Challenges faced by textile sector and its remedies.

Problem: There are numerous problems/challenges faced by the textile sector in Pakistan i.e. shortage of gas and electricity, increasing raw material prices, law & order situations, lack of R&D institutions, lack of modern machinery & equipment, increasing cost of production and lack of new investments. Beside these challenges, the textile company in which I am working also has some problems like lack of integration between departments i.e Communication gap or lack of flow of information (No centralization). The global customers are now looking for innovative products to be offered by some company, our company is continuously focusing on same product or repeat design and not working on Product Innovation and lacks R&D institutions. Another problem which was noticed was the increase in defects during the manufacturing process which leads to order rejection. The lack of technical training and experiential learning have caused increased errors. The manpower are also not evaluated continuously during there work which causes no performance management. The textile industry in Pakistan is being burdened with various types of innovative taxes and inefficiencies which cannot be passed on to the buyers. The textile industry is predominantly export-oriented and thus exposed to the international market to lose its substantial market share, consequently our textile and clothing exports are declining or stagnant since last year. Resultant, the textile mills are converting fast into the category of sick units and closing down one after another.

Solution: In order to be innovative, the textile companies now start working and investing on R&D institutions in order to launch new ideas and for betterment in existing ideas. The companies must also be process innovation(betterment in existing manufacturing processes)in order to reduce defects and ensure premium quality required by the buyer. As the textile companies are moving abroad, especially in Bangladesh, the local textile companies must compromise on the product prices in order to gain bulk orders. Our company should work on the centralization among departments through software i.e all the interlinked departments must be well aware of all other departments position and all the information must be shared there, this would lead to less lead time and proper co-ordination among departments and less chances of errors. The Automation in the software would help the departments to see the real-time data and the position of inventory in the company. For example, the Procurement department, through system must be able to see the available stock in different stores in order to be update and alert for timely purchasing. The performance appraisal of the employees should be conducted quarterly through software technology, in order to get linked with performance management. E-textile technology should be implemented, E-textile are all about smart clothing that integrates electronics with textile. The company must innovate through e-textile and design a type of jacket with electrodes which could sensor blood pressures and can save lives. The company must also work on Eco-friendly products/re-cycling which can save costs and keep the environment less polluted.