A New Manufacturing Fashion System: 4.0 Competences and Roles in Italian Clothing Design and Production
From Firenze University Press Journal: Fashion Highlight
Gianni Denaro, Sapienza, Università di Roma
Industry 4.0 in Italian Fashion ManufacturingEconomic and Social ScenarioOver the past decade, the internationalization of markets has changed economic, social and cultural conditions within fashion industry, revealing a system with limitation but opportunities to be caught. Italian fashion system has well handled the strong international competition, as evidenced by the increase in exports. According to Il Sole24ore analysis, referring to the year 2022, fashion system in Italy revenues hit 96.6 billion, the highest value in 20 years, a 16 percent more compared to 2021 (Casadei, 2022). These results were possible thanks to the flexibility of small businesses that were able to produce a recognizable product, being also able to cope with market changes. In fact, the recognizability of the Made in Italy product has always been influenced by the particular conformation of these enterprises, whose production is concentrated in territorial areas with specialized manufacturing, the so-called Distretti industriali (Industrial Districts). This geographical concentration encourages collaboration among “neighboring” enterprises, leading to a contamination of knowledge that is reflected in the product.AbstractFourth Industrial Revolution and digital technologies are driving profound transformations within the classical industrial system. Nevertheless, design and production models in Italian fashion system are not much into these type of changes. On the one hand, because of the cultural reasons related to the concept of Made in Italy — which quality is perceived as inextricably linked to the classic way of production. On the other hand, fashion products are difficult to patent, so companies face a lot of knots on legal protection of innovations. This contribution wants to frame the current relationship between Industry 4.0 and Italian fashion system, presenting the state of innovations and limitations. The analysis of this picture will serve to illustrate how design can interact with other disciplines to manage the practices, the approaches and the tools, able to build a new useful design and productive models.Keywords: Fourth Industrial Revolution, Digital Technologies, Italian Fashion System, 4.0 Competences, Soft SkillsThe small size of these enterprises has been crucial in reacting with flexibly to the changes that internationalization has injected into the market; which has demanded for increasingly shorter delivery times. It is worth pointing out that 99 percent of businesses in Italy are micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, whose small size has proved advantageous in dealing with market demands (Rinolfi, 2017). Indeed, they have been able to quickly readjust their production and respond to market demands more promptly. Large companies, lacking structural flexibility, on the other hand, have adapted their production processes by introducing new Industry 4.0 systems. In most cases, these systems have served to reduce the prototyping, production and delivery time of their products and, at the same time, to involve the customer more closely in the various stages of designing the required good. (Rinolfi, 2017). In fact, customization is a response to the extensive conformism that globalization and internationalization have brought. Indeed, brands are demanding greater adherence to their production requirements so they can better meet the demands of an increasingly exigent clientele. According to Silvia Venturini Fendi, clients are experiencing a new desire for unique products that reflects the necessity of individuality (Venturini Fendi, 2011). As highlighted by Salvatore Testa, professor of Strategy and Fashion & Luxury Management at Bocconi University, the advent of ready-to-wear has democratized fashion products, but it has downsized the personalization practices. The trend is reversing nowadays, since it is showing how clients are requiring more exclusive products. The satisfaction of this desire can be reached by technologies, that are also able to turn down costs and to faster the customization process (Pambianconews, 2019). The application of advanced technologies is the almost exclusive prerogative of larger companies, as they have the economic resources to provide for their introduction. Such application has been crucial for them in compensating the lack of flexibility which belong to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. The latter, therefore, have not been able to access technological renewal due to their limited liquidity, a fact that has limited their ability to compete with large companies (Ezio Tarantelli Foundation, 2017). Thus, an ambivalent picture emerges within the Italian production: on the one hand, smaller companies have a flexible production model, capable of meeting customization needs, but they are excluded from the introduction of new digital tools; on the other hand, larger enterprises are able to take advantage of such innovations, but they are not yet able to manage them virtuously, given that they have an inflexible production model.In both cases, the question is how Italian fashion design and production can better exploit these resources in favor of contemporary market needs. In this sense, designers may be able to build an equitable system that can offer appropriate approaches to design and production, as well as to note which digital technologies are suitable for these purposes.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/fh-2262
Read Full Text: https://riviste.fupress.net/index.php/fh/article/view/2262
