“And then Kathie Lee Gifford and some other folks got nailed for human rights abuses, which spawned a whole new industry in the NGOs (non-government organizations) looking at regulatory issues,” he said. “I never thought I'd say this, but the regulations in the U.S. are what keeps us compliant with human rights issues. There is not that same respect overseas. In developing nations, human rights are not the first thing the governments are looking at. They're looking at feeding their people or other things. So there was a lower regulatory burden back in the ’80s and ’90s that doesn't exist today.”

 

‘Capability maturity’

 

In further explaining the exodus of jobs to developing countries, Hoover used the phrase “capability maturity,” or as he defined it, “a multi-syllabic way of saying how good we are at doing what we do.” The capability maturity in the U.S. is top-notch for fiber, yarn and fabric production, as well as dyeing, but is extremely low for garment production, he said. And the latter is what drove the industry offshore because that’s where labor was the cheapest and where costs savings could be realized, he said.

 

“My idea of hell is sitting on a sewing line in China,” he said. “They are brutally efficient and their output is phenomenal. But if you’re sitting on that sewing line and you have to go to the bathroom, good luck, because if you get up and leave your station, your output goes down. It's just not a happy place to be.”

 

And such a scenario could have positive effects on the U.S. and other countries, Hoover said, because of the scrutiny and increasing sensitivity of human rights. In addition, increasing overseas labor costs and regulatory burdens are eroding the foundation of this model, he added.

 

But the capability maturity of the rest of the process could hamper the re-shoring effort, Hoover said. The U.S. has terrific designers, but low-design maturity, he posited. The U.S. has iterative, labor-intensive sampling processes – and changes are endless, he said. As such, a disconnect exists between the way we work and the way we manufacture, which creates inefficiency that drives up costs and erodes margin, he continued.

 

“You have to have a manufacturers focus in order to be successful today,” he said.

 

The good news is a political climate change is occurring for U.S.-made products.

 

“But the problem is, even with this increased interest, we don't have the capacity or the capability maturity to fill it currently,” Hoover said. “The Asian textile capability maturity is higher now than it ever was here in the heyday of textiles just because the technology has advanced and the investment money has gone overseas. There hasn't been the same investment in the U.S. that there has been overseas, with some exceptions. There is some cool stuff going on in California. But in general if you look at the volume, the capability maturity is where the technology is at its latest.”

 

Calling it a “virtuous circle,” Hoover said that manufacturing drives R&D, which drives marketing, which drives sales, which drives manufacturing. “If you give up manufacturing, you give up everything else in that sequence,” he said.

 

Despite all of these challenges, Under Armour is still playing its part in reindustrializing the U.S., he said. The company wants to develop new methods to design, develop, visualize, specify and manufacture here, he said. The company has a commercial motto, “Protect This House,” which it created for athletes who buy its products but is also utilizing for this effort.

 

“We also want to lead the world, and that's what's missing,” Hoover said. “I’ve talked to manufacturers in the U.S who have said, ‘I've captured this little niche industry’ – which is great, bless your heart. But, man, there was a time when we led the world. And that's what we want to return to. I want to return to a leadership position that no one questions. If you want the best product in the world, have it made in the U.S. How are you going to do that? You have to change the model. There's no going back to the old ways.”

The new paradigm

 

Changing the model means examining the phases of the process to see where opportunities lie, Hoover said. Those phases include:

 

• Virtual color development. This has been done, and Under Armour has taken the concept further, he said. Instead of having the mill send in lab bits, the mill takes the spectral data from the color measurements and goes straight to production. And when the mill QC’s the fabric, Under Armour uploads the measurements to a data cube and it can see at any given moment what production looks like and provide direction, if needed.
   

• Virtual fabric development. This is a challenge and an opportunity, he said. In color matching, a file called a QTX – a spectrometer measurement of 31 colors – is used, and a similar tool could be developed for fabric, he said. And Under Armour is currently working with a consortium of industry companies – Vanguard Pai Lung, Unifi, Parkdale, Archroma and Navis TubeTex – to develop a process for creating standardized fabric in any mill, he said. (Read similar eTC story here.)
   

• Virtual garment development. This is in progress, and several companies have created technology for virtual garments, Hoover said.
   

• Phenomenal virtual visualization and presentation tools. These are currently in use. “Not only do we create a virtual garment on the screen that we can test, but we can also output it to a format that drives manufacturing,” he said.
   

• Robotic cut and sew. This technology is in progress, Hoover reported. Under Armour has met with NASA engineers who are developing robots that can perform certain functions, and this technology could be customized for cut and sew, he said.

 

“The goal is to leverage everything a designer does and put it in a format that can be transferred to manufacturing,” he said.

 

Virtual design elements build files that integrate with and drive production, and automation eliminates drudge labor and inefficiency instead of exporting it, he said. Under Armour wants to coordinate these elements into a new business model, which it calls “Project Leapfrog.”

 

“We are integrating with the supply chain,” Hoover said. “This morning we had a speaker talk about the lack of verticality. This is mega-verticality. This is having a vertical organization without having ownership. There would be a coordination of the supply chain so that we're capturing the talent of the designers and putting it in a format or in such a means that it could be transferred directly, without loss – a lossless transmission of information and direct manufacturing.”

 

Benefits obvious

 

The benefits are obvious, Hoover said: Better design visualization. Enhanced creativity. Practical mass customization. Higher throughput. Efficiency and sustainability. Shorter lead times. “And shorter lead times aren’t just about being closer to market so you can copy your competition. It's about supply planning so you know what you need to sell. The closer you are, the less waste there's going to be. Proximity sourcing replaces offshoring."