Gerber Technology, a leading provider of software and automation solutions for apparel industry, has debuted its new AutoMatch fully automated solution at this week’s CISMA-China International Sewing Equipment Exhibition, which took place in Shanghai.

Consumers are becoming more aware about the quality of their clothing purchases – holding brands and manufacturers to quality standards all while demanding new styles with every new trend. “We have taken our research and learning from our AutoMatch for furniture and applied it to the apparel market,” said Tom Gordan, director, product management, Gerber Technology.

Cutting accuracy

AutoMatch for apparel is designed to provide cutting accuracy ensuring that stripes, plaids or other patterns flow seamlessly from a bodice to a sleeve and throughout any garment without interruption. According to the company, testing of AutoMatch showed a reduction in labour costs by as much as 50%, while increasing throughput and improvements in cut part accuracy.

“Pattern continuity is a hallmark of quality for the fashion industry,” said Mr Gordan. “However, ensuring continuity can be extremely time consuming and prone to errors, adding significant time and cost with wasted materials and labour associated with recutting.”

Accurate and repeatable

The AutoMatch technology captures a piece of fabric in a single digital image and automatically corrects for placement errors, pattern repeat variations and distortions. AutoMatch is said to be accurate and repeatable, and most importantly, it can help apparel manufacturers slash costs over conventional methods that rely on teams of operators to manually align patterns before cutting, the company explains.

Traditional matching methods require highly-skilled workers and rely solely on the human eye for accuracy. In addition to being time consuming, the manual system is costly and more likely to result in waste as a result of poorly matched patterns.

AutoMatch is designed to help manufacturers save on labour costs: the system utilises a single operator, and – unlike the manual alignment method – it does not require extensive training or labour skilled in apparel design and pattern matching.

Gerber Technology

Gerber Technology delivers industry-leading software and automation solutions that are designed to help apparel and industrial customers improve their manufacturing and design processes and more effectively manage and connect the supply chain, from product development and production to retail and the end customer.

Gerber serves 78,000 customers in 130 countries, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies in apparel and accessories, home and leisure, transportation, packaging and sign and graphics. The company develops and manufactures its products from various locations in the US and Canada and has additional manufacturing capabilities in China.

Based in Connecticut in the USA, Gerber Technology is owned by AIP, a New York based, global private equity firm specialising in the technology sector.

www.gerbertechnology.com