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The SmartCollab initiative took place on November 9th at the Smartex facilities and united players in the textile sector. “We want to promote communication with each other, see them exchanging ideas because that’s how you grow”, said Gilberto Loureiro, CEO and co-founder of Smartex, to T Jornal. A goal was achieved.
Impetus, RDD Textiles, Tintex Textiles, Pedrosa & Rodrigues, but also many textile weaving and dyeing factories, such as Malhas do Carregal, Familitex, Avelana, Joaps were present in an initiative – which is usually internal – and which only brings together investors, brands fashion and clothing. The startups Colorifix, ColorDigital, and Inditex or Finisterre also decided to stamp their participation in an event to unite the entire sector chain.
“This event is called SmartCollab and is an internal event for the company. We bring people from outside to speak to the Smartex team. Here we decided to invite all our customers, and after they accepted, we also decided to invite other types of factories and not just our customers who are weavers. So they can be part of this communication”, explained the co-founder.
Aware that their customers use their systems in different ways and that some have already solved problems that others have not, this SmartCollab aimed to exchange ideas to create new answers and new questions, and this happened. After working in groups on different topics, all participants met in a panel and summarized.
‘How can the best factories gain visibility and be future-proof?’ was the topic answered by Braz Costa, general director of CITEVE, and by Ana Tavares, CEO of RDD; ‘How to choose and find the best technologies that will be successful?’ was the responsibility of the CEO of Tintex, Ricardo Silva, and the administrator of the Impetus group, Tércio Pinto; and, finally, ‘What are the challenges around compliance and certification?’ was the challenge launched and answered by Gerd Willschütz, founder of DMIx and Amelie Hornblow, Chief Product Officer at Finisterre.
“The textile industry has many problems to solve, and we [Smartex] are not going to solve them all. There is no silver bullet for this industry. There are many silver bullets, and we also want to bring these silver bullets here, bring them together, and discuss them”, highlighted.
“It is necessary to talk so that the industry can move forward. Especially in Europe and Portugal, we have very particular characteristics. And there are many things we can do to differentiate ourselves from other markets, and these are the types of discussions taking place. We no longer compete on price because if we go to Asia and Turkey, it is not possible. We compete with other things, and we compete together against the world and not among ourselves. And, it is one of the things we can do to position ourselves as an industry and as a country and to ‘make it happen’”, concluded Gilberto Loureiro, promising that next year intends to repeat the experience.