The arrival of the new millennium has brought with it an array of challenges to the textile
industry, according to Eduardo Rocha, vice president and general manager for Houston-based KoSa.
But these challenges can be overcome by innovative alliances, marketing and technology.Rocha,
addressing the summer conference of the Textured Yarn Association of America Inc. (TYAA) in Myrtle
Beach, S.C., said the fibers sector, in particular, is facing limited profits because of the
escalating prices of raw materials caused by a significant increase in oil prices over the past few
years. Pressure from imports has impacted profit margins in the texturing segment. In the yarn and
fabric sector, imports are also a major obstacle to profitability.However, the opportunity exists
for textile manufacturers to capitalize on growing demand worldwide and to increase exports to both
established and developing economies, he said. Much of the opportunity will be in apparel and
accessories constructed from man-made fibers and yarns.Cotton production has flattened in the past
15 years, he said. With population growth and more demand for land for agricultural use, it is
anticipated worldwide growth of cotton will be limited. On the other hand, and due to its versatile
properties, polyester is, and will be, the growing fiber of the future, Rocha said. Since 1978,
olefin fibers have had the largest rate of growth 7.2 percent per year while demand for fibers such
as nylon has grown by 1 percent per year. Total fiber demand is currently about 120 billion pounds
per year, with polyester accounting for 39 billion pounds, of which 17 million pounds are staple
and 22 million pounds are filament. North America, Western Europe and China remain the largest
markets for fiber products, he said.

Table 1The United States, with a per capita consumption of 80 pounds, continues to lead the
world in fiber demand. Total textiles consumption in the United States accounts for about $130
billion per year. The per-capita income in the United States is approximately $20,000 per year,
Rocha said. With its high per-capita income and large total market size, the United States is the
target market for producers of textile goods worldwide. But if income per capita improves in other
regions, fiber demand will increase dramatically. The man-made fibers industry will then have the
opportunity to show its ability to adjust to rapidly changing circumstances.Export
OpportunitiesRocha said export opportunities will exist for U.S. companies in commodities, but the
real opportunity is in the specialty products where the United States enjoys worldwide recognition
for quality, marketing and branding key factors in capitalizing on the market for higher-end
products.The key issues impacting the future of the textile business and the opportunity for U.S.
companies to increase exports are:

• The United States has an open economy capital and technology flows freely around the
  world.
• World textile production capacity exceeds demand.
• The economy in Asia will continue to grow after the 1998 setbacks.
• Industry consolidation will continue.

There are different ways we can react on globalization, Rocha said. We know that this
represents increased competition and lower prices. We can ask for protection against unfair
advantages that some countries have subsidies, labor costs, taxes or we can show them how good we
are, generating new products and developing innovative technologies.The world is aligning in trade
blocs, and the United States has the opportunity to capitalize on some of them. NAFTA [North
American Free Trade Agreement] continues to be a good vehicle to increase trade, especially now
that the Mexican transition to democracy is advancing faster, he said. CBI [Caribbean Basin
Initiative] will be a benefit for apparel with U.S.A yarn and fabric content. WTO [World Trade
Organization] quotas for yarn, fabric and apparel will be phased out by 2005. China, currently the
largest man-made fiber producer in the world, is hardly investing today to be prepared for the
WTO.The end result is that consumers will benefit and the most competitive firms will prevail, he
said.Addressing overcapacity, Rocha said there were high expectations of large market growth over
the past decade, and most fiber producers, with a commodity mindset, invested in large facilities
to seize the opportunity. When growth slowed down, we ended up with a considerable overcapacity
throughout the world.

Imports double exports. However, a large part of the consumption is locally
produced.Companies began to focus on cost reduction and fought for market share, prices decreased
dramatically, and reinvestment economics disappeared. The natural consequence was the shutting down
of older equipment.Lessons learned from the past decade will allow us to focus on selective growth
in specialty niches and investment will flow for the most attractive opportunities, Rocha said. The
supply-demand balance will be healthier.With the Asian financial crisis, demand reduction put more
pressure on exporting countries in Asia to sell outside the region. For example, in 1998, domestic
textile consumption in Korea decreased almost 20 percent. During the same year, China, Hong Kong
and Korea exported about $45 billion in clothing, almost 25 percent of the world total.

Table 3With its large population and past economic performance, Asia has the potential
despite some setbacks to be the most important textile market in the world, Rocha said. This could
represent a good opportunity for innovative North American textile producers. With a sound Far
Eastern economy, North America will benefit.Consolidation To ContinueConsolidation of North
American companies alliances and joint ventures can capitalize on North Americas growing purchasing
power, improve utilization of capacity and focus on selective growth. Industry consolidation will
continue, he said, resulting in stronger companies and eliminating some of the fragmentation in the
value chain. It will also change some of the forces in the industry.With the state of the age of
global mega-competition, selection and concentration have become essential, he said. The end result
will be a North American industry with fewer players, but much stronger.Giant chemical firms, for
example, have withdrawn from the man-made fiber business, placing particular emphasis on life
science and specialty chemicals, with the hopeful expectation of growth and better profits. Other
companies have acquired new partners, and new manufacturers constantly enter the marketplace.In
1980, eight of the top 10 polyester fiber producers were North American and European companies (See
Table 1). By 1999, seven were Asian companies. These changes have altered the balance of polyester
fiber production worldwide, Rocha said. The Asian man-made fibers industry has grown enormously and
today accounts for nearly 70 percent of worldwide capacity.The consolidation of texturing equipment
manufacturers Barmag/ Saurer, Rieter/ICBT, etc. will result in the application of joint technology
to bring more innovation and better machines. This technology innovation must have a faster pace,
and the western hemisphere must be the driver, he said. For instance, the friction disk was
initiated in the 1970s. It is 30 years later now, and some other mechanism should come to innovate
the process.As well, he continued, the manufacturers of fibers will need to come up with new
methods for extrusion and spinning that results in better fiber performance and color
stabilization, and with a focus on customer and market needs.The development of a commercial
bicomponent fiber that will be textured by heating effects will take a share of the future textile
market. Specialty texturing certainly opens an opportunity to produce a vast number of new
products. Productivity must be improved, he said, and average speed should increase.We must look at
how we will win, not only at how we will defend our North American market, he said. A modernization
process for polyester spinning and for texturizing machines is needed to improve productivity. A
key issue is the knowledge, expertise and talent of the people involved in the process.E-commerce,
he said, will certainly be a driver that will revolutionize the textile transactions, with more
global access to producers and consumers.A stronger alliance among fiber producers, texturizers,
textile manufacturers and distributors is needed to improve the entire value chain. The industry
must continue to design programs to insulate at least some of its products from direct imports,
focusing on product and market innovation. Areas of concentration should include enhanced comfort,
aesthetics and performance.In general, a change is needed from volume to value, from mass
production to niche markets and to research-based products, he said. The best way to predict the
future, he said, quoting legendary manage-ment scholar Peter Drucker, is to create it.

November 2000

MobileDesigner.com
Designers can take advantage of portable equipment and accessories to take the design process
on the road.Back in the industrial age, designers had a fairly mobile profession. A set of
color pencils, some blank paper and possibly a pair of scissors were about the only design tools
they needed while on the road. With the technology revolution came $50,000 to $100,000 CAD
work-stations and expanded job functions that pretty much tethered the designers to their shared
office computers for much of the 1990s.The good news is that not only have software and hardware
prices fallen, but so has the size of the equipment. In addition, monolithic
everything-for-everybody industry-specific software applications have given way to individual
plug-and-play modules designed to integrate with all aspects of not just design, but also the
surrounding supply-chain processes. These tools make it possible for todays global traveling
designer armed with a laptop, accessories, access to the Internet and a good battery to work on the
road, in the air and even at the beach.Defining Needs And AbilitiesStep one in creating a mobile
design studio is to define the processes that need to be supported. With the technology age having
re-engineered the design process to include everything from design to production to merchandising
and marketing, the well-equipped laptop will contain a broad range of applications to support
business correspondence, desktop publishing, textile design, product design, visual merchandising,
scheduling and more.The questions to be answered here include: how do you work; how much do you
travel; what kind of work do you do; will the design applications used run on a laptop and, if so,
what are the system requirementsAnother very important consideration is your comfort level with
system administration. The mobile designer loses the benefit of the companys IT administrator or
local guru while on the road. Its one thing to know how to use applications, but quite a different
set of skills is necessary to be able to recover crashed systems, re-install files from a backup,
detect and destroy a virus, connect a broad range of peripherals, and configure Internet access
using international dialing codes and foreign telephone wiring.The Mobile Designers Tools

Outfitting the mobile design office can be as simple or as complex as the job description,
travel requirements, skills and budget will allow. At the very minimum, mobile designers will want
the fastest laptop they can afford, either Macintosh or PC, that is also as lightweight as
possible. It should include as much RAM as possible, at least 8 gigabytes of hard drive space, a
24x CD-ROM player (or faster), an internal modem of at least 56K, and at least one spare battery.Be
sure your tool kit includes a telephone extension cord that will allow you to plug your computer
into the wall jack or dataport on the telephone. An analog/digital line splitter will prevent
having to swap the computer and phone on the wall plug-in locations where there isnt a dataport on
the phone itself. Be sure to include surge protection for both electrical and phone lines. U.S.
travelers may want to check out the Curtis compact all-in-one device that includes surge protection
for both electrical and phone lines, as well as a built-in RJ-11 telephone extension cord.Also on
the list of essentials is a CD containing backup copies of the operating system install disk,
copies of all device drivers and software, all essential files and images, as well as copies of all
software programs. You should also carry information on emergency technical support contacts for
both Internet and telephone access on all hardware and software. Be sure to research Internet
dial-up numbers for each city you are visiting before you leave.International travelers will need
to include surge protection for overseas electricity as well as an electrical converter kit that
will convert their 110-volt appliances to the 220 to 240 volts found in many foreign countries.
Phone jack adapters will allow them to plug their RJ-11 phone plug into the broad range of unique
jacks found around the world.The software on your mobile office will be unique to your job
requirements and work habits. Chances are you will be working with a combination of both
off-the-shelf and industry-specific applications. Holly Henderson, United Design Resources, New
Rochelle, N.Y., and an instructor at The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), New York City,
advises prospective mobile designers to confirm their industry-specific software will run on a
laptop computer, as a few still do not. She also recommends they check to confirm the software will
support dual monitors, as many designers prefer to connect their small laptop monitors to larger
ones, often placing the application design tools on one monitor with the work product on
another.Must-have applications include virus software, Internet software and file-compression
software to compress designs into a manageable size that can be sent via the Internet. Industry
veterans recommend using the .zip format, which can be universally read on both Macintosh and PC
computers. Adobe Acrobat will allow conversion of your work product to the Adobe .pdf format, which
will allow files to be read by computers that dont have your specific software on them. The
recipient need only have Adobe Acrobat Reader software, which is available free from the Adobe
website (See Resources For Mobile Travel Information And Products at the end of this article).The
Wired DesignerFrom here, we launch into a world of hardware options that will truly allow you to
push the technology envelope. From digital tablets and storage devices to printers, scanners,
cameras, PDAs and cell phones, there are a wealth of portable options.A cell phone with a
cell-compatible modem and software will allow access to the Internet without the need for a
hard-wired phone line. Not all cell phone manufacturers support this feature, so check before
buying a phone if this option appeals to you.If you own an older computer that doesnt have a USB
port, you may want to look into a USB converter PC card, which slides right into the PC card slot
and will allow you to add many of the new USB Macintosh or PC peripherals on the market. The PC
card can also improve the likelihood of being able to connect to peripherals found at remote
locations.An internal or external Jaz or Zip media drive will not only expand file storage
capacity, but will allow you to receive and distribute files when they are too large to transmit
via the Internet or when associates dont have Internet access.Dont forget to carry a few extra
disks with you. With the cost of writeable CD drives diminishing as fast as the size of the units,
this could be an alternative solution to Jaz or Zip drives.While there are portable scanners on the
market, a digital camera may be more versatile and easier to carry. The newer breed of portable
digital cameras supports the ability to capture more than 3 megabytes of data in a single photo,
more than enough for the inspirations found in retail, trade show or fashion show jaunts. The
ability to photograph your inspirations and then download them directly into the computer without
processing film and scanning photos will allow you to pay for the cost of the camera fairly
quickly. Take a look at the new Canon PowerShot S20, reported to be the worlds smallest digital
camera.The designer who feels that drawing with the mouse is like drawing with a bar of soap should
check out the 6-by-8-inch Wacom tablet and pen.The well-equipped designer is not without SCSI
connectors for peripherals, video cables (for presentations) and Ethernet cabling. Oh, and dont
forget the AC power cable for your computer!While a hand-held device such as a Palm Pilot is too
small for use as a design tool, it supports many of the functions that a growing number of
designers now perform on the computer, including scheduling, e-mail communications and contact
information.There is also a broad range of software available for these devices to supply excellent
travel information including maps, hotels and restaurants. These hand-held devices, which are
synchronized with the information on the main computer, can be a wonderful tool for quick access to
information in places where booting up your laptop just isnt feasible.Now, heres the clincher.
Whatever you use must fit into a carry-on bag that conforms with airline size restrictions that
allow storage of the bag underneath the seat in front of you. You dont want to check it and risk
losing or breaking the components. You probably dont want to have to watch it as you roam around
the plane either. A strong cable and lock will allow you to secure it to your seat so that you can
visit the restroom with peace of mind.And last, but not least, dont forget to insure your mobile
office. The setup will cost between $4,000 and $10,000, and by virtue of its portability, it is
more susceptible to damage, theft and loss. Insure the cost of the equipment and software, and
leave a good backup of your data at home. Practicing safe computing will avoid the pain of possibly
losing years of hard work.
Editors Note: Teri Ross is a writer, speaker and consultant focusing on CAD/CAM technology and
process improvement strategies for the sewn products industries. She is owner and president of
Imagine That! Consulting Group, publishers of the award-winning techexchange.com. She can be
reached at tross@techexchange.com or at (952) 593-0776.

November 2000

The U.S. government announced India has agreed to reduce specific tariff levels recently levied
against selected textile and apparel imports. The duties, assessed on a per unit charge, rather
than on a value basis, caused tariff increases as high as 100 percent or more on certain products.
They had been imposed by the Indian government in retaliation for defeats it suffered in the World
Trade Organization (WTO) over its practice of banning imports of apparel, textiles and other
consumer products. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (UStr) received an analysis from the
American Textile Manufacturers Institute (ATMI) that showed the duties exceeded UStrs guidelines
for determining whether a country is allowing effective market access.These duty reductions are one
important step in the fight to open Indias market to U.S. textile imports, said Carlos Moore,
executive vice president, ATMI. We appreciate the hard work of the UStr, and especially Ambassador
Esserman, in attaining this result. Despite the reduction of tariffs, barriers remain for the
exportation of U.S. textile products to India, including high ad valorem rates, add-on taxes, and
various rules and procedures.We urge our government to move quickly to remove Indias remaining
trade barriers, Moore concluded.In other news, by a vote of 83-15, the U.S. Senate voted to grant
permanent normal trade relations (Ntr) status to China. The vote, according to Roger W. Chastain,
president, ATMI, Washington, D.C., is a vote against the values of the United States, the U.S.
textile industry, and its 550,000 employees.
(See China: Opportunity or Threat, ATI, this issue).
November 2000