ThreadSol, a Singapore-headquartered software company, has come up with a solution to reduce waste of fabrics, just in time when local garment makers are desperately trying to reduce the cost of production.

Apparel makers can count on reducing fabric waste by 0.5 percent to 1 percent with the ThreadSol software, Manasij Ganguli, co-founder and CEO of the company, said in an interview with The Daily Star yesterday.

In other words, garment makers could save 8 to 10 percent of fabric costs by using this software, according to Ganguli. Fabric is the main component in garment and the other is accessories. About 70 percent of the cost is for fabric.

Many factories have been wasting fabrics for years now due to an inefficient, manual cutting system, said Ganguli. Currently, 25 garment factories in Bangladesh are using this software, he added.

More fabric is needed in cutting patterns manually, but the ThreadSol software gives a planned method. How much fabric is needed for a certain number of garment pieces is measured by the software. As a result, waste is low, he said.

Demand for this software is increasing worldwide, especially in Bangladesh, Vietnam and Cambodia, as fabric is usually cut manually in these countries, he added.

So far, ThreadSol has supplied this software to 95 factories in 13 countries. Ganguli said the factories that his company supplied the software to produces 25 lakh pieces of garment a day. Every year, those companies' sales amount to about $2.5 billion.

“The software has potential here as the garment business has been increasing by the year. In Bangladesh, our business is growing 300 percent year-on-year.”

Last year, his company exported software worth $3 million. “My target is to export software worth $100 million in the next six years,” he said.

The Bangladesh market is booming because of work orders shifting from China to other countries, as China is no longer a competitive country in the garment segment due to a higher cost of production and shortage of skilled workers.

“Actually, I am looking for high manufacturing capacity factories in Bangladesh. I have an office in Dhaka to look after the business,” he said. The price range of the ThreadSol software varies between $45,000 and $75,000, he said.

The demand for this software in Bangladesh is higher because the country does not produce cotton and fabric is imported from other countries, mainly from China, Pakistan and India. The young software engineer, born in West Bengal of India, did not have experience in the garment industry.

But his wife's job was related to productivity in a garment factory. His wife gave him the idea of making software that can reduce the cost of fabrics, Ganguli said.

Ganguli and three of his friends started this business four years ago. “Our business growth is extraordinary. We will set up 11 new offices in different countries in the next two years,” he said, adding that the company's primary capital was $3.2 million.