“There is disruption occurring in the textile industry, and we want to be on the leading edge of this disruption,” Little said. “Major retailers and brands are committed to more manufacturing in the U.S., and Asian and European manufacturing companies are looking to invest more in manufacturing plants in the U.S.”
Digital textile printing – a segment that has more than doubled in the last five years – is part of that disruption, and N.C. State has made strategic, state-of-the-art equipment investments in to “become the R&D and testing center for digital printing,” Little said.
Another “disrupter,” he said, is a CoT student who recently participated in the Fashion and Textile Design Senior Shows at NY Fashion Week. Lisa Hoang is a senior fashion and textile designer who showed her collection on the Main Stage alongside such designers as Christian Siriano, Jenny Packham, Marchesa and Vera Wang.
“Her participating in that event almost collapsed our social media,” Little said. “Our management wasn’t ready for that, and our faculty wasn’t equipped to advise students on how to negotiate for showing at Fashion Week. If someone who is 21 or 22 who can do that, why can’t anyone else? That’s disruption. That’s how you begin to change things. And it changed us internally.”
Little also discussed major challenges and opportunities, such as gaps in the supply chain preventing “local for local,” in some cases, that hurt regional economic development and prevents new career opportunities for graduates. To close those gaps, he recommended that academia continue to partner with industry and government to prepare future leaders, innovate in such areas as automation, smart textiles and high-performance textiles, develop and optimize supply chains, expand Lean Six Sigma programs and enhance professional training.
“Universities don’t have the experience and industry doesn’t have the time, but somehow we have to find a way to come together to keep this industry moving forward,” Little said.
Posted November 23, 2016
By Devin Steele (DSteele@eTextileCommunications.com)
SAN ANTONIO, Texas – During SPESA’s Executive Conference here this month, Dr. Trevor Little, professor of Textile And Apparel Management at N.C. State’s College of Textiles (CoT), gave an overview of the university and the college and dug deeper into advancing the textile industry via industry-university-government partnerships.
With 34,000 students, N.C. State is the the 17th largest “town” in the state, he noted, pointing out that it spends $300 million in research each year and ranks No. 1 in the U.S. in licenses, No. 5 in startups and No. 7 in industry research as well as patents.
Speaking on behalf of College of Textiles Dean Dr. David Hinks, who had to back out of the conference due to a last-minute conflict, Little said that the dean has asked CoT faculty to work within these core values: leadership, innovation, engagement, inclusiveness, respect and connectiveness.
The CoT, now in its 117th year, was established by the industry for the industry, Little noted. Today, the college has 400 industry partners and works with $14 million in research and testing funding per year.
He noted that U.S. textile components employment totaled 128,000 in 2014, with 70 percent (93,000) working in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee and Georgia. He also pointed to a chart showing the number of companies participating in the CoT’s recent Career Fair and Job Forum.
“You can study this all you want, but I’m telling you, this industry is far from dead,” Little said. “Every year we hold this fair, demand grows and more and more companies come.”
He also touched on other entities within the CoT, including the Nonwovens Institute, and the Textile Protection and Comfort Center, as well as the Center for Technology and Innovation Building, which is being built.
Executive Conference
NCSU’s College of Textiles aims to lead ‘disruption’
