Part of the Timex & Fergasam Group

18 Manufacturing Facilities in Sri Lanka, India, and Bangladesh, with additional offices in USA and Hong Kong

Founded in 1967

Over 10,000 employees

Company Vision- “To be the undis-puted leader in the fashion in-dustry delivering continued value growth for all stakeholders.”

Developing 800 new styles per month to produce over 1,000,000 dresses per month using TU-KAcad, SMARTmark, and TUKA3D

Customers include Marks & Spen-cers, Next, Wallis, Debenhams, Phillips VAn Heusen, Adrianna Pa-pell, Cold Water Creek, Jones New York, Maiden Form Bay, Jessica Howard, JC Penny, Sears, LAne Bryant, Calvin Klein and more.

About Timex Garments Ltd.

Tukatech A Case Study

Tukatech

Timex is a garment company that embraces the future. As early adopters of CAD technology, they quickly posi-tioned themselves as one of the most efficient garment producers in the industry. Today, they continue to push the apparel industry forward by investing in and devel-oping new technology, and their latest venture, their own brand, is using Tukatech systems to radically trans-form the market through new levels of customization and on-demand manufacturing.Timex is a Sri Lanka based conglomeration of 18 com-panies spread over 16 factories in Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh. Primarily a producer of women’s apparel, Timex is one of the five largest garment manufacturers in Sri Lanka, and the only manufacturer in the nation that produces dresses. Utilizing their staff of more than

Producing Innovation

Timex Garments Ltd’s pattern making team tests fit with TUKA3D.

Tukatech

Case Study

10,000 employees, they pro-duce over 1 million garments in 800 styles each month. The company’s international list of customers include Marks & Spencer’s, Next, Wallis, De-benhams, Phillips Van Heusen,

Adrianna Papell, Cold Water Creek, Jones New York, Maiden Form Bay, Jessica Howard, Dress Barn, JC Penny, Sears, Steinmart, Charming Shoppes, Maggy London, Lane Bryant, Petite Sophisticate, Macy’s, Belk’s, Beall’s , Liverpool, Nota-tions, Castle Hill Apparel, Just in Thyme, Victoria’s Secret, Eveden, Target, Calvin Klein, Dawn Joy, Red Cats, Lavieen Rose, and Redcatusa. Timex’s mission is to reduce turnaround times for gar-ment production, and in order to meet these objectives, the company has invested heav-ily in cutting edge technology like Tukatech to produce high-quality, value-added apparel at exceptional standards. The company was among the first in Sri Lanka to use CAD/CAM software in their pattern mak-ing, but did not maximize their output until switching to Tukat-ech.“One of the most important things in our business is lead times,” said Arshad Sattar, an owner of Timex. “They keep getting shorter, and that means we have to deliver faster. Some

of our customers run six sea-sons a month, and a few even run twelve. It really is all about speed to marketplace. Tukat-ech has helped us to limit our costs, reduce the amount of hours spent on each style, and

improve our lead time.”The company began using Tukatech in 2004, with a small number of licenses. After see-ing remarkable improvement in the production turnaround in factories equipped with Tukat-

ech, the company decided to install TUKAcad company-wide.“When the decision was made to install TUKAcad into all of our pattern rooms, Tukatech CEO Mr. Ram Sareen and his team came in and converted all 35 of our stations in one day,” said Sattar. “Tukatech is ’everything in one’ software, which we have found to be better than Gerber, Lectra, or any other system we have tried,” said Sattar. “Every-thing we need is included, the software is updated constantly and help is available both in person and on the web.”Because their Tukatech sys-tem dramatically increased the number of patterns that Timex’s pattern makers could make in a day and increased

Timex’s brand, Avirate, uses TUKA3D generated images to showcase styles in their online store.

“Cost-wise Tukatech is better. Efficiency-wise Tukat-ech is better. A style that once took us three days to design, we can now design in a half of a day thanks to Tukatech.”

-Arshad SattarCEO, Timex Garments Ltd.

Case Study

the number of styles that could be created in a season, Sattar found himself with far greater efficiency from his staff than he had anticipated.“We did our best to try all the software that is available,” said Sattar. “Cost-wise Tukatech is better. Efficiency-wise Tukatech is better. A style that once took us three days to design, we can now design in a half of a day thanks to Tukatech.”With TUKAcad and SMART-mark, Timex dramatically improved the efficiency of their pattern rooms. Rather than reducing the size of the staff to save money, Sattar decided that Tukatech had provided the company with an opportunity to expand the scope of their business. “We didn’t reduce the size of our staff, because we didn’t want to. Instead, we used our better efficiency to grow as a company and take on new customers. We were and continue to be looking at growth.” “In the last four or five years, we’ve seen about 100% growth. In the next year, we are expecting to grow another 50%,” said Sattar. He credits Tukatech with doubling Timex’s turnover without adding a single new staff member. After seeing that Tukatech’s CAD and marker making soft-ware were extremely effective, Sattar invested in Tukatech’s three-dimensional sample making software, TUKA3D. The unique program generates re-alistic simulated garments that are worn by customized virtual models. TUKA3D creates ac-curate virtual samples that

demonstrate the fit, weight, movement and style of any ar-ticle of clothing. Timex was one of the first apparel companies to adopt TUKA3D, and it has yielded a reduction in the num-ber of physical samples created and an increase in the percent-age of samples (both physical and virtual) that are approved the first time. “We started using Tukatech’s e-Fit software about three years ago,” said Sattar. “Although we initially had problems with it, we worked with Ram and the rest of the Tukatech staff to solve the problems to our satisfaction. Today, we have 10 e-fit licenses. TUKA3D’s e-fit allows us to see how the garment will look on our fit model, and we can see how the clothes drape and move in real-time. 90% of everything we do can be done on e-fit. Our new brand, Avirate, is very much based on the software.”With six years of growth and

expansion behind them, Timex decided to start a company-owned brand, Avirate, in 2010. The brand, which specializes in trendy women’s wear, is supported by five retail out-lets throughout Sri Lanka and India. The brand sells a full selection of clothes, includ-ing evening wear, street-wear, lingerie, shoes and accessories, and has become so popular that its stores are becoming destinations. “We have made a lifestyle store for ladies in every aspect,” said Sattar. “Avirate is small, but we cre-ate many styles for the line,” said Sattar. “We currently produce about 300 styles every two months, and that is some-thing we could not do without TUKA3D.” The pattern for each of the hundreds of styles is built exclusively in TUKA3D, and the simulation is what is ultimately approved. In addition to reducing the amount of physical samples

Tukatech

Arshad Sattar, CEO of Timex Garmets, Ltd, discusses the ways in which TUKA3D has changed his company.

AboutTukatechTukatech is a Los Angeles-based company that provides 2D and 3D software solutions and manufacturing equipment to garment producers. It also provides web-based product development services and PDM/PLM systems, supported by brick and mortar centers strategically located in garment hubs worldwide. With over 12,000 systems sold and about 3,500 competitive systems replaced, Tukatech is the fastest growing garment CAD/CAM company in the world. Tukatech has been ranked by Apparel Magazine as the #1 Apparel software company in the world.

created, Timex takes their vir-tual sampling a step further by producing garments sold on-line only after they have been ordered. With TUKA generated images on their website used in lieu of photographs, any gar-ment that is ordered is input into the production system and cut, sewn and shipped to meet that specific order. While it may cost a few dollars more to produce garments on demand, Tukatech’s automated software makes it easy and Timex is ul-timately saving enough money on fabric inventory and stor-age. “We’ve seen tremendous growth in Avirate, specifically in our online sales,” said Sat-tar. “Our company‘s growth will come from the brand as well as our e-commerce initiatives.” An upcoming initiative will see Avirate offering garments that are specifically customized to meet an online buyer’s exact measurements. “Right now, we are planning to have 10-15 dresses available to be custom made based on Styku’s tech-nology,” said Sattar. Styku, the virtual fitting room powered by Tukatech, will allow online shoppers to create custom sized dresses based on their

Case Study

own bodies, ensuring a perfect fit. “We get a lot of e-commerce sales in the US, the UK, and we ship a lot to Aus-tralia, but in Asia, e-commerce is difficult,” said Sattar. “How can I get Sri Lankans to trust that the clothes I am selling them will fit? To solve this prob-lem, we will be using Styku to launch our line of custom dress-es in April, 2012. We will be able to make custom dresses that fit our customers to a gold standard in just seven days with Tu-katech and Styku.”

Sattar recently announced that Avirate will be installing Styku’s body-scanners at many of their retail outlets. The no-footprint body-scanners use depth sen-sors to quickly and accurately scan a customer’s body in a dressing room. The information is used to build personalized avatars that online buyers can use to virtually try on clothes at Avirate’s website, providing another level of customiza-tion and an even better fit. The system will also provide Timex with data about their customer base, which will help them to create better garments that designed and sized specifically for their target market. “In the garment industry, we have so many issues, and Tu-katech is a solution provider,” said Sattar. “In order to be competitive, we need technol-ogy, and that’s what Tukatech is.”•

With dresses sized and cut to order, Avirate stands to re-duce the amount of customer returns, something that has become a serious issue for the online retail industry. “Dresses are a difficult stumbling block for online retailers, because unlike t-shirts or sweatpants, a dress needs to fit right. And because Timex is a completely vertical manufacturer with a retail arm, we can provide this level of customization. Eventu-ally we’d like to see 5-10% of our e-commerce customized in this way.”

The CAD and pattern making room at Timex Garments, Ltd’s headquarters in Colombo, Sri Lanka.