Education of skilled workers-the concurrence factor in textile and clothing industry

Abstract

Modern market business of textile companies, especially during the economy crisis, is characterized by unfavourable aspects such as bad position of textile companies on the global market, decreased competitiveness, lack of technology, and insufficiently trained employees, standard absence. In this case, the main acting fields for business quality improvement of domestic textile companies are business quality improvement and knowledge improvement of the managers and employees. Textile technology engineers are involved in defining of technology management concept, which is crucial for the growth and development of these companies. The new acting field of textile engineers penetrates into management structures and it starts to exceed the technical-technological knowledge and skills, and it requires multidisciplinary in job realisation. Regardless the problems in the last several years (old equipment, lack of financial capital, lack of innovativeness), domestic textile industry, as well as the textile industry in many countries which are in transition, represents significant development area especially when the interest of foreign partners are taken into account (availability of infrastructure, cheap workforce, nearness of market and so on). Education of every employee in textile companies represents precondition for better business effects achievement-especially the need for computer science and management knowledge and skills as well as the usage of foreign experiences are emphasised. The purpose of this paper is to show the research results, which refer to the possible application of modern methods and management techniques in the textile and clothing industry, with special attention on improvement of personnel knowledge. The research was conducted in 2007, on the market of republic of Serbia and it encompassed the attitude analysis of 150 respondents, where 50 of them were experts in managing the company of textile and clothing industry, and 100 of the respondents were the students of the faculties where the textile experts are being educated. The aim of the research was the creation of an adequate and meaningful theoretical model for knowledge improvement and education of professional workers in textile industry in order to establish market business concept in this sector. The research enabled collecting of primary data about the facts, opinions, attitudes, intentions and motives of the respondents. For this purpose, the modified questionnaire was created (taking care about the methodological thesis). The method of interviewing the experts as well as students was used to collect data. The relevant attitudes about the appliance of modern methods and management techniques as well as of trained staff education in the textile sector on Serbian market were acquired-from the experts, and from those who were the final users of the college services-the students. The competitive advantage of Serbian textile industry must be based on innovations, quality, technology improvement and higher capability of the workers. The greatest potential that would lead to the faster economy development of textile industry is educated people, that is, trained staff. The series of demands is set before the trained staff in order to permanently innovate their knowledge and skills. Besides the acquaintance of traditional skills and knowledge from various textile technologies, the modern trained staff must possess knowledge of company management, strategic and operative management, marketing, quality management and so on, in order to be able to deal with technical and management problems.