By Jim Kaufmann, Contributing Editor
while 2020 is turning out to be a rather interesting year from any number of different perspectives, one perspective I’m actually glad to see is the large number of people who are beginning to understand that the textile industry truly is an “essential” business to the United States and the world. The advent of the global coronavirus pandemic has reiterated just how important textiles are to sustaining and protecting our everyday lives in a number of ways. Yet, the textile industry continues to instill a perception that often includes images of sweat shops, rusted out mills and dye houses, decrepit run down mill towns and low wages. Well, ok, the low wages one may still be a bit true, but regardless, the reality is that most in the general public still thinks of the U.S. textile industry as being dead, if not remnants from a by-gone era.
现在，鉴于通过全球大流行生活的现实，想象一下人们认为纺织品无关紧要的人们的表情，因为他们最终意识到个人保护设备（PPE），包括我的侄女在内的许多保护性口罩，包括我的侄女，启动了家庭缝纫业务，以生产和不幸的是，在晚间新闻中看到的床头袋，甚至是纺织行业的产品。唯恐我们忘记了呼吸器，呼吸器和清洁空气系统中的过滤介质，用于测试的拭子，用于分离患者的窗帘和房间隔板，列表还在不断。而且很快就意识到纺织工业还远远没有死。实际上，这是我们日常生活中不可或缺的一部分。但是大多数阅读的人188BET金博宝下载，已经知道，至少我希望我们能做到吗？
一个最相关的经验教训的past several months is that while we really do live in a global economy, having a strong, efficient and competent localized supply chain is paramount to surviving any number of global challenges. The real question, and the purpose for the above commentary, is that many facets of the textile industry are certainly not dead, and in fact appear to be reinvigorated as many companies focused on essential product categories look to improve their local supply chains. So how do we in the industry keep this new found momentum moving forward?
鉴于这种新的态度并重新强调了强大的纺织品供应链，我认为大多数人都同意，这个行业肯定可以使用新面孔，新的商业观点和新员工的注入。甚至可能是一项新的本地化甚至全球营销活动，以说服潜在的工人和一般公众，纺织行业实际上已经改变了，或者也可能发展成为充满先进技术的行业，多样化的产品，应用程序，应用程序，远远超过了很多那些旧的图像，观点和看法继续描绘。
Prior to this new era in which we currently reside, virtually anyone I spoke with throughout the textile industry supply chain expressed a need for “new blood” at pretty much every level from operators, technicians, engineers, chemists to industry and product savvy sales folks, managers and everything in between. But almost universally, the biggest need is for machine mechanics, fixers and technical types who actually understand textile machinery and have the experience and wherewithal to make the products run and machines hum. Yep, the machine whisperers! The folks who can identify a problem just by listening to the machine run, then massage and coax it back to life with a subtle turn of a wrench or tap of a hammer or even simply a few choice words offered in a way that only the machine can understand. Unfortunately, the really good ones still working, if you can actually find them, are getting older and older. Of great concern is the fact that there are fewer and fewer young ’uns or apprentices coming in to fill the growing void.
这一持续挑战的一部分是，除了对纺织行业的负面看法外，仍然存在很大的不正确观念，即您需要拥有大学学位才能获得一份好工作，并且可能会遇到污名上大学。最近几代人对大学学位的需求的看法和强调导致人们减少了将行业作为职业选择的人，因此感觉就像我们用来称为“良好常识”的事物已经遗憾地消失了away … but that’s a subject for another article. We’ve all seen it demonstrated time and again that intelligence is not only the result of having a Bachelor’s, Masters or Ph.D.-level education and I will offer that many of the most intelligent down to earth people I’ve ever met are machine operators, mechanics and technicians who never went to college. They may not be able to recite a Shakespeare sonnet or spell Pythagorean theorem, but they typically have a common sense view of the world and understand how to get the most from their position in life.
Another item I was reminded of not too long ago is that a fairly high percentage of people currently working in textiles most likely have a parent or relative — in my case it was my father — who was working in the textile industry and got them interested. I really haven’t come across too many folks in textiles who found the industry intriguing enough to make textiles a career without having that personal connection. This also has to change. The question really becomes how do we reverse these trends and entice new folks, young and old alike, to give the textile industry a look as a potential career and maybe help to change that negative view that the industry carries?
Austin Conner, a project engineer at SAERTEX-USA in Huntersville, N.C., and recent graduate of the Wilson School of Textiles at North Carolina State University, said: “I think when a lot of young people hear the word ‘textiles’ or ‘textile manufacturing’ they think of old stuffy mills that people their grandparents age used to work in and a lot of people who were alive to see the textile industry get largely outsourced in the 80’s and 90’s still feel that there isn’t any job security. In order to lose this stigma, I think textile companies need to do a better job promoting the cool technologies and exciting textile applications they are a part of. Maybe use modern marketing strategies such as social media more effectively to promote their businesses. Although some of the industry’s technology is rooted in the old, there is plenty of new. And new is exciting to young people!”
“The textile industry is really about more than clothing, as evidenced by its ability to rapidly transition to the production of PPE in a time of crisis,” stated Dr. Chris Pastore, professor of Transdisciplinary Studies and Engineering at Jefferson University. “It is an industry that actually remains vibrant, is constantly pushing the bounds of technology and is people oriented, all the things that I’d be looking for in a new career path.”
康纳补充说：“另一个想法是将基本的纤维科学和纺织知识纳入入门级科学课程中。”“对高中和大学的年轻人进行教育，了解纺织品的基础知识及其许多用途。每个人都穿衣服，但许多人对自己的制作方式一无所知，这一事实是疯狂的！”
幸运的是,有一些组织和印第安纳州ividuals who have been listening and are taken up this effort to change perceptions of the textile industry and get more people interested in the opportunities it presents. Cotton Incorporated, the not for profit U.S. cotton research and promotions company, in partnership with Young Minds Inspired, recently created a series of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Program-focused teaching kits intended to engage 4th to 8th grade students and introduce them to cotton science and sustainability. Dan St. Louis, director of the Manufacturing Solutions Center (MSC) in Conover, N.C., and a long time champion of the textile industry, has been working with STEM Education departments at high schools for years to promote STEM tours of MSC and introduce students to various textile programs MSC supports. The Textile Technology Center at Gaston College has been offering and providing textile-based education programs and consulting to the industry for more than 75 years and continues to do so. As do higher education centers like North Carolina State University’s Wilson School of Textiles and Jefferson University, formerly the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Sciences, both of which offer a variety of textiles focused programs with an eye towards the future. But as mentioned earlier, colleges and universities are not always for everyone, so we should also promote trade schools and apprentice programs as viable options throughout the textiles supply chain with as much passion as parents have been promoting the need for degrees.
we all know that the textile industry has and continues to remain a significant component of the global economy, but as the past several months have shown us, it is an essential business and worthy of that recognition. Here’s to hoping that the textiles supply chain uses this time in the spotlight to effectively foster an image change and get more young and old people alike interested in the variety of career options that the industry offers. We need that new blood and energy to help keep that spotlight shining bright or once again, we may find our industry and ourselves looking back and wondering what the heck happened?
2020年6月25日
