With Versalis Automotive Digital Marking, Lectra Offers Automotive Seat and Interior Manufacturers a Digital Marking Solution for Leather Defects

Press Release

Lectra facilitates the transformation of players in the fashion, automotive and furniture industries by providing technological solutions that accelerate their transition to Industry 4.0. The group has now launched Versalis Automotive Digital Marking, a digital marking station for leather defects coupled with an automatic hide repositioning software. Through the use of data, this offer improves marking accuracy and facilitates decision making, resulting in lower production costs and material savings.

Highly competitive and still impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, the automotive industry faces many challenges: high fluctuation in demand, transition to electric vehicles, reduction of carbon footprint, digitalization of production and shortage of skilled labor. Against this backdrop, all automotive suppliers, including leather seat manufacturers, who will equip more than one in five vehicles worldwide in 2024, must strive to constantly improve their production costs in order to reconcile competitiveness and sustainability.

“At Lectra, we firmly believe in the importance of innovation to maintain our customers’ competitive edge. Our digital marking solution is unique from the competition thanks to the automation of hide repositioning at the cutting stage. By working closely with key industry players, we strive to actively listen to their needs and challenges, in order to shape a solution that precisely meets their expectations,” explained Maximilien Abadie, chief strategy officer and chief product officer at Lectra.

While hides for cutting are traditionally marked with chalk, the new Versalis Automotive Digital Marking station now makes digital marking possible and optimizes its use on Versalis Automotive cutting equipment. Thanks to the integrated and connected proprietary software, it is possible to automatically recognize previously digitized hides and associate all the data required for the cutting stage. The combination of the two solutions ensures intelligent marking, and enables hides to be repositioned to optimize the quantity and minimize wasted space between parts at the cutting stage.

While meeting the most stringent requirements of OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers), Versalis Automotive Digital Marking achieves material savings of up to 1.5 percent of the leather surface to be cut — a significant gain in an industry as competitive as the automotive sector. Thanks to continuous process improvement, manufacturers of vehicle seats and interiors can better control their costs and inventories, while reducing their carbon footprint.

This press release was issued April 15, 2024. Lectra is a member of SPESA.

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