

Protected by a quick human check. No spam, ever. Unsubscribe in one click.

SecureGDPR ready