How to Accelerate Apparel, Footwear, and Soft Good Color Approvals by 75%

Fashion and apparel brand owners can accelerate color approvals and significantly reduce environmental impact by leveraging digital tools to specify and communicate color as a part of their current color program.

Challenges

1. Designers often propose colors without considering the feasibility of achieving them within budget and time constraints.
2. Color achievability varies on solid mixed media, so each new color requires a lab dip from every supplier.
3. Shipping physical samples between brands and suppliers is expensive and time-consuming, and along with dyeing rework, contributes to air and water pollution.
4. With a push for fast fashion, the textile industry is pressured to work faster.
5. Increased consumer demand for more sustainable practices is forcing the textile industry to review and revise their practices.

Solution

X-Rite solutions incorporate spectral data directly into the current textile workflow. Brand owners can digitally communicate and specify the target color, along with tolerances and expectations, without shipping physical samples. Suppliers can use this precise data along with standard operating procedures to formulate a fast color match, and once the dip is complete, digitalize the sample to compare in quality control software and submit the closest match to the brand for immediate approval. In addition, brands can validate the health and repeatability of the spectrophotometers across their global supply chain from a convenient dashboard, and rank and score suppliers to identify continuous improvement opportunities.

Results

By connecting the design-to-manufacturing workflow with spectral data, brands can:

• Get 95% of lab dips right the first time
• Reduce waste with only one start up and wash up
• Reduce Co2 with one dip and zero physical samples
• Reduce the color approval cycle from 40 to 50 days to 10
• Market the brand’s commitment to sustainability

How it Works

Textile Color Hub extends the power of X-Rite’s fleet of calibrated spectrophotometers, formulation software, and quality control and analysis tools.

1. The brand owner creates a digital database of approved brand colors that clearly define technical and appearance specifications for each material, such as cotton, nylon, and polyester. These color standards can be:
   • Imported as Pantone TCX files from PantoneLIVE.
   • Measured from physical samples using a benchtop spectrophotometer and added to the brand’s Private Library.
2. The brand owner uses a pre-defined template to create a Color Specification Document and sends it to select suppliers through Textile Color Hub.
3. The supplier receives the notification for a new job in Textile Color Hub.
4. The supplier uses Color iMatch formulation software along with the spectral data for the target color along with tolerance and illuminant requirements to create a formulation.
5. The supplier creates a lab dip, measures it with a benchtop spectrophotometer, and use Color iQC software to verify color accuracy against the standard, assessing metamerism and ensuring visual harmony across components.
6. If the lab dip is within tolerance, the supplier submits it back to the brand owner in Textile Color Hub for digital approval.
7. The brand owner gives the green light to begin production or provides specific L*a*b* directions on how to adjust the color for fast corrections.
8. The brand owner can verify data integrity by monitoring the health and repeatability of all spectrophotometers in the supply chain using NetProfiler and X-Rite Link.
9. Brand owners and suppliers can keep an audit trail through Color iQC, including a photo of the measurement, to troubleshoot issues and look for continuous improvement opportunities.

Featured Products

Textile Color Hub
Using Textile Color Hub, brands create a secure Color Specification Document, which includes the spectral data for the specified color, the required tolerances for the suppliers to match, and the illuminants to measure against, and suppliers submit their closest match for approval. Textile Color Hub does not conflict with IT infrastructure and supports spectrophotometers from X-Rite as well as other manufacturers.

Ci7000
The Ci7000 series of benchtop sphere spectrophotometers offer the tightest inter-instrument agreement and repeatability available to capture precise color data and generate accurate digital color standards.

PantoneLIVE Production – Plastic, Coatings and Textile
A cloud-based database that offers instant access to spectral colors and brand palettes for cotton, nylon, and polyester applications for use during design, formulation, and quality control.

PantoneLIVE Private Library Manager
Extends the functionality of PantoneLIVE to private colors, offering brands a secure place to digitize, upload, and store custom colors for use in designs.

Color iMatch
Formulation software to help suppliers achieve initial matches up to 50% faster, cut correction steps in half, and identify ways to rework leftover materials for a more sustainable formulation process.

Color iQC Professional
Quality assurance software to compare samples against the target color to verify color quality and consistency and generate color data performance reports for a real-time view of production quality.

NetProfiler
Empowers brands and suppliers to verify and optimize a fleet of spectrophotometers remotely to achieve consistent color throughout the supply chain. If an issue is identified, NetProfiler validates the difference and corrects back to the central point or alerts the operator to send the device for service.

X-Rite Link
A device dashboard that allows brands to gain visibility into the status and health of X-Rite color measurement devices, with access to update firmware, manage device settings, NetProfile, and sync data with other applications. X-Rite Link helps brands ensure devices are optimized and able to produce consistent color across the supply chain.

Achieve Color Success

With a digital color program powered by Textile Color Hub, fashion and apparel brands can significantly expedite the textile color identification and color approval processes with fewer iterations. This digital transformation marks a pivotal step towards sustainable and efficient color management in the textile industry.