As a traditional pillar industry of my country’s national economy, the garment industry has always been unable to avoid keywords such as “downturn” and “pessimistic prospects” in recent years. Whether it is a traditional offline factory or an e-commerce first, the myth of sudden wealth in the clothing manufacturing industry has become an ancient legend…
At 2:30 in the middle of the night on another Thursday, Du Feifei, who has been in the clothing business in Changshu for 12 years, was tossing and turning. I kept replaying in my mind a few clothes that I couldn’t discuss during the day, and the live broadcast will start again in less than 17 hours. Every time at this time, the anxiety caused by not having enough styles would make it difficult for Du Feifei to sleep.
Hangzhou, about 200 kilometers away from Changshu, as one of the most influential clothing wholesale and distribution markets, is quietly undergoing a change. The “Rhinoceros Intelligent Manufacturing” created by Alibaba is attacking the clothing industry as a new species.
The garment manufacturing industry, which seems to have not been closely connected with technologies such as cloud computing, LOT, and artificial intelligence in the past, may soon improve resource utilization and reduce the risk of factory backlogs. There is a certain breakthrough.
It’s just that in the cycle of changing times, people in traditional clothing like Du Feifei still seem to be lingering in front of this door. Should they subvert the status quo and move forward boldly, or should they take it one step at a time? Take a closer look, they are still trembling in the gap waiting for the wind to come…
1
Downstream Clothing sellers are confused and where will their transformation go after various attempts
Twelve years ago, Du Feifei had just graduated from college. After working in a clothing factory for a year, Du Feifei Gradually accumulated some manufacturer resources, and then officially launched his own Taobao store.
The model adopted at that time was also very simple. Whenever the upstream manufacturers released new styles, Du Feifei would follow them in the Taobao store. Although it was not exclusive, because she put the profits It was very low, so I gradually accumulated more than 200,000 fans.
Unexpectedly, the sudden outbreak of the epidemic caused a huge impact on the store.
“The market has been shut down for several months, but warehouse rent and labor costs have been reduced. We can only sell the inventory we have at a loss to relieve our urgent needs. “Du Feifei still looked embarrassed when she recalled the days at the beginning of the year.
The situation has not improved after the resumption of work. Since it is difficult for everyone to do business, many colleagues are becoming less and less “ruly” when negotiating clearance prices. Sellers will regret not selling because other buyers have offered a price that is a few yuan higher; fellow buyers will keep an eye on all Du Feifei’s updates, purposely bid higher than hers, and cut off the goods.
As this situation occurs frequently, it becomes increasingly difficult to collect the 50 products for the live broadcast every Friday. “Sometimes I really want to cancel the live broadcast temporarily, but I have no choice but to sell whatever I can. The whole family is waiting for dinner.” The burden on Du Feifei made her breathless.
Traditional clothing manufacturing workshop
Later, Du Feifei was no longer there The circle of friends updates one’s daily life, and Weibo is set to be visible only to fans, preventing peers from having the opportunity to monitor the updates. But this is only a temporary solution, not the root cause. The fundamental solution is to shift from liquidation to self-control. “Although this road is equally difficult, it is always better than the status quo.”
Tested 3 waters After designing, Du Feifei discovered that the difficulties of making homemade styles are the long production cycle, high risk of stocking up, the smaller the order, the higher the cost, and it is difficult to find a production factory that satisfies her. Since the craftsmanship of homemade styles is more complicated in order to avoid pretentiousness, So the production factories she found were only willing to help her because of years of friendship.
Du Feifei is not confident in the self-made method, especially since the cost of making winter clothes will be high, and it will require more money to buy goods. Moreover, winter clothing occupies a large area and requires additional rental warehouses.
A series of problems are posed in front of Du Feifei. It seems that there is only one step left before the business that she and the entire family rely on for a living will reach a dead end.
The cold winter is approaching, and Du Feifei is also thinking about whether the emergence of Rhino Intelligent Manufacturing can solve her urgent need?
“Actually, as soon as the news came out, I discussed it with my colleagues. Most of them were a little worried that their factories would be affected, and even started to look for ways out. But I think , this may be an opportunity for me.” Du Feifei told Zinc Scale that the biggest advantage of intelligent production is that it can produce even small orders and is more efficient, but the styles will be more restricted.
But no matter what, she has made up her mind to make a change, otherwise, this cold winter will last for who knows how long…
2
Small and medium-sized clothing manufacturers are anxious about livelihood or upgrade, and are stuck at a crossroads
In the days of “Golden Nine and Silver Ten”, Chen Ming (pseudonym) felt the long-lost leisure. As a Suzhou garment man who inherited his parents’ legacy, Chen Ming’s growth has almost coincided with the ups and downs of the garment industry.
When e-commerce business opportunities emerged, he decided to return to his hometown to give it a try. Because his family has been in the clothing business for decades, he made up his mind from the beginning to do a source business instead of directly opening an online store.
So Chen Ming has always been insulated from the “money-burning war” in e-commerce.��, enabling intelligent procurement and flexible supply. Each piece of fabric has an ID, which enables full-link tracking, automatic inbound and outbound management, automatic distribution and intelligent picking. The resource utilization rate is four times higher than the industry average. This smart factory platform happens to be Alibaba’s next step in new manufacturing.
Compared with other factories, Rhino can shorten delivery time by 75%, reduce inventory by 30%, or even reduce it by 50% of water consumption. The highly digitalized Rhino Factory can undertake more personalized and small-scale orders, while maintaining low costs and high efficiency. In more than two years of pilot operation, “Rhinoceros Factory” has provided production services to a total of 200 Taobao and Tmall merchants, anchors, fashionistas, etc.
7
The young man who dared to challenge the CEO during the interview became the director of Rhinoceros Intelligent Manufacturing Factory
Alibaba, which has no manufacturing experience, is a self-built model factory. At the same time, Rhinoceros Intelligent Manufacturing needs A factory manager with strong execution. Hu Zhijun, with more than ten years of hard work in the garment industry, has reached the position of production director of a well-known men’s clothing brand.
During the interview, Hu Zhijun and Wu Xuegang talked about the pain points of the industry and the concepts of flexible and quick response. The two had a tacit understanding, but they were at loggerheads on some specific issues, and Hu Zhijun did not care about himself. The role of interviewer even got into a dispute with Wu Xuegang.
“After the interview, the headhunter asked me how I was doing? I said we were quarreling, what can I do? It’s definitely not going to work.” Hu Zhijun said that he never expected that even if there was a quarrel, Wu Xuegang still gave him the green light: he passed the interview.
Later, Hu Zhijun added a self-introduction to his personal introduction on DingTalk: Challenge the impossible.
Rhinoceros Intelligent Manufacturing Factory pioneered the “chessboard hanging”, which can automatically assign hanging hangers to relatively free workstations , solving the problem of one-way flow of hanging and easy congestion</p
