'Textile sector should use IT to enhance quality'

Textile entrepreneurs should give more importance to information technology, especially at a time when the Indian textile industry is going through a phase of modernisation and enhancement of quality and productivity, according to Sridhar Varadharaj, chief executive officer of Premier Evolvics.

He was addressing mediapersons at the curtain raiser of Comptex 2006, a conference for textile industry, jointly organised by CII and the Southern India Mills' Association (SIMA), which will be held on April 4 and 5 in Coimbatore.

Sridhar Varadharaj, who is also the chairman of Comptex 2006, pointed out that with Asia becoming a textile manufacturing hub and India facing growing competition from China, the implementation of IT tools in the textile sector in areas like supply chain management, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and data capturing systems would help improve quality and productivity.

"IT helps identify deviation in quality and production, which in turn helps the textile mill to supply its customer with quality product at the right time," said, K Thangaraj, vice-chairman, CII, Coimbatore Zone.

The conference is being organised with a view to provide insights into some of the market driven models that provide unique positioning strategy to different segments of the industry. The event will focus on how the Indian textile industry can leverage the power of IT as a competitive advantage.

Road shows about the event had been conducted in places such as Madurai and Guntur, where the concentration of textile sector is more. About 400 participants are expected to participate in the fair, Varadharaj added.