MOUNT HOLLY, NC (July 11, 2017) - American & Efird (A&E), one of the world's leading manufacturers and distributors of industrial and consumer sewing thread, embroidery thread, and technical textiles, is officially announcing it has joined the Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC) Programme. As a sustainability leader in the textile industry, A&E is proud to join over 20
leading brands working together to drive industry-wide change in responsible chemicals management.

"Being a part of the ZDHC Programme provides us the opportunity to share our knowledge and insights, partner and collaborate on issues with others in our industry, and improve our knowledge on sustainability, environmental, and chemical management issues." Jimmy Summers, A&E Vice President Environmental, Health and Safety/Sustainability continued, "We believe it is very important to be actively involved in driving positive change throughout the industry. It's simply the right thing to do."

Simpson will serve as consultant to the company

TOLLAND, CONN., USA, JULY 12, 2017 – It is rare today that a person spends their entire career servicing one industry. This is something people in the industry recognize of Sam Simpson who announced his plans to retire from Gerber. “When someone spends more than 47 years in an industry, it becomes a part of them,” stated Sam Simpson, vice president of global strategic accounts at Gerber.

Even though Simpson will retire from Gerber, he will continue to serve as a consultant to the company providing insights on customer needs and trends, maintaining and strengthening key partnerships, providing oversight on software compliance, as well as serving as a special advisor to the CEO.

“It has been a privilege to work alongside Sam and learn about the industry,” said Peter Morrissey, senior vice president global sales at Gerber. “Sam’s knowledge of the industry, customers and markets is unparalleled and we thank him for his years of service.”

Sam will continue to hold his position as chairman for the Sewn Products Equipment Suppliers of the Americas (SPESA), a position he was elected to in 2016. SPESA is one of the organizations he has supported throughout his career by representing Gerber on the board since 2000.

Sam’s retirement comes after a long and prosperous career in the sewn products industries. He began his career at G&H Manufacturing Co., a division of Genesco, where he participated on the team that pioneered the first automated grading and marking system, including the development of the first laser cutter for apparel applications. Sam joined Gerber through the acquisition of Hughes Aircraft Company AM-1 system. Throughout his tenure at Gerber, he held various positions including vice president/general manager of the Americas, vice president of global sales, director/general manager of the international division and several technical and marketing roles. Sam was integral in the expansion of Gerber’s international business activities in the European, Asian and Latin America regions.

Software Conference is November 1-3 in Los Angeles, California

TOLLAND, CONN., USA – Gerber Technology is proud to announce that Tim Gunn, famed fashion and television personality, will return by popular demand as a guest speaker at ideation 2017. Tim Gunn will engage in a fireside chat with Gerber Technology’s senior vice president and general manager, Software Solutions Group, Karsten Newbury as they explore how attendees should embrace digitization, making it easier for anyone in the world to design, manufacture and sell beautiful garments. Ideation, the premier software conference for the fashion, apparel, accessories and footwear industries, will be held in Los Angeles at the Sheraton Universal.

Tim Gunn is the Emmy-winning co-host and mentor for Lifetime’s Project Runway, where he also serves as one of the show’s producers. In addition to his television prowess, he served as Fashion Dean at Fifth & Pacific, where he was responsible for attracting, retaining and developing the creative talent within the portfolio of brands. Prior to his office at Fifth & Pacific, he was the Chief Creative Officer at Liz Claiborne Inc. Gunn served as a member of the administration and faculty at Parsons School of Design, an institution he shares a rich and deep history with having served there for 29 years where he was Design Chair of the Department of Fashion Design. Gunn is also a New York Times best-selling author penning Tim Gunn: A Guide to Quality, Taste and Style, Gunn’s Golden Rules: Life’s Little Lessons for Making It Work, and Tim Gunn’s Fashion Bible: The Fascinating History of Everything in Your Closet. Tim released his fourth book, Tim Gunn: The Natty Professor: A Master Class on Mentoring, Motivating, and Making It Work! in Spring 2015.

“Tim Gunn’s energy and passion as keynote speaker at ideation 2015 was both inspirational and entertaining. His dedication to design education and technology-led solutions will help attendees gain important knowledge and invaluable insights on how to navigate and thrive in an ever-transforming market,” said Newbury. “Mr. Gunn exemplifies the dynamism, creativity and innovation of fashion and we are honored to welcome him back to ideation.”

Dedicated to innovative and sustainable materials for the future,
the Chair will help the textile and apparel industry create disruptions

Paris, July, 5, 2017 – Lectra, the world leader in integrated technology solutions dedicated to industries using fabrics, leather, technical textiles and composite materials, l’École supérieure des technologies industrielles avancées (ESTIA), the Today Tomorrow Textiles Foundation, and JPS Conseil announce the creation of the ‘Biarritz Active Lifestyle Integral’ Chair dedicated to tomorrow’s innovative and sustainable materials.

New York, NY – June 29, 2017 – CGS, a global provider of business applications, enterprise learning and outsourcing services, today announced that FlynnO’Hara Uniforms, one of the nation’s largest school uniform companies, selected BlueCherry® Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), essential modules within the BlueCherry Enterprise Suite of solutions, providing end-to-end capabilities for apparel and consumer lifestyle brands.

FlynnO’Hara Uniforms sought to update its legacy back-end solution and also improve access to its product data, related trends and inventory levels to improve its supply chain and distribution efficiency. With extensive expertise and resources in the apparel market, the CGS BlueCherry ERP and EDI solutions will support FlynnO’Hara’s growth and improve overall access to real-time supply chain data.

NEW YORK, NY – The world’s largest online fashion design video library introduces lessons on TUKAcad at fraction of the cost of traditional schools. The University of Fashion [UofF] partners with Tukatech to provide video training on TUKAcad, Tukatech’s flagship software for pattern making, grading and marker making. The video training is accessible to everyone, and over 50,000 UofF subscribers already have access to it.

The University of Fashion provides online lessons to teach every facet of fashion design and business. Lessons are taught exclusively by college professors and fashion industry professionals. The UofF subscribers have access to the full library of video tutorials through their website, www.universityoffashion.com.

New York, NY – June 15, 2017 – CGS, a global provider of business applications, enterprise learning and outsourcing services, today announced that NYC Alliance Holdings, Inc., a multi-platform apparel company, selected BlueCherry® Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), an essential module within the BlueCherry Enterprise Suite of solutions, providing end-to-end capabilities for apparel and consumer lifestyle brands.

NYC Alliance Holdings sought to advance its visibility into product development data and remove manual processes to improve workflow speed and gain insight into product design adoption. The company also wanted a solution that provided triggers and alerts that would enable the team to address production issues. With the CGS team's extensive expertise and resources in the consumer lifestyle products market, the implementation of BlueCherry PLM will help support NYC Alliance Holdings’ growth, bring end-to-end visibility to its product lifecycle and improve its timeline to bring goods to market.

BURLINGTON, N.C. — June 12, 2017— Rubberflex Sdn. Bhd. of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and DeSales Trading Co. of Burlington, N.S., have begun a partnership for the distribution of 100-percent latex rubber thread in the United States.

“DeSales offers excellent channel for our products to reach the elastic narrow fabric, braided rope and related market segments in the Eastern half of the United States,” said Amy Wong, international sales coordinator at Rubberflex. “Even some of our container load customers use DeSales as a back-up to maintain a consistent inventory.” DeSales carries a wide range of gauges & end counts.

MOUNT HOLLY, NC (June 1, 2017) - American & Efird (A&E), one of the world's leading manufacturers and distributors of industrial and consumer sewing thread, embroidery thread, and technical textiles, announced today it is releasing its 2016-2017 Corporate Sustainability Report. This year's report reflects the three concepts that drive A&E's industry-leading sustainability program: Transparency, Traceability and Trust, while highlighting A&E's accomplishments in the areas of safety, environmental sustainability and corporate social responsibility.

A&E's continued improvements, specifically in global water reduction and Zero-Waste-to-Landfill efforts, serve as an example of leadership and good stewardship throughout the textile industry.

FRANKFURT, GERMANY May 9, 2017 – At Texprocess, Tukatech, Inc. is launching a suite of applications that will change the design community. The patent-pending applications and processes will eliminate sketching, and thus design misinterpretations. By working with existing 3D garments, real scale prints, Pantone-based true colors and pattern repeats, the entire supply chain will be able to collaborate and communicate design ideas at fraction of time and cost. Tukatech’s suite of Cloud-based product development solutions gives key players in the design process special digital tools designed with their unique requirements in mind:

TUKA3D Designer Edition

New York, NY –  May 8, 2017 – CGS, a global provider of business applications, enterprise learning and outsourcing services, today announced that Hansae International S.A. and Hansae Haiti S.A. selected BlueCherry® Shop Floor Control (SFC), an essential module for manufacturing operations within the BlueCherry Enterprise Suite of solutions.

Hansae sought to improve productivity, quality and labor related compliance of its manufacturing operations in Nicaragua and Haiti, and turned to BlueCherry SFC to implement systems in both countries to provide workers with productivity and performance benchmarking, driving incentive-based earnings. With extensive expertise and resources in the consumer lifestyle products market, the CGS team’s experience in optimizing production on the factory floor along with BlueCherry SFC will help support Hansae’s growth, and improve its factory operations and productivity.

MIAMI—May 8, 2017—NGC® Software, a leading provider of fashion PLM, supply chain management and apparel ERP solutions, today announced that Escalade Sports, a large sporting goods manufacturer with leading brands across multiple categories, has implemented NGC’s Andromeda® Product Testing and Compliance Software to streamline compliance with CPSIA, Proposition 65, Conflict Minerals Reporting and other regulations.

Escalade Sports is a global manufacturer and distributor of sports and outdoor recreational equipment with distribution at sporting goods retailers and independent dealers nationwide as well as all major online retailers. Leaders in their respective categories, Escalade Sports has 46 brands across multiple product lines and has achieved demonstrable growth in online sales over the last several years. To support the company’s rapid growth, Escalade needed a way to simplify and manage the complex regulatory compliance processes.

COLOMBO, SRI LANKA – Brandix, one of the largest apparel exporters in Sri Lanka, has invested millions of dollars toward technology to become the leader in fast fashion. Most recently, they have implemented Tukatech’s innovative apparel technology solutions in factories for all divisions around the world. Various divisions within Brandix have partnered with Tukatech since 2012, but this is the first time the group has decided to implement any one technology system for the entire company.

According to Dave Ranasinghe, Director of Brandix Group, the company chose to replace all CAD systems with Tukatech “because of the measurable results. We tested every CAD system available, and Tukatech’s SMARTmark system gave us better fabric savings than any known software, enough to justify the entire purchase. The TUKAplan systems, which were customized for us, seamlessly integrate with our other ERP systems and help us to plan our cutting operations, which gives us even greater savings in raw materials, time and personnel. I am also very impressed with TUKAteam’s professional implementation. They helped us engineer all our processes from design and development to spreading and cutting. We really didn’t just buy the software, we partnered with industry experts who are helping us get better results.”

MIAMI—April 26, 2017—NGC Software, a leading provider of cloud-based PLM, Supply Chain Management and apparel ERP solutions, today announced the release and general availability of its Andromeda® Vendor Compliance cloud solution for fashion retailers and brand owners. With the use of Andromeda Vendor Compliance, retailers and brand owners can ensure Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) compliance by streamlining vendor management.

In today’s socially-connected world, it’s more important than ever for retailers and brands to protect their reputation by carefully monitoring vendor relationships to ensure CSR compliance. Andromeda Vendor Compliance helps manage important government-mandated compliance regulations through standardized forms and scheduling, including but not limited to Conflict Minerals, REACH, and Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) for compliance under European Union regulations.

New York, NY, USA : With over 75 years in the intimate apparel industry, Cupid Intimates understands the importance of being flexible to the ever-changing industry conditions, while staying true to its roots and going the extra mile for their employees as well as for the world.  Unusual in the apparel industry, Cupid designs and manufactures all its women’s shape-wear and panties itself; it doesn’t use contractors.  This gives management a freer hand to use efficient production techniques to pursue its cost-competitive position. 

“We have been using specialized cutting and CAD technologies for over 20 years. Our four custom built cutters, capable of cutting 126 inches wide, were aging and we needed to further improve for even wider fabrics to get the best possible utilization of materials. We knew Tukatech offers customized solutions for CAD CAM. With our showrooms in New York, design and engineering in Bethlehem, PA, planning and execution in Oklahoma, and cutting and sewing in Nicaragua and Mexico, we needed to streamline our processes,” said Ken Langston, Senior Vice President of Operations. 

MIAMI— NGC Software, a leading provider of PLM, Supply Chain Management and apparel ERP solutions, today announced the release and general availability of its next-generation Andromeda cloud platform for fashion retailers and brand owners. Andromeda powers the Connected Enterprise by bringing together all departments – Merchandising, Product Development, Sourcing, Compliance, Purchasing, Production, Quality, Logistics, Marketing and Sales – in a single cloud-based solution that connects vendors, suppliers and other providers.

Andromeda is an innovative cloud-based platform offering an intuitive user interface, advanced functionality, greater scalability and faster performance. Andromeda provides a single platform, with core PLM and supply chain functionality that can centralize and share information created in other legacy PLM, ERP, SCM, Planning and Point-of-Sale solutions.