According to a group of panelists at last week’s Copenhagen Fashion Summit, an automated supply chain can provide copious benefits for both the environment and a company’s bottom line, but without careful monitoring and a compassionate approach, human workers could be in a lot of trouble.
“While it’s generally accepted that automation and digitalization will increase supply chain productivity and greatly improve the fashion industry’s sustainability performance,” Fashionista reports, “the big challenge is how to make sure everyone in the industry can benefit from these changes.”
“If the future is to be bright for workers, as well as planet, technological innovation’s impact on people within the supply chain must be monitored closely. If it isn’t, the heaviest blow will be dealt to workers in garment factories around the world.”
The sort-of good news is that, ultimately, humans control the pace at which automation is rolled out – “We do not have to let automation just happen to us.” Although, given our track record for just about everything else, maybe that isn’t good news.
Either way, all of the speakers seem to agree that robotics can help the “fashion industry to evolve both environmentally and socially” – if the powers that be make it so.
As David Roberts of Singularity University put it, “Technology offers solutions, but leadership sets the speed of progress and adoption.”
You can read more about it at Fashionista.
