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Commission to showcase high-tech clothing
Record Control Number : 18985
Date : 2002-09-24
Category : Event
General Information :
The European Commission will demonstrate to the clothing industry
how to use information society technologies (IST) to their
advantage at 'The EU apparel business goes high-tech' in Brussels
on 15 October.
Wearable technology and clothing customised to individual
healthcare, sports, quality of life and entertainment needs will be
on show. The Commission will underline how IST can boost
productivity and competitiveness and highlight the advantages of a
move into activities such as 3-D body scanning, trying on clothes
virtually, mass customisation, multi-functional clothing, online
retailing and other e-commerce solutions.
'Tailoring textiles and clothing to enhance every wearer's quality
of life will bring benefits to consumers and offers interesting new
opportunities for industry,' says EU Commissioner for Enterprise
and Information Society, Erkki Liikanen, who will open the
conference.
'Enterprises that want to succeed in today's competitive markets
cannot stand still. Innovation does not just mean inventing new
products. It means transforming and extending product ranges and
services, adapting production and delivery methods and constantly
upgrading management methods, the organisation of work and worker
qualifications,' said Mr Liikanen.
As customers become more sophisticated and seek more individualised
products, IST can be used to meet these demands. Until now, the
main difficulties have been sector specific ones such as the
customer's desire to check the fit of clothing, feel the material
and see the colour. The conference will examine technological
developments aimed at surmounting these challenges, and pinpoint
areas where further research and innovation is necessary.
The event will also demonstrate how IST can create new networking
structures across company and country boundaries. This will benefit
small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular by
enabling them to pool fragmented activities and search for
suppliers and markets worldwide.
The textiles and clothing sector is one of Europe's leading
manufacturing industries with a turnover of around 196 billion euro
in 2001. It employs over two million people in around 113,000
companies, most of them SMEs, which are often concentrated in
particular regions. In addition, the sub-sector in Europe has a
turnover of 70 billion euro, employing some 960,000 people. While
the trade balance for textiles is positive, this is not the case
for clothing, with exports of 16.4 billion euro against imports of
50.8 billion euro in 2001.
Text :
Remarks :
Data Source Provider : European Commission
Document Reference : Based on IP/02/1354
Subject Index Codes : Information Processing, Information Systems, Economic
Aspects
Contact Person : For further information on the conference, please consult the
following web address:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/textile/conf_apparel.htm
For further information on the textile and apparel industry, please
consult the following web address:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/library/enterprise-papers/pdf/enterprise_paper_02_2001.pdf
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Patrick O'Beirne, Director.
Systems Modelling Ltd., Software Quality Consulting.
http://www.sysmod.com/
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