Fashion apparel company Asmara Group began in a small office in Bogor, Indonesia, over 20 years ago, and now employs 1,200 people at 17 offices in 12 countries, with a global sourcing platform.

The company works closely with clients from product planning to delivery and the introduction of Shima Seiki’s APEXFiz design software at its operation in Hangzhou, China, is enabling customers to visually check designs even in the early concept stage, successfully reducing the time and cost of creating samples.

Asmara produces a wide range of products through its global network, combining the strengths of advanced global producers with those of local manufacturers. Connected in real-time internally with production partners and customers, Asmara ensures everything is transparent, efficient and fast and considers itself not just a sourcing agent, but a service company.

It also places great importance on being future-ready for its clients by investing in technologies such as 3D, AI, metaverse and traceability tools.

In the past, design drawings and specifications created by Asmara Group designers were not enough to provide management and other team members with an accurate picture of a product’s design, which led to the creation of many physical samples.

Adobe Photoshop was used to combine knit structures with hand-drawn designs in a garment template to create an image to approximate the actual intended product. It took five-to-six days to then create an actual sample after the yarn was obtained. Product proposals were then based on physical samples.

High priority samples would cause delays for other samples that were already in the works, and excessive sampling was causing disruptions in the supply chain.

After numerous meetings with the marketing and development teams at Shima Seiki, it was established that APEXFiz would not only reduce the number of physical samples, but its capability to create 3D virtual samples could be used to visualise the customer’s image at the concept stage.

The virtual samples are used to evaluate knit structures and final product images with very high accuracy comparable to the final garment.

For simple items, virtual samples can be created in a day, and 2-3 days for complete items, without the need for any yarn.

Data for the knitting machine is simultaneously created for smooth linkage with the production side.

Asmara now plans to expand its knit 3D design services utilizing APEXFiz globally, starting at its office in Turkey.

www.shimseiki.com

www.asmaragroup.com