Lectra insources China production to boost quality, efficiency

Technology solutions provider Lectra has taken its cutting equipment production in China in-house to ensure its Asian customers benefit from its "unrivalled quality" and "operational standards".

Lectra’s manufacturing facility in Tolland, Connecticut, US. Credit: Lectra.

Lectra started its own cutting equipment production in China on 1 December 2023 and believes its customers in the region will benefit from the “standards of operational excellence” that already exist at its manufacturing plants in both Bordeaux-Cestas, France and Tolland, US.

The decision to insource production in China comes after Lectra acquired Gerber Technology in 2021.

Since the acquisition Lectra relied on Dutch group VDL Groep (VDL)’s facility to manufacture Gerber-brand multi-ply cutters and spreaders.

Lectra explained that production is now being carried out by its new subsidiary Suzhou Lectra Equipment Manufacturing Co. Ltd., in the west of Shanghai.

The technology company pointed out that it has operated in the Asia-Pacific region for over 35 years, and in 2022 the region contributed to a quarter (25%) of the group’s revenues.

Jérôme Viala, executive vice president of Lectra said: “Our objective is to offer our customers unrivalled quality, wherever they are located. This means applying the same standards of operational excellence to all our equipment manufacturing sites.

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“We must also ensure that we optimise our production lead times while contributing to the dynamism of our local supplier ecosystems. That’s why we favour local production sites in each of the major regions where we operate. Today, we are the only company in our sector to have three manufacturing sites, in China, the United States and France.”

Lectra described the creation of the Suzhou Lectra Equipment Manufacturing Co. Ltd. subsidiary as a “new milestone in the deployment of Lectra’s industrial excellence strategy on a global scale”.

It added that the group intends to give priority to regional production, which it said is beneficial to the local economy.

Last month (November), Blockchain platform TextileGenesis, which is a subsidiary of the Lectra Group, upgraded its Software as a Service (SaaS) platform to include a tool that can trace the origin of conventional, sustainable and premium materials.

In July, Lectra developed VectorFashion iX2 and VectorFashion Q2 to enable manufacturers to cut variable volumes across all types of materials for small-scale production.