The field that fell 100 years behind: What engineers can learn from the textile industry

Dec 21, 2025

Walk into a modern semiconductor factory and you’ll see full end-to-end automated processes. Visit an automotive plant and you’ll watch lines weld and paint without a human touch. But walk into a modern apparel factory, and you’ll still find rows and rows of people guiding fabric manually through a sewing machine, one seam at a time. 

For all our progress in robotics, AI and advanced manufacturing, textiles remain stubbornly manual in many areas including sewing. 

https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2025/12/11/the-field-that-fell-100-years-behind-what-engineers-can-learn-from-the-textile-industry/