Orit, a Sri Lankan manufacturer based in Colombo, is one of the most prominent denim producers in the world. The company, which was founded in 1999, specializes in highly technical denim garments.
Orit is currently comprised of eight distinct units that include five sewing facilities, two wet processing facilities, and a centralized facility. Each facility is currently located in Sri Lanka, and the company is looking to expand within the country.
Orit prides itself on its forward-looking attitude, which is best exemplified by their array of washing techniques and their design staff's drive to develop new washes to better serve the apparel industry. With the company's focus on denim, Orit utilizes a large and creative staff to develop washes that incorporate both classic techniques and cutting edge chemistry and techonology to advance the idea of what denim can be.
The quality of Orit's denim is evident in their relatively small but prestigious list of customers. The majority of their denim is produced for Levis, a name that has been synonymous with denim for over a century. Orit also produces high quality women's denim and bottoms for Charles Fort, George, Balance, GLO, Nine West, Rachel Roy, Croft & Barrows, LC Waikiki, Xside, Blassini, Yessica, Zara, Bershka, Style & Co, Charter Club, Kohl's Sonoma, and several other international brands. The company exports to more than a dozen countries around the globe and was certified by the Apparel Board of Sri Lanka in 2007.
When the company was initially founded 12 years ago, Orit relied on Lectra to grade patterns and make markers for their clients. After a decision made by executives, CAD systems across the company were gradually converted to Tukatech.
Tukatech is a very precise CAD system, and that is what you need to make high end denim.
Delan Desilva
Manager, Orit
"From 1999 to 2005, we used Lectra, at which point we switched to Tukatech," said Gayan Sanjayan, Orit's Sample Room Manager. "The decision to switch had come down from management."
"We initially started with a few test conversions, and once we saw the results, we fully converted."
The company's switch to Tukatech has brought upon tremendous growth and has allowed the company to produce a significantly larger quantity then before the implementation. "With Tukatech, we have more than doubled our capacity in six years, only half the time the company has existed," said Sanjayan. While the company was not focused in the specific unit output prior to installing Tukatech, Sanjayan said that with the advanced software Orit is producing in excess of one million units per month. When asked how Tukatech had been able to help Orit make such dramatic improvements in their capacity and efficiency, Sanjayan and Delan Desilva, a manager for Orit, were quick to list a number of their favorite TUKAcad features.
"What I personally like about Tukatech is that it operates through windows" said Desilva. "It has useful help features that can be activated at the touch of a button, and it is just simpler to use than any other CAD system I've seen. We can simply enter one command to have the software do all of the operations that we need, like calculate the shrinkage," said Desilva. "TUKAcad gives us the opportunity to do a lot very quickly, and it does things that we could not even consider doing manually."
"Tukatech is a very precise CAD system, and that is what you need to make high end denim. It is far superior to the system we replaced. Unfortunately we don't fully utilize its ability to easily build patterns as our buyers send us finished patterns," said Desilva. "Despite this, TUKAcad's cut summaries and marker making features are being used much more by our staff than similar features in other software we had been using."
"TUKAcad has been providing us with pattern cards and measurement reports, which allows us to be more efficient," said Sanjayan. "The fact that we get these reports through the system itself is impressive."
Tukatech is regarded in the apparel industry as one of the most technically well-designed and advanced CAD systems available. This is because Tukatech's engineers have experience in the garment industry and know what each member of a production team requires and how best to implement the solution. Janyatha Senadeera, the Manager of Marker Making, has more than a decade of experience as a marker maker with both manual and digital work on his resume.
"I've been involved with making markers for 15 years. I've made markers manually and using Lectra and I've found TUKAcad the most advanced way to make markers. Unlike other software systems, Tukatech can make any piece I need without drawing, and even in Lectra this needs to be performed manually."
Like many Tukatech users, Sanjayan and Desilva said that they were impressed by the levels of service and commit ment to each customer Tukatech's international staff offers. "When I spoke to Tukatech's staff and made a recommendation that I felt would improve TUKAcad, they said that the particular improvement was already being worked on in the new version of the system," said Desilva.
As Orit continues to demonstrate their technical and manufacturing proficiency to brands and designers all over the world, they are preparing for further growth and expansion. TUKAcad, which efficiently optimizes manufacturing facilities of all sizes, will continue to develop to meet the needs of growing companies like Orit and help them maximize their manufacturing and design potential.
"In the future, we will be focusing in increasing the number of our facilities. We have opportunities to expand into the northeast and branch out into different types of products. We know that bottoms will not always be as viable as other products, so we need to diversify. Tukatech will be a large part of this continued process," said Desilva.
Founded in 1999, Orit has 8 locations in Sri Lanka and produces over 1 million high-end denim bottoms and month, developing proprietary washes and treatments.
Orit was certified by the Apparel Board in Sri Lanka in 2007.