To walk the talk – to building and scaling the smart factory – on a broad basis for apparel a lack of knowledge and experience has to be tackled: Professional and managerial training is downright precarious. While technical and higher education institutions are still adapting its curricula, there is a lack of required expertise - now. Added to this is the need to create the mindset, necessary for the paradigm shift at management level.

Profound guidance to now be available with an inverted (online) class room program, offered by one of the few, who know what they are talking about, from someone who has made the Digital Lean Factory concept a reality - with sustainable success.

Leveraging untapped potential

The protagonist under whose leadership a prime example of clothing feasibility in broad scale industrial environment came true is Joachim Hensch. “It took my team and me five years to turn the Hugo Boss Izmir factory into a real smart factory”, said Hensch, tailor for bespoken men’s wear by trade, who has had a remarkable career in product development and production up to the position as managing director for the Izmir manufacturing plant of Hugo Boss Group as of 2015.

His guest lectures at key apparel industry events around the globe on the process remain legendary. Today Hugo Boss brand to as well represent leap forward from more traditional automation to a fully connected and flexible system — one that can use a constant stream of data from connected operations and production systems to learn and adapt to new demands.

Mission completed

After two decades with Hugo Boss Group Joachim Hensch is ready for an all new challenge: “The apparel business excites me for more than three decades now.” Said it and turned to new tasks, driven by the spirit of his knowledge and experience on the way to support brands, organizations, start-ups or single players to define their own individual digital strategy – “essential starting point for any smart factory/sourcing concept”, Hensch emphasizes.