“Due to the recent downturn in the market and unsustainable supply of goods, the company decided to arrange for some employees to take annual leave in advance”; “Due to insufficient orders in the factory, we will first make adjustments to the holidays in batches for employees in the factory”; “Due to the company’s boiler maintenance, it is expected that The annual holiday will start around December 20th”…
Affected by multiple factors such as sluggish sales, rising raw material prices, dual energy consumption controls, and power and production restrictions, the overall operating rate of the printing and dyeing industry has been at a low level in recent times. Many printing and dyeing companies have recently issued advance holiday notices. In this regard, some insiders predict that the printing and dyeing industry may usher in the “longest holiday” and enter the “annual leave” mode in advance.
The operating rate continues to fall
The short-lived market enthusiasm in October has not continued. Recently, the textile market has declined in popularity. Changed from the previous lively and busy scene, printing and dyeing enterprises cannot escape the cold winter.
Longzhong Information data shows that as of December 2, the average operating rate of printing and dyeing enterprises in Shaoxing, Zhejiang was 65.33%, with the operating rate falling by 1.9 percentage points month-on-month and 10.21 percentage points year-on-year. At present, the subsequent new order acceptance rate of printing and dyeing factories is low, and only a small part of new orders need to be placed. The frequency of traders’ inquiries has slowed down, and the wait-and-see sentiment has increased.
During the same period, the average operating rate of printing and dyeing enterprises in Shengze, Jiangsu Province was 58.5%, which was the same as the previous month and dropped by 8.72 percentage points year-on-year. The operating load of large factories is relatively high, at around 70%; small and medium-sized dyeing factories have fewer orders, with some operating rates around 40% to 50%, and some even falling to around 30% to 40%. At present, most of the orders made by dyeing factories are scattered tail orders and replenishment orders for domestic brands. The spring and summer orders of brand clothing include a trace amount of small vats, but the actual orders that can be placed are expected to be limited.
“There are not many orders now. The company originally expected that there would be a batch of foreign trade orders in the near future, but due to the impact of the ‘new epidemic’ caused by the Omicron mutated strain, it is still unknown whether the orders can still be issued normally.” An unknown person said The person in charge of a printing and dyeing enterprise in Keqiao area who wished to remain anonymous told reporters.
The sales manager of a printing and dyeing company in Shantou, Guangdong also said frankly: “Affected by the foreign epidemic, some orders have been canceled and reduced. Compared with previous years, current orders have dropped by nearly 30%, and some machines in our factory have stopped production.” He predicted that the next spring orders may temporarily stimulate the order intake in December, and the start-up rate may increase slightly by then, but then towards the end of the year, the start-up rate will drop again.
Business Club pointed out that the current early winter fabric transactions are insufficient, and the orders for spring fabrics in 2022 are relatively limited. Marketing continues to shrink. The transactions in recent days have declined month-on-month, and orders from gray fabric manufacturers have continued to decline. The agency predicts that as trade orders continue to decrease and stamina is insufficient, the printing and dyeing market may show a partial downward trend.
Little profit is left
At present, manufacturers generally do not seem to have high expectations for the market outlook for printing and dyeing.
“Having an early holiday can be regarded as a kind of ‘relief’. Because now even if you receive an order, there is no guarantee that you will make money in the end.” The above-mentioned sales person in charge explained that this year’s shipment price is higher than in previous years, even if it has been raised a little Regarding the ex-factory price of the product, some previous orders ended up losing money due to skyrocketing freight charges and other reasons.
“We obviously made less money this year.” A person in charge of a printing and dyeing company in Jiangsu who did not want to be named also said that previously, due to the company’s lack of orders, some orders would be accepted even if the profit was small. However, due to the increase in freight and raw materials, Affected by many uncertain factors such as price, some orders often end up losing money.
Data shows that at present, there are more than 10,000 printing and dyeing factories in my country, and there are about 1,600 enterprises above designated size. From the perspective of supply and demand, printing and dyeing enterprises should be the “hot meat” in the industrial chain, and are in a state of short supply. However, in recent years, the actual operating situation of printing and dyeing enterprises has been exactly the opposite.
“The current situation is caused by the structural excess problem that has always existed in the printing and dyeing industry.” Zhang Shuai, the former co-founder of Alibaba Rhino Intelligent Manufacturing, pointed out that the textile industry has obvious off-peak and peak seasons. During the peak season, printing and dyeing factories are often in short supply, while during the off-season, orders from printing and dyeing factories usually decline. Even if there is no negative impact of “black swan”, according to the data of previous years, comprehensive statistics show that the annual average operating rate of printing and dyeing factories is only 70%. In addition, the production capacity of most printing and dyeing enterprises in my country is mainly processing, so the bargaining power in transactions will naturally be suppressed, making it difficult to create additional value.
Zhang Shuai also pointed out that with the diversification of global consumer demand and the rise of fast fashion brands in recent years, the market demand for small orders and quick reverse in the ready-to-wear sector has become increasingly strong. Printing and dyeing enterprises determine sales based on production, and the continuous and large-scale production model can no longer meet the needs of downstream brands.
Digitalization is imperative
Slow market response, weak flexible manufacturing capabilities, lagging production models, etc.Outstanding problems have become barriers to the development of the traditional printing and dyeing industry, and the transformation and upgrading of printing and dyeing enterprises is urgent.
Mao Guanglie, director of the Intelligent Manufacturing Expert Committee of Zhejiang Province, said bluntly that it is urgent to develop a new printing and dyeing industry based on digital equipment, with digital printing and dyeing factories as the carrier, and the printing and dyeing industry Internet platform as the core.
Wang Yiming, former deputy director of the Development Research Center of the State Council, also recently publicly emphasized that in the digital era, data is becoming a core production factor. The digitization, networking, and intelligence of the production process have relatively reduced the status of traditional production factors such as labor and land. Human capital, technology, and data are becoming the most important factors in corporate competitiveness. The scale of data, data infrastructure, data collection, storage, processing and application capabilities have become the commanding heights of competition.
What is gratifying is that many printing and dyeing companies have now made digital transformation a required course for enterprises. For example, Foshan Nanhai Tianfu Technology Co., Ltd. established Taiyuan Intelligent Printing and Dyeing Factory to achieve integrated control of orders, processes, production scheduling and production control, ultimately increasing the success rate of one-time dyeing by 10% and shortening the dyeing time by 10%. The smart printing and dyeing platform of Shaoxing Yingjili Printing and Dyeing Co., Ltd. uses big data algorithms to automatically select the best production plan for each order, increasing production efficiency by 25%. A relevant person in charge of the company said: “Digitalization has greatly helped companies optimize business processes, changed the communication model between customers and companies, and made the communication between the two more and more real-time and seamless.”
Recently, Chenfeng Qiangsheng Textile Co., Ltd. and Huansi Smart Project were launched in Suqian, Jiangsu. This project is a digital upgrade of enterprise production process management carried out by Huansi Intelligence on the basis of Chenfeng Qiangsheng’s existing dyeing and weaving equipment in its yarn dyeing workshop, weaving workshop and dyeing workshop, achieving full order tracking, product barcode management, equipment Machine interconnection and full traceability of product quality have transformed the original traditional workshop into a digital smart workshop, effectively reducing the company’s operating costs and improving its competitiveness.
“Nowadays, many companies are addicted to their comfort zones and are unwilling to take any risks. Such rigid thinking cannot keep up with changes in the industry.” Qian Wenqing, general manager of Chenfeng Qiangsheng, said that in the past, digitalization might have made companies live longer. Good, but for now, digital transformation will be the key to business survival. Printing and dyeing enterprises should seize the opportunity of the wave of digital development and make every effort to promote enterprises to accelerate the development of digitalization, networking and intelligence.
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