LEVERAGING GROWING 3D INVESTMENT BEYOND DESIGN FOR VOLUME AND SPEED

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25 Sept

Written By Debbie Mckeegan

“What if everyone involved could work collaboratively anywhere anytime? View and modify designs that were initially created by artists using any of the 3D authoring tools?” - Yoram Burg | EMBODEE

GUEST ARTICLE WRITTEN BY YORAM BURG OF EMBODEE

No one would argue that the fashion industry’s transition to digital technologies has taken far longer than expected. The well-worn analogy “it’s a marathon, not a sprint” springs to mind but misses the mark.

What we’ve seen is more like cautious long-distance runners who conserve energy for years and are now sprinting to catch more daring competitors, some new to racing. In other words, digitization, including adoption of 3D, has become a mad dash of established companies and all-digital startups.

The pandemic triggered the acceleration — and for much more than enhancing e-commerce, the Covid revenue lifeline. An eye-popping level of tech investment in 2021 signals an across-the-board industry makeover is underway. What Vogue Business in August described as fashion tech’s funding boom exceeds $30 billion so far this year. That’s an annual increase of 130 percent with a few months to go.

The investments signal the emergence and adoption of many kinds of innovation that together add up to new ways of working, much of it virtually. The list, according to Just Style, includes 3D design and prototyping, customization, on-demand manufacturing, micro-factories, enhanced PLM, made-to-measure, and digital try-on.

The goal is more efficiency:

Faster time-to-market and reduced costs and waste. But there are always challenges when implementing new technologies, no matter the industry. They include developing new workflows that “old-way” hardliners often resist, training, and educating suppliers and other vendors. Implementing innovations also can create new problems to solve.

Let’s hone in on 3D design, which by many years predates the pandemic. No other digital technology serving the fashion industry has been as transformative as it steadily evolved. This I know from having worked at high levels for EFI Optitex for 16 years before joining Embodee in 2019.

Today 3D authoring companies offer solutions that extend from 3D design to merchandising and more. They have also helped companies work remotely, including using virtual sampling when meeting in person and travel has been impossible.

“In the beginning it took many years to make people trust 3D so that it can become a substitute to what they know,” Avihay Feld, co-founder and co-CEO Browzwear, a pioneer in 3D design software, told Just Style. “Now it’s not only about trusting 3D to be able to do something but moving more and more portions of the workflow into 3D.”

The challenge is getting entire organizations, other companies they rely on, and the industry itself to scale up and embrace entirely new workflows, Feld said, noting that Covid complications have boosted the efforts.

In the quest for new workflows essential to achieving greater efficiencies, key questions emerge.

For example, how to maximize the use of 3D from initial design through merchandising, sales, and production, whether physical or virtual? How to make accessing 3D assets easier and for any stakeholder? How to develop collections and variants faster and shorten the review and approval process? How to overcome the serious shortage of workers with 3D skills and bridge communication gaps?

The answers speak to opportunities in digital product creation tools. Even with a great record of expanded capabilities and improved functionalities, sometimes technologies just can’t do everything. That’s when others emerge to overcome challenges and fill gaps.

With all their qualities, 3D authoring tools require software licenses and high-end computer hardware. This is a challenge to how many staff can work with 3D images and with whom they can be shared. Also, 3D artists are hard to find, train, and retain. When work must be sent back for revisions, it creates backlogs.

What if this traditional linear and dependable process was transformed?

Imagine it becoming circular so all stakeholders, including design, merchandising and sales participate virtually — early and easily. Imagine them sharing comments with each other throughout the design cycle. And sharing finished designs outside their companies for feedback.

What if everyone involved could work collaboratively anywhere anytime, pandemic be damned, and view and modify designs that were initially created by artists using any of the 3D authoring tools? With minimal training, they could take that work, add materials, colors, graphics, and prints as needed and develop collections and variants? All online, and no licenses or special hardware required.

Those are among the benefits of Embodee’s new web-based Orchids platform. The platform isn’t designed to compete with the 3D authoring systems like those of Browzwear, Optitex, CLO3D, and many other companies. Rather, it augments their essential and considerable capabilities via easy scaling of whatever features are desired.

With the new flood of investments underway, a colleague recently described the fast-changing digital landscape this way:

“So many 3D authoring companies are joining the competitive fray, and all say they’re doing something different. But if there’s a way to bring it all together so we can all communicate and create, develop, and execute faster, pretty soon everyone is great. The sum of all parts, in our case, is indeed the whole.”

The Orchids web platform is in beta testing, and a number of companies are using it in pilot programs.

In one pilot, a large British brand working with a leading factory in Asia leveraged 3D models generated by one of the fashion industry's most trusted authoring tools. From the models, the brand used the Orchids platform to create over 250 designs in 3D and present them virtually to a potential buyer. The process typically takes ten days but was reduced to two thanks to how the platform made it easy for a designer without 3D skills to develop the products and use its collaboration capabilities.

That’s just one of many examples of greater efficiencies achieved in the pilots. In the end, our goal is to help companies leverage their 3D investments by giving them greater volume and speed — and a new way to communicate.

There are perks, too. With working remotely now the norm, let’s set a scene that the Orchids web platform makes possible: while relaxing after dinner at home, you decide to review the latest 3D design iteration for a new collection. Using your tablet, you tweak the design and comment on it, then share everything with anyone you want. All between sips of wine.