Leading European Sportswear Company Macron Successfully Adopts EFI Optitex 2D CAD

Image Courtesy of Macron

Established in Bologna in 1971, Macron began its journey as a popular sports shop, supplying quality sportswear for basketball, golf and baseball, and in 2001, signed its first sponsorship agreement with the Bologna Football Club, outfitting the entire team.

In 2010, the company launched the Macron Store project, providing direct access to their end-customers, giving rise to their highly successful full sportswear kits.

Today, Macron has over 150 mono-brand retail locations, backed by the company’s unique concept of customization.

To fully accomplish their global expansion and deliver on-demand, on time and budget, the team at Macron knew it was time to replace their legacy CAD design software and transform their entire operations.

This meant making the move over to a strong and reliable digital CAD solution.“ It’s important for us to preserve our in-house design knowledge.Today, with EFI Optitex CAD, we can include our global staff in our design work-flow, making them part of the process and benefiting from their design expertise.”

THE BENEFITS OF DIGITAL DESIGN

After a short implementation and training process led by EFI Optitex’s CAD experts, the Macron team was ready to get on board.

In just a few months, Macron’s CAD operators were raving about the system’s incredible speed and ease of use.

“With our new CAD workstations, our ability to view multiple screens at the same time has significantly increased the speed and the interaction between various graphics software,” said Amedeo Iossa, Product Development Manager.

“For Macron, creativity is key. Our CAD operators have discovered many more design features and functionalities in the system, and are using them to enhance their creative process. The design phase is notably more efficient,” he added.

PAOLO GUIZZARDI / COO

“ System openness was fundamental in our decision to change vendors. With EFI Optitex, we’re able to exchange data with our production partners across all market standards. ”

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS

Sportswear design and manufacturing is a growing industry worldwide.

"We want to gain every possible technical advantage in our sector," said Iossa.

"EFI Optitex’s 3D digital design solution is a good option to help us make this vision into a reality. To see a true-to-life model of a garment on an avatar customized according to the physical characteristics of the athletes we dress would undoubtedly boost our development process."

 Macron's first objective is to increase their product line for their current 80+ professional clubs, and then look towards launching new global markets, with an emphasis on North America.

Recently, the company signed a partnership agreement with the new football club CPL (Canadian Premier League), in addition to being football team sponsors in Miami and Phoenix.

WHEN SYSTEM OPENNESS AND COLLABORATION ARE KEY

For the Macron team, every sports club is like an entirely new collection, where time-to-market can be anywhere from 6-8 months to complete a customized product line.

“Today, we use CorelDRAW and Adobe Illustrator for design,” said Amedeo Iossa. “Our designs must adhere to the technical guidelines of each competition, such as leaving specific areas on the garment for sponsors.”

To continue to meet growing customer demands, in 2018, Macron replaced its legacy CAD system with EFI Optitex.

This enabled Macron to expand its pattern design capabilities and to add a new design facility in Tianjin, China.

“Now, we’re able to exchange data with our production partners around the globe and across all market standards, and even with other Italian service providers who use different CAD systems,” said Iossa.

“EFI Optitex’s system openness was monumental in our decision to change vendors.”

EFI OPTITEX FUELS SUCCESS

 EFI develops breakthrough technologies connecting the online world to the physical one, providing the industry’s largest portfolios for the textiles, signage, packaging, ceramic tiles, personalized documents and corrugated segments.

 EFI Optitex software is the world’s leading provider of an integrated 2D/3D platform that enables to create true-to-life 3D digital garments quickly while empowering apparel and soft goods companies to revolutionize the way they develop, produce and market their products.