Future of “Sewing Industry in Germany” in Industry 5.0

Sewing is a highly manual process, and changing trends and patterns demand a lot of human work force and make it hard to establish automation. Since companies shift their assembling lines to low wage countries for higher margins, a lot of know-how is lost in the home markets of most brands and companies and workers abroad have to deal with harsh and insecure working conditions. Furthermore, the textile industry is one of the biggest polluters in the world because it is raw material consuming, chemical heavy and hard to recycle. Especially, fashion companies depend on trends and customers’ gusto and since everybody has clothing the industry is susceptible to crises.

The human centric approach of Industry 5.0 should encourage companies to support its staff and not to exploit them. The approach should better the working conditions in lowwage countries by the implementation of software and automation. The knowledge of sewers and workers is needed because of quick changing trends but it will lower the physical demands. Next to this the concept should hinder all knowledge in home countries to diminish.

The integration of Industry 4.0 innovations for tracking and improving can be used to better the carbon footprint of the whole textile industry. The consumption of raw materials like water as the most important one to name should be an integral part of Industry 5.0. But now only raw materials for the gaining of textile products should be in focus. The whole life cycle of a textile product must be observed and improved by Industry 5.0. To name some of the aspects: Lower chemical impact in finishing, less cutting waste in pattern making and an end of the life solution for garments and textile products.

Again, the gathering of information may help to improve the resilience of a company. With much information forecasting of the future is easier. As a manufacturer of PPE, we are detached to trends and seasons, but the collection of data can help us, too, to better understand our customers and predict their behaviour. But not only customers change, the world changes, too. And companies must be prepared for this. Climate crisis might have an impact on raw material sourcing, but also on site locations with regard to floods or bush fires. Such data has to be collected, too, to be prepared if such a case should happen.

Industry 5.0 will have an impact on all of us and not only one company and its staff itself. The concept will lead to social interactions between communities and companies. Companies must raise awareness. Next to the social aspect, every company must know its impact on the planet, and knowing the impact will lead to improving the impact which will make the planet more liveable for all people. And these both aspects together with good forecasting in its field of business will lead to companies which are prepared for what is to come.