How IMPETUS GROUP is increasing efficiency and sustainability by going digital with DMIx®
Leading Portuguese textile manufacturer, IMPETUS Group, is on a mission to reduce it’s environmental impact, and one step of this journey includes moving to fully digital product development.
In order to accelerate their digital transformation, IMPETUS Group partnered with ColorDigital GmbH to use its interactive digital platform, DMIx. Within the DMIx ecosystem, brands and their suppliers (from different levels of the supply chain) can collaborate in real-time across all areas of textile design, product development, and production, enabling fully digital product workflows using color technology, 3D technology and master data.
By taking advantage of existing connections IMPETUS Group had with various software applications, DMIx made it very easy for IMPETUS to develop its first product line in a fully digital workflow. For these digitally developed products, IMPETUS has collected comparative data on various efficiency and sustainability savings for producing a men’s organic cotton boxer short within the sampling and prototype processes.
Country: Portugal
Business: Fashion Industry
Website: www.impetus.pt
Making use of:
Reduced time by 99%
Reduced waste by 100%
Reduced CO2 emissions by 99%
Reduced water usage by 100%
Reduced resource depletion by 100%
Nuno Sousa
Graphic Designer at IMPETUS GROUP
We spoke with Nuno Sousa, Graphic Designer at IMPETUS Group, about the digitalization journey so far. Here’s what he had to say.
How did you start your digital transformation with DMIx?
The first step was to add our fabric and material collections to our material library on our DMIx 3D-Library account. Next, we created individual 3D objects and 3D garment designs for direct use with the DMIx tools. We were quickly able to create fully digital fabrics and materials with print pattern designs in DMIx and apply them on the 3D objects.
What impact did you notice during your transformation from physical to virtual product development using DMIx?
The transformation to fully digital workflows immediately enabled us to make quick changes to colours, prints and fitting applied to a ‘real’ 3D garment dressed on a ‘real’ 3D person (avatar). Previously, these checks and changes would have required us to create new physical samples involving time-intensive processes such as weaving, knitting, dyeing and sewing, just to test it out. With garments designed in CLO 3D then uploaded into the DMIx environment, we can apply any digital material, recolor and even visualize the final product using DMIx 3D-Magic. This outcome – a digital 3d prototype – is of such hight quality that we can use it for internal approvals and also present directly to customers.
What made you decide to transform to digital product development?
As with many other companies, it was COVID19 that really forced us to kickstart our digital transformation. The fact that we were unable to visit a client (and vice versa) and most of us were in “home office mode”, got us using 3D extensively to make our internal teams and clients look at something realistic through the screen without leaving the safety of their homes. Two years later, IMPETUS Group has now fully transformed its workflows with its own brands and is beginning the same journey with our private label customers.
How much has collaboration with suppliers and customers changed since using the DMIx platform?
So far in digitalization journey, we have interacted with a handful of customers. For example, when a client requests a lab dip to approve a physical sample colour that wasn’t ready to send or was delayed somehow, we have sent some digital samples instead. Due to the high digital colour standards and photorealistic looks, our clients trust the digital twin and approve the sample. This process saves us a lot of time, costs, and resources.
Video of the process implemented at IMPETUS Group:
We also asked various IMPETUS team members across differerent departments to share the benefits they have personally seen from the new digital workflows on the DMIx environment.
„In the past I spent large chunks of my day in the warehouse asking for the location of certain fabrics. Since I started using DMIx, I can find and check fabrics much faster from my desk.“
Sofia Figueiredo
Laboratory Technician
„I previously relied on physical stock catalogues to check which fabrics were available in the warehouse for use. These catalogues were only updated at the end of every collection, and if they went missing the team would have to create them all over again. Nowadays, we have a full digital stocks collection in our own IMPETUS environment on DMIx which can accessed by anyone in our teams.“
Margarida Leitão
Fashion Designer
„We now look for fabrics using a ‘visual aided search’ within DMIx. The drag and drop plug-in to CLO3 3D is one of the most useful features for us, and is why we were interested in DMIx in the first place.“
Sara Araújo
3D Designer
At DMIx, we’re looking forward to continuing our partnership with IMPETUS
We want to help IMPETUS accelerate their transformation to digital and get closer to achieving their goals of improving product transparency and reducing environmental impact. It is DMIx’s mission to digitally transform supply chains to create a better industry: better for brands, suppliers, and the planet.
