Lim Dae-bin, CEO of AIDIMODE, a knitwear production specialist, said on the 26th, "By changing our workflow from analog to digital, we handled a 25% increase in delivery volume with a similar headcount," adding, "We will further raise efficiency at the planning stage by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI)."
Lim made the remarks in the morning at the "SME AX Leaders Forum," hosted by ChosunBiz, an economic news outlet of the Chosun Media Group, at The Shilla Seoul in Jangchung-dong.
The "SME AX Leaders Forum" is the first forum on the small and venture business sector hosted by ChosunBiz. The Ministry of SMEs and Startups, its affiliated agencies, small and medium-sized corporations' CEOs, and AI experts are participating to diagnose the current crisis facing small and medium-sized corporations and discuss AX strategies to drive innovation. SME is the English abbreviation for Small and Medium Enterprise, meaning small and medium-sized corporations.
AIDIMODE has charted a new path among small apparel corporations by pursuing digital transformation on the shop floor. As recently as six years ago, all tasks were handled in analog fashion. Paperwork ballooned, and the inability to search records slowed work processing. To overcome these limits, Lim digitized work outputs, company materials, and employee performance evaluation methods.
He said, "We digitized the knitting process that weaves yarn into fabric so the status can be grasped at a glance," adding, "We also built a monitoring screen that captures digital signals to check the process."
He added, "We also built an environment where task distribution, which had been done by rule of thumb, can be allocated based on objective criteria by seeing at a glance who is doing what and how much."
He went on, "We created a system that can find garments meeting specific conditions, enabling us to respond quickly to client requests and produce higher-quality products," explaining, "Compared with 2022, we achieved a 32% increase in the number of styles and a 25% increase in delivery volume with a similar number of executives and staff."
AIDIMODE is preparing in earnest to introduce AI, going beyond digital transformation. The plan is to make AI a growth engine in Korea's knitwear market, where product variety is expanding and order sizes are shrinking.
Lim predicted, "If we use AI to forecast fashion trends and train on production data so it can automatically issue work instructions, we can raise efficiency at the planning stage."
He also said, "We plan to automate production planning and build a defect detection function," adding, "If we train on accumulated defect data to identify the visual characteristics of defects and develop algorithms that prevent defects in new products, quality will stabilize."
He said, "With AI, we too can build a structure where craftsmanship and technology coexist, like in Japan or Italy," adding, "With our own fast and flexible DNA, we can also secure competitiveness suited for the AI era."