A Cut Above

Ram Sareen’s digital technology promises to revolutionise the garment industry. But are Indian manufacturers ready for the brave new world , wonders Shalini Sharma

AS CALIFORNIA-BASED Ram Sareen races through the sub-continent peddling his state-of-the-art Tukatech CAD CAM systems, which create clothing digitally, he is also a worried man. Not because his systems are not selling. They are doing very well, thank you. What worries this hugely successful NRI is the level of complacency he encounters in the garment industry in India.

‘‘These guys have no idea what is going to hit them in 2004 (when all quota restrictions are removed). I meet these exporters who take me to their fancy farmhouses to show me how well they are doing.’’ In the US, when Sareen talks garmentbiz, the industry listens to him seriously. His Tukatech systems have now become the favourite of the apparel industry there and his cheeky brochures list not just the clients but also the giants they have knocked aside as they have sniped their way to the top.

But India’s garment industry is still loyally tethered to time-consuming, if cheap manual labour for manufacture. The CAD system, on the other hand, allows a garment to be patterned, graded, marked and stitched in a matter of hours. It is without doubt the future of garment manufacturing.

Apparel has been one of the slowest industries to adopt new technology. Pattern makers still toil with paper and pencil, and many sewing factories still use machines and techniques fundamentally unchanged for decades. Though cheap labour makes this manual process economical, it also hinders the growth of the garment industry. Sareen feels this could be easily overcome if the garment industry started thinking digitally, the way they are doing worldwide.
Of course, the process doesn’t come cheap. A single CAD workstation — essentially a PC with special software for computerising tasks such as pattern making — can set one back by thousands of dollars. Automating a large factory floor can cost millions of dollars.

Sareen ought to know. He worked for the Connecticut-based Gerber for 11 years, peddling systems to major manufacturers, until he became convinced that the big suppliers were inhibiting a wider adoption of automation. So Sareen decided to strike out on his own, deriving the name of his new venture from his wife’s name Tuka. Sareen set about developing simple-to-use CAD systems . He also threw in free training and free technical support. Such an approach has won over scores of garmentos abroad, forcing even Gerber (annual turnover $611 million) to retool their service offerings in response to Tukatech’s (turnover $40 million) low cost strategy.

‘‘Sareen challenged us’’, admits Warren Hartenstine, regional sales manager for Gerber. ‘‘He forced us to look at our value and we’re grateful for it.’’ Famous American companies like Guess, Benetton, Bisou Bisou, Pantagonia and XOXO too have switched to Sareen’s systems. In India, Wills Lifestyle clothing has climbed onto the Tuka bandwagon. Says Vijay Aggarwal of Creative Garments, one of the largest garment exporters in India, ‘‘Sareen’s after-sales service results in a tremendous saving in the long run’’, he says. He also claims Tukatech’s hands-on training of his staff ensured even his uneducated tailors and markers are completely proficient with computers.

But the systems are expensive and while he is selling them, Sareen has also come up with Tukacenters, which guaranteed him front page in The LA Times and innumerable gushy articles in the US trade magazines. He has already launched this idea in India.

‘‘It’s no different from going to a cybercafe’’, says Sareen. There are currently five Tukacenters in India in Delhi, Bangalore, Jaipur, Erode and Gurgaon; the sixth Tukacenter opens next month. There are 25 Tukacenters elsewhere in the world.

TUKACENTERS are the ‘cybercafes’ of the fashion industry. A Tukacenter offers workstations with software that enables users to simply walk in and design clothing, create patterns and do other pre-production chores. In Sareen’s own words, his centres ‘‘are primarily designed to cater to smaller manufacturers, independent fashion designers, freelance pattern makers, graders and marker makers. It allows them to use expensive technology for accuracy and speed without investing’’.

Let’s say you are a budding fashion designer but cannot afford your own workshop. Normally, you’d have to go from one sourcing agent to another to get a design ready. At a Tukatech centre, the designer uses the workstation, which runs through the entire process in just a few hours.

While Tukacenters are a boon for individuals in fashion, even small garment manufacturers in India have caught onto the facility and are using the Tukacenters for all the services if they cannot afford to purchase a system. And large manufacturers use the centres in case of work overflow at their factories.

In India there are a number of fashion schools that teach their students the Tukatech CAD systems. Around 5,000 students are being trained directly or indirectly by Tukatech.

But while Sareen (Rams @tukatech.com) sets about opening doors for the small guys, it does not allay his fears about the Indian garment industry. To make himself feel a little better, he’s addressing garmentos across the country on the technology. It might make good fashion sense to attend a lecture.