Do I have a career in the Textile Industry?

Many of the students in Textile Engineering colleges are disturbed with this question and are unable to find the right answer. On the other hand, the textile industry is deficient of textile engineers with desired skill levels. This is strange but true. Textile engineers, owing to the ignorance of the opportunities in the textile industry, are shifting to different industries. This is definitely an advantage for other industries and loss of skilled, knowledgeable manpower to the textile industry. In order to stop this loss, we all need to come forward and change our basic education system and mindset of people who manage the education system.

Why this gap?

Industry is progressing with positive growth. Most of the new plants are investing in the latest technology, and the Indian textile industry has created its second position after China. The fast-growing corporate groups are investing in textiles knowing its competitive advantage over other countries and understanding the global scenario.

The gap between the Textile Education Institutions & Textile Industry is due to the following reasons:

  1.     Shift of industry from cities to D zones
There is a negative trend in the minds of people who are located in the city mainly because of the shifting of the industry from cities to D zones. This is because of the high infrastructure cost in cities like Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Delhi, etc., as compared to new textile hubs like Kolhapur, Ludhiana, Tirupur, Bhopal, Falta, etc. However, this leads to negative publicity created due to issues like land sale, union problems, strikes, etc., happening in bigger cities and backed by strong political activities.

2.     Institutions away from textile industry

Textile institutions are situated in these cities where mills are shutting down or shifting to new areas.

Textile entrepreneurs are creating their empire at newly formed textile hubs, and they do not bother much for the surrounding. They have their own permutations and combinations, and they do their own calculations based on business requirements. Even they have their own in-house training centers where they take new recruiters and train them as per their requirements irrespective of their knowledge of textile technology.

3.     Teachers and students are unaware of the industrial developments

The biggest worry with the technical institution is right type of teachers who have practical knowledge and understanding of textile industry. There are very few institutions which are well-connected with the industry and they have strong hold on the education pattern which enables them to understand latest developments and requirements of the textile industry.


4.     Education pattern restricting students in the campus

 

With more theory base education pattern, students keep on restricting themselves in submission of project work appearing for weekly exams and concentrating on age old traditional thinking of project work and securing higher marks in examinations by referring to text books and references in library than having connectivity with the industry.


5.     Not much research work is happening

We are in traditional textile and clothing industry where there is hardly any research work happening on functional improvements of textiles, more stress is on higher productivity and lower production cost. Even though it is a fashion industry, there is hardly any scope for creativity through innovative research work. It is more of colour and texture. Moreover, the fashion is coming from fashion hubs such as Milano, Paris and just getting copied over here in this part of the world.


6.     Students want job in cities whereas industry is in rural areas

Another issue is that students prefer to stay in major cities where they can enjoy their free time with leisure and textile hubs are away from this glittering world.


7.     Students prefer white collar job whereas textile production houses are not that clean

One more thing is that textile industry is full of dust, fly, fluff, etc. Technologists have to work with their own hands to fix mechanical problems. New generation prefers white collar job hence they prefer to switch over to IT jobs than textile jobs.


8.     Wide range of products and areas of specialization

Very wide range of products and hence students are unaware to choose which area of specialization to choose from a huge list as mentioned below for each product e.g.


  • Production
    • Involved in working directly on the machine
  • Production planning
    • Involved in planning the ways and means of production based on sales forecasting
  • Consulting
    • Involved in preparation of market research reports, techno-economic feasibility report, assistance in selecting technology, giving technical inputs for construction of textile units
  • Research and development
    • Involved in developing new products and machines, improvising existing products and machines for maximising output and quality
  • Sourcing
    • Involved in deciding the quantity, quality, location of the raw material to be sourced from
  • Marketing
    • Involved in marketing of products, services and machines
  • Maintenance
    • Involved in fixing any problems related to machinery
  • Quality
    • Involved in testing and certification of products
  • Merchandizing
    • Involved in  product design, selection, packaging, pricing, and display that stimulates consumers
  • Retailing
    • Involved in conceptualizing and managing the stores
  • Brand building
    • Involved in creating a total brand experience at each point of customer

Conclusions


I could foresee a drastic change in the education pattern

 

  • Change education pattern be it as required by the industry let us adopt more practical approach.
  • Scan industry specific needs understand actual requirements by interacting with the industry.
  • Emphasis on liking of students this would facilitate students to work in their area of interest than entire syllabus of textile industry. This would also mean that more choices would be availableto students.
  • Introduce courses as per the job role of that particular industry this would be in line with ITI course but more specific.
  • Improve soft skills for any job, few skill sets are common which needs to be developed. This would also help them in getting higher responsibilities later in the career.
  • No more professors facilitators. This would be a dramatic change. There is a need of industry experts creating new generation for the industry.
  • More importantly Courses for facilitators. These facilitators needs to be trained properly so that they can train the trainers for future.


Avinash Mayekar is MD & CEO at Suvin Advisors Pvt. Ltd