France's Lectra launches AI-powered platform Valia Fashion

Lectra supports the digital transformation and the transition towards Industry 4.0 of fashion, automotive and furniture companies.

The Group has announced the launch of Valia Fashion, its new intelligent digital platform designed for the fashion industry. It combines the power of artificial intelligence and Lectra's unique expertise in fashion.

Valia Fashion connects, automates and streamlines each stage of apparel production, from order processing to fabric cutting, while optimizing the use of materials. It revolutionizes the fashion ecosystem by breaking down the barriers between the various industrialization and production processes to better meet the requirements of brands, manufacturers and subcontractors.

Faced with the technological challenges posed by the transformation of a market constantly requiring more agility and cost control, the transition to Industry 4.0 is a key factor in the performance, profitability and sustainability of production processes. With Valia Fashion, brands, manufacturers and subcontractors in the fashion industry can adapt more easily and quickly, whatever their type of production (small, medium and large series, or on-demand production).

A major technological innovation based on artificial intelligence to meet the many changes occurring in the fashion market

With the rise of online shopping, the popularity of personalized products, the rapid evolution of trends, costly inventory management and an increased focus on price as well as environmental and social issues, consumers’ patterns are changing profoundly, impacting supply chains and clothing production. Many brands now favor the production of small series, along with and in addition to their usual seasonal collections.

Manufacturers and subcontractors must produce a larger number of smaller orders, limiting economies of scale. They must gain agility and control their production costs while addressing environmental issues. To successfully carry out this transformation, the different stakeholders involved in production must communicate and process information in real time. Digitalization thus becomes essential to collaborate effectively and preserve industry expertise.

“Valia Fashion represents a major technological breakthrough as, thanks to artificial intelligence, it truly brings fashion players into a new era, that of Industry 4.0. It will help them make a leap forward that goes beyond any advance made in recent decades. Valia Fashion has no equivalent on the market. It offers the whole fashion industry a totally new way to meet the challenges it faces during production,” explains Maximilien Abadie, chief strategy officer and chief product officer at Lectra.

“With Valia Fashion, our customers will be able to streamline and secure their production processes. They will benefit from a fully automated and connected workflow both internally and within their ecosystem. They will also be able to optimize the use of our fabric cutting equipment and their material consumption. We have combined our expertise in the fashion industry with the power of artificial intelligence to enable them, with Valia Fashion, to collaborate more efficiently, preserve their margins and boost their growth - while meeting the requirements of sustainable development, which are increasingly demanding in the fashion industry.”

Valia Fashion breaks down boundaries to meet the dual challenge of performance and sustainability

Thanks to an in-depth understanding of the various challenges faced by the fashion industry, Lectra provides, through Valia Fashion, solutions adapted to the specific needs of each type of player in the industry. The solution propels users into a new technological era, optimizing the resources used in the cutting room and improving profitability:

- Improved collaboration between all stakeholders in the value chain

Thanks to the power of the cloud, artificial intelligence and an industry-specific data model, Valia Fashion makes it possible to digitalize the entire fashion production flow, from order preparation to cutting.

Our digital platform allows all activities and players - both brands and subcontractors - to free themselves from geographical constraints and jointly optimize their operations. By connecting all processes, work organization becomes easier, manual work is reduced and resource allocation is optimized to ensure maximum efficiency.

- Each member of the ecosystem benefits from better visibility on current and future operations, as well as better estimation and traceability of the material used

Valia Fashion automatically analyzes and optimizes the performance of the cutting room and associated resources thanks to a complete, centralized, secure and shared overview of the process.

It measures the environmental impact of apparel production (precise estimation of the quantity of material used) based on real production constraints.

Thanks to the use of Industry 4.0 technologies and specifically artificial intelligence, Valia Fashion is able to process and interpret an unprecedented amount of data, thus optimizing production and making it easier to take informed decisions in real time. A new level of industrial performance and competitiveness has been reached.

Note: The content of this press release has not been edited by Fibre2Fashion staff.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (HU)