As most nations face a dwindling supply of workers entering the textile industry, mills are challenged to rethink their future vision.
This has led United Textile Mills (UTM) to consider ways to create greater automation in its factory and start putting more of its human resources on servicing customers.
“Young people no longer want to work in factories, they want to work in the service sector. At the same time, we need to be able to provide our customers with better and more flexible service.
“We want to invest more in a successful digital transformation in order to walk at the same pace with our global brand customers.” said Nutra Uttamapinant.
“We want to invest more in a successful digital transformation in order to walk at the same pace with our global brand customers.”
“We want our factory to be computerized with digital controls. That could come through a series of new machines and lab equipment, more R&D equipment, and other new technology to upgrade our manufacturing facilities,” she said.
Global Brands Looking for More Flexible Suppliers
UTM specializes in 100% cotton and cotton blend knit fabrics and is one of Thailand’s leading mills. It is one of the few mills in Thailand that also has its own dye house. In fact, the company started out 30 years ago as a commission dye house, later adding fabric production.
“Since the pandemic, medium-sized countries like Thailand have become more competitive, not because of our size, but by the special product that we are producing,” said Ms. Uttamapinant. “Our company is now doing better than before.”
Sustainable from the Start
Over twenty years ago UTM started to embrace the idea of clean chemistry. They were an early adopter of the ISO certification, Oeko-tex, Control Union, as well as using organic and recycled materials.
“These certificates will ensure that the factory is working well. The customers who are coming to us are not only looking for quality fabrics, they are looking for the certification to help them source responsibly,” said Ms. Uttamapinant.
Recently, UTM joined the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol® (the Trust Protocol).
Answering the Call for Greater Transparency
Being sustainable is no longer sufficient. Brands need to know what’s going into their supply chains.
“These days there might be some questions being asked of us like, ‘Where does the cotton come from? Do you have the document support on that?’ We get a lot of these kinds of questions nowadays.
“One of the solutions to this we think is to use U.S. cotton. It has a strong global reputation and it can help us eliminate the hesitation from our customers who want to know where our raw materials come from. We want to make sure that we only use materials that have a good reputation and will not disrupt our orders,” said Ms. Uttamapinant.
Originally UTM used organic cotton to support greater sustainability. The company is now looking to the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol as a way to ensure that its non-organic cotton products are also well documented.
“With organic cotton, the customer is relying on the documents they’re seeing to guarantee that the cotton is sustainable. We want the same system for the regular cottons.
“Now with the Trust Protocol, we can provide our customers with this documentation for cotton,” said Ms. Uttamapinant.
Beyond the raw materials, UTM is also rigorous about its factory’s water management, waste management and carbon emissions impact.
“It’s not only about the certifications, we must also regularly test and report on our operations, and be very transparent,” she added.
Email. nutra@unitedtextilemills.com
Tel. +66 (0) 2 812 7211 | www.unitedtextilemills.com
Certified Sustainable
The Trust Protocol is aligned with existing sustainability programs including the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. It brings quantifiable and verifiable goals and measurement to sustainable cotton production, and drives continuous improvement in six key sustainability metrics – land use, soil carbon, water management, soil loss, greenhouse gas emissions, and energy efficiency. The Trust Protocol is designed from the ground up to address the unique regulatory and larger farm growing environment in the United States.
How the Trust Protocol Works
The Protocol Consumption Management Solution (PCMS) starts at the gin when the participating producer’s cotton is ginned and each unique Permanent Bale Identification number (PBI) is attached. At this point we know the exact gin weight and can create an exact amount of Protocol Cotton Consumption Units, where one Protocol Cotton Consumption Unit is created for each kilogram of Protocol Verified Cotton. This important step provides absolute authentication of U.S. cotton origin, verifying against the USDA database.
Supply Chain Transparency
The PCMS harnesses blockchain technology through a powerful combination of the Trust Protocol platform and TextileGenesis™ system to deliver full supply chain transparency by recording and verifying the movement of U.S. cotton along the entire supply chain. This creates article-specific transparency for finished products that was not previously accessible to brands and retailers.
Trusted Third Party Certification
The Trust Protocol incorporates a comprehensive program of verification against Trust Protocol benchmarks, in the form of both second-party and independent third-party audits of grower performance through Control Union Certifications—the latter through allocated on-site visits.
Control Union Certifications has certified over 150 industry standards programs worldwide, including working as a key partner in the early development and piloting phases of Impact Claim Verification Protocol.
Learn More https://trustuscotton.org
The COTTON USA Advantage
- Family growers who are committed to working their fields sustainably and leaving them better for future generations.
- A long history of innovative harvesting and ginning technologies resulting in higher-quality cotton.
- One of the highest rates of adoption in the world for Precision Agriculture, which minimizes water and pesticide usage.
- U.S. farmers operate under voluminous, stringent, and enforceable regulations.
- A commitment to transparent partnership that is unmatched anywhere.
- One of the most comprehensive systems for monitoring and measuring all the key metrics involved in sustainability.
U.S. Cotton Facts
- 2/3 of U.S. cotton land uses only rain water
- U.S. cotton water use efficiency has improved by 79% over the past 35 years
- Cotton is carbon footprint neutral, meaning the plants remove more greenhouse gasses than production produces.
Sustainability Goals
The U.S. cotton industry is building upon the strong environmental gains already achieved over the past 35 years. The aim is to help members meet their current needs while making the world a better place for future generations.
Specific goals include:
- Reducing by 13 percent the amount of land needed to produce a pound of cotton fiber
- Reducing soil loss by 50 percent, in balance with new soil formation
- Increasing water use efficiency (more fiber per gallon) by 18 percent
- Reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 39 percent
- Increasing soil carbon in fields by 30 percent
- Reducing energy to produce seed cotton and ginned lint by 15 percent
Learn More www.cotton.org
