Lectra Continues Global Expansion of Valia Fashion to New Key Markets
This expansion is a significant step in the company's journey to accelerate the global fashion industry's transition to Industry 4.0. Valia Fashion, Lectra's intelligent cloud-based solution that connects the whole cutting room to automate and streamline each stage of apparel production was first launched in the US, Canada and Europe in October 2024 and has demonstrated strong, early successes.
'We're dedicated to helping our customers remain competitive and agile in the market and meet the latest technological demands of fashion industry,' said Lenny Marano, President of the Americas at Lectra. 'Valia Fashion is a revolutionary solution that empowers fashion brands and manufacturers to connect, automate and streamline every step of apparel production. Since our initial launch, we've seen a great response from our customers who are using this technology to further reduce operational costs across their businesses. We are excited to continue expanding Valia Fashion's global footprint to even more fashion enterprises.'
Valia Fashion centralizes global orders and streamlines production, offering real-time visibility for faster decision-making and optimized operations. By connecting to all equipment in the cutting room, apparel manufacturers can seamlessly integrate the solution into existing workflows and digitize their production cycle.
Chicago Protective Apparel Taps Lectra's Valia Fashion for Made to Order Digital Manufacturing
On the heels of Valia Fashion's global expansion, Chicago Protective Apparel – a division of Mechanix Wear that offers a wide range of high hazard personal protective apparel for various industries including heavy manufacturing, foundry, electrical/utilities – will now be using Valia Fashion to scale current production and accelerate the company's growth. Valia Fashion will enable Chicago Protective Apparel to centralize orders and distribute production across its different manufacturing sites, reduce waste, automate processes, and provide greater visibility on fabric consumption.
'This integration marks a shift from fragmented legacy systems to a smarter, more connected production model,' said Keith Christiansen, President and General Manager at Chicago Protective Apparel. 'Lectra's Valia Fashion minimizes our reliance on manual processes by creating a scalable digital infrastructure that gives us real-time visibility into open orders, scheduling, fabric utilization and production performance – transforming how we make decisions, drive measurable efficiency to optimize resources, improve service levels, and more strategically plan for future growth.'
Lectra will be participating in the upcoming Texprocess Americas event and will be showcasing Valia Fashion alongside the Vector iX2, its state-of-the-art, low-ply fabric cutter. The event is taking place on May 6-8, 2025, in Atlanta, GA at booth #2535.
About Lectra
At the forefront of innovation since its founding in 1973, Lectra provides industrial intelligence technology solutions—combining software in SaaS mode, cutting equipment, data, and associated services—to players in the fashion, automotive and furniture industries. With boldness and passion, Lectra accelerates the transformation and success of its customers in a world in perpetual motion thanks to the key technologies of Industry 4.0: AI, big data, cloud and the Internet of Things.
The Group is present in more than one hundred countries. It operates three production sites for its cutting equipment, located in France, China and the United States. Lectra's 3,000 employees are driven by three core values: being open-minded thinkers, trusted partners and passionate innovators. They all share the same commitment to social responsibility, which is one of the pillars of Lectra's strategy for ensuring sustainable growth for both the company and its customers.
The company is listed on Euronext, and is included in CAC All Shares, CAC Technology, EN Tech Leaders and ENT PEA-PME 150 indices. For more information, please visit lectra.com.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Business Wire
a day ago
- Business Wire
Agentic AI Takes Center Stage at Cognite's Global Impact 2025 Conference to Showcase Industrial Value
PHOENIX--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Cognite, the global leader in industrial AI, announced today its annual conference, Impact 2025, will return to Houston from October 13-16. This year's event will focus on accelerating business value from agentic AI, bringing together AI-driven leaders from the energy, manufacturing, and life sciences sectors. Speakers will share proven strategies for moving from vision to implementation and demonstrating tangible business value with agentic AI solutions. "Impact connects innovators to share ideas, learn together, and grow faster," said Josh Dotson, Industry 4.0 Capability Leader, Koch. "In a rapidly changing Industry 4.0 environment, partnerships and knowledge sharing are essential." Share Agentic AI-driven automation is rapidly becoming a requirement for industrial organizations to remain competitive. According to a 2025 report from Capgemini, 82% of organizations are planning to integrate AI agents into their operations by 2027. This surge in adoption is driven by the fact that early adopters are already seeing measurable business value, including 25-40% efficiency gains in automated workflows. "Impact connects innovators to share ideas, learn together, and grow faster," said Josh Dotson, Industry 4.0 Capability Leader, Koch. "In a rapidly changing Industry 4.0 environment, partnerships and knowledge sharing are essential. The connections we make at Impact give us the insights and confidence to accelerate our transformation with more speed and less risk." Following last year's sold-out inaugural conference, Impact is returning with more sessions, networking opportunities, and additional industries. This year's sessions include: Keynote Plenaries and Executive Speakers who will demonstrate how AI is being harnessed to accelerate growth, transform industries, and realize value from digital transformation, including: Karl Johnny Hersvik, CEO of Aker BP Noriko Rzonca, Chief Digital Officer of Cosmo Energy Holdings Sameer Purao, Global CIO & CDO of Celanese Bjørnar Erikstad, General Manager, Foundation VI Breakout Sessions & Workshops delivered primarily by customers to address key themes such as: Agentic AI for Industry: See how industrial organizations are using AI agents to increase operational efficiency and learn what it takes to build and scale trusted AI agents. Driving Business Impact: Separate the AI hype from reality, see how organizations are getting started with agentic AI, and learn how to track the business outcomes of your digital strategy. Achieving Operational Excellence: Explore how AI integration can increase production capacity, enhance operational efficiency, and reduce risk. Leading Innovation: Hear from digital transformation experts about driving organizational change, the future of operations, and new operating paradigms. Building a Scalable, AI-Ready Data Foundation: Discover how to solve the industrial data problem by contextualizing data and how to scale digital initiatives from sites to enterprise. "To truly unleash agentic AI in industrial operations, Cognite has emphasized an AI-ready data foundation and an open ecosystem," said Girish Rishi, CEO, Cognite. "At Cognite, we're building the bridge from AI's potential to proven business value. Join us at Impact 2025 and witness how real-world leaders, customers, and partners are leveraging our leading industrial AI platform to create a more efficient, sustainable, and profitable future." Conference speakers will also illustrate how they are accelerating their journey towards autonomous operations, scaling AI, and gaining more business value by incorporating Cognite Atlas AI ™, a no-code workbench for building industrial AI agents. Integrated with the robust data foundation provided by Cognite Data Fusion, Atlas AI makes agentic AI capabilities easily accessible for industrial organizations to use and improve their existing workflows. Space is limited. For more information and to register, please visit Impact 2025. About Cognite Cognite makes GenAI work for industry. Leading energy, manufacturing, and power & renewables enterprises choose Cognite to deliver secure, trustworthy, and real-time data to transform their asset-heavy operations to be safer, more sustainable, and profitable. Cognite provides a user-friendly, secure, and scalable platform that makes it easy for all decision-makers, from the field to remote operations centers, to access and understand complex industrial data, collaborate in real-time, and build a better tomorrow. Visit us at and follow us on LinkedIn and X.
Business Wire
3 days ago
- Business Wire
Walters Transforms Production Efficiency with Lectra's Furniture on Demand and Valia Furniture Platform, Accelerating Order Fulfillment
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Lectra, a leading provider of industrial intelligence technology solutions to players in fashion, automotive and furniture, announced today that Walters, an 85-year-old furniture manufacturer specializing in outdoor furniture for architects and designers, has successfully implemented Lectra's Furniture on Demand and Valia Furniture platform to dramatically accelerate production workflows and order fulfillment. The implementation delivered immediate and measurable results. Walters digitized its entire product catalog with Valia Furniture, enabling streamlined production management across both small custom requests and large-scale orders. The transformation has significantly reduced lead times, optimized efficiency, and enhanced customer satisfaction. "Our experience with Lectra, as a first-time customer, has been very positive: everything from pre-sale to the installation to the follow-up support has been nothing but outstanding," said Adam Schindler, CEO of Walters. "We chose Furniture on Demand because it was the most advanced platform yet very intuitive and user-friendly." Prior to digitizing, Walters was relying on physical patterns. This created challenges of finding the latest pattern and adjusting. Valia Furniture's digital pattern library has revolutionized Walters' workflow efficiency. The system eliminates time-consuming manual searches for physical patterns and ensures the latest versions are always accessible. By connecting to all equipment in the cutting room, manufacturers can seamlessly integrate the solution into existing workflows and digitize their production cycle. "Walters adoption of Lectra's solutions illustrates how forward-looking manufacturers can connect the dots across the production lifecycle and embrace digital transformation to unlock efficiency and scale," said Leonard Marano, President of the Americas at Lectra. "With Valia Furniture and Furniture on Demand, companies can accelerate lead teams, reduce manual processes, and future proof operations – without compromising their craftsmanship." The implementation has provided Walters with unprecedented visibility into production processes through real-time analytics. This data-driven approach enables smarter, faster decision-making and continuous workflow optimization. Key Benefits Achieved: Accelerated Lead Times – Digitized product catalog enables quick order fulfillment Enhanced Productivity – Access to digital pattern library simplifies and accelerates locating the latest version of patterns Optimized Production – Real-time analytics empower data-driven decision-making Seamless Integration – Complete catalog digitization accomplished in hours, not weeks This partnership underscores Lectra's leadership in delivering advanced, industry-specific solutions that enable manufacturers of all sizes to modernize operations and maintain a competitive edge. About Lectra: At the forefront of innovation since its founding in 1973, Lectra provides industrial intelligence technology solutions—combining software in SaaS mode, cutting equipment, data, and associated services—to players in the fashion, automotive and furniture industries. With boldness and commitment, Lectra accelerates the transformation and success of its customers in a world in perpetual motion thanks to the key technologies of Industry 4.0: AI, big data, cloud and the internet of things. The Group is present in more than one hundred countries. It operates three production sites for its cutting equipment, located in France, China and the United States. Lectra's 3,000 employees are driven by three core values: being open-minded thinkers, trusted partners and passionate innovators. They all share the same concern for social responsibility, which is one of the pillars of Lectra's strategy to ensure its sustainable growth and that of its customers. Lectra reported revenues of €527 million in 2024, including €77 million coming from its SaaS offerings. The company is listed on Euronext, and is included in the CAC All Shares, CAC Technology, EN Tech Leaders and ENT PEA-PME 150 indices. For more information, visit
Yahoo
07-08-2025
- Yahoo
Lectra's Maximilien Abadie on Reshaping Fashion's Future With AI and a Consumer-first Mindset
PARIS — Behind the scenes of fashion's digital reinvention sits Lectra, the France-based technology company quietly shaping much of what we wear. In June, the company appointed Maximilien Abadie deputy chief executive officer. Abadie joined the company 14 years ago, and was pivotal in its acquisitions of traceability platform TextileGenesis and trend analysis tool Launchmetrics, the latest in a flurry of deals he has spearheaded since 2018. More from WWD E.l.f. Beauty Sees Higher Conversions With This AI Shade Finder Browzwear Acquires AI-generated Model Maker A Showcase for Innovation Comes to Times Square More than one third of the world's clothing is designed by brands with Lectra technologies, according to the company's data, reflecting its widespread behind-the-scenes influence in manufacturing. With fashion contributing more than half of Lectra's revenue, the industry will be 'the vast majority' of the company's future investment strategy, Abadie said. Lectra started as design and sizing software for the fashion industry, later expanding into production equipment. The group now has a SaaS-oriented acquisition strategy, with more expected in the coming months to support its growth. For Abadie, who stepped into his latest role in June, Lectra's ambitions stretch into steering the fashion world into what he calls the 'fourth industrial revolution' — a future defined by AI, cloud computing and real-time data analysis. The shift is fundamental and will boost brands' revenues, as well as sustainability, he believes. 'Fashion is a loop,' said Abadie. 'You need to create, manufacture and market quicker than before. And before the steps were siloed — first you were focusing on create, then manufacture, then market. But now everything starts from the market.' Abadie believes we're in the midst of a move from the top-down 'push' model of the past, when brands would dictate trends and drive production, to a 'pull' model, where consumer demand influences everything from design to manufacturing and distribution. Brands must understand consumer demand, identify trends, determine pricing and position products competitively — all at the same time. 'Everything goes in parallel now,' he said. It's a shift that will fundamentally change the fashion industry, Abadie asserted. In response to this transformation, Lectra has pursued an aggressive acquisition strategy, snapping up six companies over the past few years. Among them is Launchmetrics, acquired in January 2024, which provides brands with analytics tools to evaluate ROI from runway shows and media campaigns. It goes beyond the runway — though that, too, is expanding with invitation and event management tools — to assess consumer brand sentiment. Despite ongoing economic challenges across the fashion sector, Lectra reported a 10 percent year-over-year increase in revenue for the 2024 fiscal year to 526.7 million euros. Launchmetrics, consolidated as of January 2024, contributed 41.2 million euros, and fashion overall accounted for 50 percent of the company's 2024 revenue. Lanchmetrics' latest initiative aims to analyze consumer perception through AI-driven analysis of buzz, mapping words like 'responsible' or 'innovative' to track how brands are perceived in real time. 'We track every post on social media, every magazine and newspaper,' Abadie said. Using an algorithm, it can gauge if response is positive or negative, and analyze what images are most popular by use in articles or posts. This kind of visibility is increasingly valuable in a fast-paced environment where consumer attention must be maintained constantly amid the clamor of Instagram and TikTok, and 'new-in' drops. Abadie described this as a step closer to the 'see-now, buy-now' model, where new products can reach consumers within weeks of being showcased on the runway, instead of months. 'Products now, they are coming to the store on a regular basis — if not every month, twice a month or every week,' Abadie said. 'So the goal for the brands is really how they can attract consumers on a regular basis to the stores, how they can create several reasons for the consumers to go back.' That same real-time agility is also reshaping production timelines. Lectra's technologies allow brands to adapt to be closer to a 'see-now-buy-now' model — products paraded on the runway can hit the shelves within a couple of weeks, rather than months. 'By interconnecting people around the same data…all those creative mindsets now, they can get a product in the hands of the consumers in a few weeks,' said Abadie. 'That's a tremendous shift.' On the sustainability front, Lectra's TextileGenesis platform seeks to improve supply chain transparency by tracing certified fibers such as organic cotton and recycled polyester. The system uses blockchain-inspired technology to track materials across the supply chain and flag discrepancies, such as mismatches between the volume of garments produced and the available supply of certified fiber. If they don't match, there has been some mixing of fibers or misreporting along the way. 'If you are not, as a brand, capable to know who is behind your supply chain, you cannot master it,' Abadie said. 'You cannot influence the decisions, you cannot make commitments.' The platform has tracked 2.6 billion garments to date — up from 2 billion at the beginning of the year — with over 15,000 suppliers across Asia, Europe, and South America participating. 'Without traceability, there's a risk of fraud. There's a risk of greenwashing,' Abadie said. 'That's what we're trying to solve.' Other manufacturing products enable real-time adjustments in production planning. According to the company, this improves agility in responding to market fluctuations, while its on-demand production platform aggregates orders and aligns manufacturing with actual demand to reduce overproduction and waste, and allow for smaller, more frequent collections. One company cited by Lectra has reportedly used the system to produce 5 million made-to-measure shirts in Vietnam for the U.S. market. Driving all of this transformation is AI — not as a buzzword, Abadie noted, but as an embedded, working reality. 'There are more and more concrete applications of AI, notably in fashion,' Abadie said. 'Our belief is that the only way to shorten lead time, to close the gap between consumers and the brands, to use material resources in a responsible manner so to avoid CO2 emissions and so on — the only way is by digitizing the task and automating processes.' The cloud, resisted a decade ago by fashion executives concerned about ensuring IP secrecy, is now essential. 'Ten years ago I had an interesting discussion with a very famous luxury company' which refused to use the cloud, said Abadie. 'Now I can tell you if you are not in the cloud, you are not competitive.' Abadie also rejected the notion that technology and creativity are in conflict. Instead, he argued, technology allows designers to iterate and execute ideas more efficiently. 'People are pitting one against the other, creativity and technology,' Abadie said. 'I don't know why. Technology is leveraging the creative mindset of everyone, because you can iterate much more than in the past.' An AI-empowered designer can test ideas, communicate specifications, and move from sketch to store faster than ever. 'If the rest of the value chain is digitized and the designer is not, then you create a conflict. Only technology can remove this barrier,' he said, noting that design does not come from the tech, but the tech is used to promote creativity. 'I think it's highly correlated — this notion of emotion and technology. Emotion starts from the product itself.' Best of WWD Retailers Leverage First Insight for ESG Alignment What Steph Curry's Sneaker NFTs Can Teach Fashion Year in Review: Brands, Retailers Go Hyper-digital in a Challenging Landscape Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
