The family-owned workwear clothing company’s move from a manual to an automated process eases the way forward in a competitive market.
Workwear needs are changing. Workwear is no longer intended as purely functional and protective; it also serves to create an identification with the company.
Companies now want to equip their employees with comfortable and stylish corporate clothing.
Lectra’s software solutions have made it easier for SPARS. to keep step with these changes and achieve their four key objectives
Twenty-three years ago, SPARS Safety was founded in the Portuguese city of Vila Nova de Gaia as a wholesale distributor of personal protective equipment (PPE).
Strong growth and requests for workwear led the company to create a sewing department in 2008 with the goal of moving from outsourced to in-house sewing. The company used a traditional, manual process to reproduce and adapt models for the local market.
In 2014, an in-house production unit was created but the manual process was very slow. Due to growing market demands and the need to quickly respond to customers, it was becoming urgent for the company to rethink its strategy and reassess how best to position SPARS as a business partner capable of responding in an agile way. In 2016 the company created it’s own brand: SPARS Safety®.
To achieve these goals, SPARS had to review its production processes and find the right technology partner to guide them in the transition towards process digitalization and automation.
The management team considered it essential to choose a technology partner capable of empowering and guiding them in choosing the most suitable solutions for digitalizing and automating
their processes.
The particularities of technical clothing, namely electronic components, require compliance with a series of standards and requirements that, in addition to a high knowledge of technical materials, also require professional secrecy.
By implementing Lectra’s solutions, SPARS could finally bring production in-house, increase production capacity and gain greater control over quality, costs and delivery times.
Customer voice
The recreation of paper patterns in Modaris software enabled SPARS to be more agile and flexible, as they are now able to produce any existing pattern in the system and customize it quickly and efficiently. These were decisive steps towards made-to-order production.
«Modaris software was an essential tool in the creation and customization of models, decreasing considerably the response time from the sample request process to the presentation of the final model. With the manual process, we needed 1.5 months to present the final sample. After implementing Lectra’s systems, this process was reduced to 4 days.» Joana Costa by Joana Santos Joana Santos, Business Development Manager at SPARS
Automating their cutting process with VectorFashion has allowed SPARS to improve cutting quality by 100%, increase customer satisfaction and consequently reduce the complaint rate to 0%.
Regarding samples, the delivery time from sample request to sample approval has been reduced from one month to four days. The average delivery time from the sample approval to the delivery of the final order has gone from eight weeks to only three.
The fact that the cut quality has increased significantly and the error margin is now zero has led to an optimization of the entire process. The absence of error in the pieces cut from technical fabrics has led to an increase in productivity and efficiency, leading to strict compliance with delivery deadlines.
