As we have discussed many times in this space, one of the largest barriers to bringing apparel manufacturing back to the U.S., at any reasonable scale, is the lack of sewing talent. As we recently discussed with Jennifer Guarino, President and CEO of the Industrial Sewing and Innovation Center (ISAIC) located in Detroit, there are efforts underway to train the next generation of sewists and to find innovative ways to make them more productive.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Michael McDonald, President of Sewn Products, Equipment, and Suppliers of the Americas (SPESA), an association that represents the suppliers to the sewn products industry. So his comments are tuned more to the supplier perspective, and what suppliers to the industry can do to continue to automate manufacturing processes so they are more cost efficient, productive, and amenable to the industrial and economic environment here in the United States. He stated, “There are more sewing machine operators in America today than there will ever be again,” a comment he has made often over the years, and he says he will continue to do so until it’s not true anymore. So while the valiant efforts of organizations like ISAIC are bringing new talent into the sewn products industry, the truth is that trained sewists are aging out almost as fast. He adds, “It’s just not a growing workforce pool. So the only real way to increase the production capacity in the U.S. is through automation, both mechanical and digital, empowering the workforce that we already have.”

One way, he suggests, is to make use of artificial intelligence for strategies like improving sourcing and building tech packs so it doesn’t take three or four months of back and forth between the brands and the manufacturers to perfect them. (In case you are wondering, a tech pack is the technical detail an apparel manufacturer requires to accurately manufacture a given apparel item—color, sizing, materials, etc.)