Cutting Cloth by Laser

The U.S. can battle cut-rate imports better by increasing its productive efficiency than by raising its protective barriers. Last week Genesco, Inc. and Hughes Aircraft showed off a jointly developed machine that may help U.S. clothing makers to compete. The machine, which looks like a miniature steel rolling mill, maneuvers a laser beam over cloth to cut garments according to computer-determined patterns. It acts with speed, accuracy and a flexibility that human cutters cannot match. It can cut a man's sport coat, a woman's skirt and a child's pair of shorts consecutively from the same roll of cloth. Genesco Chairman Franklin Jarman says that it will enable a clothing firm to introduce a new style in midseason, or immediately fill a retailer's unexpected order for additional garments "almost solely by pushing a button"--something no foreign manufacturer can yet do. Besides, the savings in labor costs promise to be considerable because the machine does not demand raises, go on strike or show up late for work. Genesco plans to retrain any workers who are displaced, and union leaders say that they will accept the machine as long as workers are not laid off or have to take wage cuts.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.