TCBL HANDBOOKS
2017 EVALUATION DIGEST
Co-funded by Horizon 2020
ANNEX 1 TO TCBL D 6.4, 31 JULY 2017
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INTRODUCTION This ‘evaluation digest’ is part of a set of reports produced as part of the annual reporting cycle of the TCBL evaluation. It is designed to offer the reader a concise summary of some of the main findings from the evaluation work carried out thus far. This report is accompanied by a publicly available handbook which analyses the TCBL business cases from an evaluation perspective and provides interested readers with a longer narrative about progress with the business cases to date.
THE TCBL EVALUATION TCBL is an ambitious and innovative project. A large-scale change effort, it intervenes into the European textiles and clothing (T+C) sector by seeking to create, in an emergent manner, an ecosystem based on open sharing of knew knowledge in order to ultimately effect four changes: 5 per cent increase in manufacturing capacity within five years after the end of the project; reduction in the environmental footprint by 20 per cent; creation of a novel supply network of 1000 organisations and individuals; and creation of new embedded services supporting the customer driven supply chain.. Evaluation is critical to supporting and assessing this change process as it offers insights and tools that allow individuals, participating enterprises and TCBL as a whole to learn and improve. In TCBL, evaluation therefore does not just come at the end (as a retrospective tool to assess performance) but is embedded in the project process to support a cycle of continuous data collection, learning and improvement. It therefore has a broad scope and seeks to: help with the design and development of the TCBL change process (‘ex ante evaluation’); monitor and assess progress towards the planned change (developmental and process evaluation); and assess how far TCBL has travelled on their ‘change journey’ (‘summative evaluation’). Whilst the process evaluation is ongoing, the outcomes analysis takes place at a later point.
THIS REPORT This report therefore pulls together some of the key messages that have emerged from the process evaluation activities in the last year. Among others, the TCBL process evaluation tracks how the project has evolved and what is being produced as a result of project activities. TCBL is a project that is designed to emerge in scope and content throughout its four years of delivery. After an initial period of preparation, the last 12 months kicked off the real-world piloting of T+C business innovations whilst also continuing to widen its membership, an activity that will be focused on over the next 12 months also. It is against this background that we report on some key emerging themes.
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EMERGING FINDINGS FROM THE PROCESS EVALUATION A GROWING ECOSYSTEM, MORE STRONGLY CONNECTED The size of the TCBL ecosystem continues to grow in line with the targets the project has set itself. After a successful second round of calls for Associate Enterprises, a new set of 58 Associate Enterprises joined the TCBL network, bringing the total number to 137 – ahead of target. In addition, 21 Associate Labs, 29 Associate Advisors, 10 service SMEs and 7 startups are now part of the TCBL network. A total of 516 individuals are registered on the TCBL community. The size, composition and geographic spread of the TCBL ecosystem in mid-2017 is shown in the figure below.
. Figure 1: TCBL in 2017 (source: TCBL 2017-218. TCBL Associates of the Second Call for EoI #TCBL_2017 and beyond. Presentation at #TCBL_2017 in Athens)
Not only has TCBL experienced year-on-year growth in terms of the size of its business ecosystem, the quality of the network is also strengthening. Members are now more connected to each other than they were last year, be this because they have connected with each other via the TCBL website or participation in one of the business cases or, often, both. Moreover, they seem to be making the network work for them. For instance, Associate Enterprises and Associate Advisors have formed a ‘community’ – a sub-group of TCBL members who are more strongly connected to each other, suggesting they see business value in linking up. Associate Labs take on an important bridging role in the networking, linking members that are not directly connected to each other.
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2017 Evaluation Digest TCBL Handbooks Textile & Clothing Business Labs
Figure 2: The TCBL network of connected members (January 2017)1
MORE AND RELEVANT RESOURCES TCBL offers network members the opportunity to connect (with each other and with new knowledge) in a number of ways. The TCBL Annual Conference is one important moment for connecting between network members and inspiring potential change in work practices. This year’s event, #TCBL_2017 was held in Athens and had the theme of sustainability. The event is an opportunity to gain new insights which nearly three quarters of delegates who had offered feedback thought they would apply at their workplace. As well as new learning, delegates use the event to make new connections. On average, at this year’s Athens event individuals exchanged ideas to 14 people and more than half had followed up these connections within two weeks of attending the event. This can lead to concrete business opportunities, as the vignette below illustrates.
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Yellow circles represent Associate Enterprises, green nodes Associate Advisors, blue nodes Associate Labs and pink nodes represent TCBL Project Partners; Size of the circle is proportional to the number of connections.
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2017 Evaluation Digest TCBL Handbooks Textile & Clothing Business Labs
F ELTRANDO'S FELT KEYRINGS FIND A HOME IN SHEFFIELD, UK Filomena Almeida, from TCBL Associate Feltrando, was one of the presenters in Athens for TCBL_2017's JAM session. The Portuguese company makes a range of women's fashion accessories using felt and Filomena gave each delegate a felt keyring as part of her presentation. Many there seemed to be quite taken with the simple but catchy design. After the JAM session had finished Filomena was approached by a delegate asking if Feltrando would be able to manufacture and deliver 100 of the keyrings - in multiple colours - for an event the following week in Sheffield, England. After a few minutes thought about handling the production and logistics, the answer was "yes" and a deal was done. Sure enough, 100 keyrings were delivered in time for the event and were offered as small gifts to the eighty or so ladies present. Full marks to Feltrando for being able to fulfil a short run order at short notice! Source: http://tcbl.eu/forum/feltrando-s-felt-keyrings-find-a-home-insheffield-uk This year’s event also included a display of nine sample garments produced from sustainable cotton by the TCBL natural cotton business case, highlighting and showcasing the work of this business case.
Figure 3: Ioanna Kourbela designer brand sample collection produced as a result of the TCBL Natural Cotton case, on display at #TCBL_2017
Ecosystem members also have access to nearly three times the items in the TCBL knowledge spaces they had last year. Categories include: business activity types, business models and business processes (in addition to most of the categories of the preceding year). The number of posts to the common spaces has also increased by almost one third over the last year, offering readers thoughts, insights and ideas ideas related to TCBL topics.
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2017 Evaluation Digest TCBL Handbooks Textile & Clothing Business Labs
PRACTICAL E XPERIMENTATION : THE SIX BUSINESS CASES This year has seen intensive work on six business cases that can illustrate the benefits of Business Model Innovation. Currently, each of the business cases involves between three and 19 TCBL Associates (both Labs and Enterprises). Each of the six business cases addresses a different challenge faced by the T+C sector: •
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The Natural Cotton business case seeks to exploit the increasing interest of consumers in purchasing ecologically and socially sustainable products. From the manufactures’ perspective exploiting this trend is challenging because it requires changes in manufacturing practices. From the consumer side, confusing certification schemes make it hard to understand the extent to which a product has been manufactured sustainably. Against this background, this business case has brought together three Greek businesses covering the whole cotton value chain to produce a set of sample garments made from sustainable cotton which can be fully traced from seed to designed product. The Short Runs business case seeks to address key barriers to short runs producing related to the low volume, minimum order quantities, cost of fabrics and low priority of small order quantities. It seeks to create a network of textile and garment manufacturers wanting to produce short runs and designers wanting to sell small quantities of garments and facilitate transactions between them in order to demonstrate new business opportunities, some to be advanced via secure online platforms. The Eco-friendly production business case aims to build an ecosystem consisting of businesses who share the same vision of creating a more sustainable supply chain. The case will promote awareness about transparency and sustainability issues for the production of quality products, and will allow enterprises of a given value chain to collect sustainability data/information to make the supply chain more environmentallyfriendly. This will show that a viable alternative to current products, markets and supply chains is possible. The BioShades business case seeks to address the environmental harm caused by conventional dyeing processes by exploring the feasibility of using dye produced from bacteria on textiles and eventually creating a services offer on this subject to support wider take-up. The Digital Heritage business case aims to exploit the potential value of historical material – sample books and data sheets, in the case of textiles – to designers by raising awareness of the importance of archives and testing/experimenting potential heritage based innovations and creative processes (such as archives digitisation, creative re-interpretation of textile heritage, new marketing strategies based on heritage marketing). The business case aims to highlight the creative potential of new generations of designers; offer innovative approaches to collections; develop new ‘heritage-based’ business models and tools for young professionals in the industry. Archives therefore represent an opportunity: if they were properly stored, catalogued and digitised they could represent a significant resource for designers. Independent designers are often more in tune with emerging social and fashion trends, but the fashion world is not made for them as it is geared towards large scale production. The Independents business case seeks to work with, and empower, individuals and small scale textiles and clothing enterprises by helping them improve their businesses with innovative services. By drawing on the expertise of TCBL labs and linking them up with other Associate enterprises, the case wants to improve
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2017 Evaluation Digest TCBL Handbooks Textile & Clothing Business Labs independents’ manufacturing processes and competitiveness to further social and environmental gains. Each of the TCBL business cases is designed to develop over a number of phases in which – among others – the number of participating members of the TCBL ecosystem is expected to grow significantly. One vehicle for this is the alignment of the second call for Associate Enterprises in 2017 with the needs of the business case. Across the cases, these phases can broadly be characterised as: piloting or demonstrating feasibility of the case (Phase 1); expanding and deepening of the business case collaboration (Phase 2); and scaling (Phase 3). Early results of the work carried out within the framework of the business cases include: creation of novel supply networks consisting of several TCBL Associate Enterprises and Associate Labs which had not previously worked together; and early signs of outcomes relating to some determinants of effective (manufacturing) capacity, including learning gains and some relating to process and external factors (such as standards). With their activities, the business cases can be expected to make a contribution to the longer term TCBL impact objectives (5% increase in manufacturing capacity; 20 per cent reduction in ecological footprint; creation of new embedded services; and creation of a novel supply network of 1,000 organisations).
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LEARNING In each of the themes explored in this digest, TCBL has generated rich learning. For instance, while the strength of connections between network members has grown, groups seem to be forming and there is a sub-group of members that are less well connected. We are not yet in a position to draw conclusions about what this means, and we cannot conclude that those not connected are not active, part of a change process or otherwise benefiting from TCBL. Some more investigation of these dynamic will need to be undertaken over the coming years understand their importance better. The business cases are modelling a different way of working in the T+C sector. These experimentations are leading to the identification of some unforeseen practical challenges with radically innovating (e.g. the safety and logistical challenges of using bacterial dye outside of a laboratory). These are being worked with successfully so far, and are providing ‘grassroots’ examples and evidence for the need for ongoing adaptation in the complex TCBL ecosystem as an integral part of the innovation activities. Finally, the TCBL conference is an important moment for connecting between network members and has shown to be one of the multiple drivers of change in the ‘lots and lots’ of activities of the TCBL project that together are all working towards the four high level outcomes the project is seeking to achieve.
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DOCUMENT INFORMATION REVISION HISTORY REVISION
DATE
Version 1 Version 2
AUTHOR
ORGANISATION
DESCRIPTION
28.07.2017 Kerstin Junge
TIHR
Production of digest
30.07.2017 Jesse Marsh
Prato
Layout and graphics adjustments
STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY This deliverable contains original unpublished work except where clearly indicated otherwise. Acknowledgement of previously published material and of the work of others has been made through appropriate citation, quotation or both.
COPYRIGHT This work is licensed by the TCBL Consortium under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, 2015. For details, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ The TCBL Consortium, consists of: Municipality of Prato (PRATO) Italy; German Institutes for Textile and Fiber Research - Center for Management Research (DITF) Germany; Istituto Superiore Mario Boella (ISMB) Italy; Skillaware (SKILL) Italy; imec (IMEC) Belgium; Tavistock Institute (TAVI) UK; Materials Industrial Research & Technology Center S.A. (MIRTEC) Greece; Waag Society (WAAG) Netherlands; Huddersfield & District Textile Training Company Ltd (TCOE) UK; eZavod (eZAVOD) Slovenia; Consorzio Arca (ARCA) Italy; Unioncamere del Veneto (UCV); Italy; Hellenic Clothing Industry Association (HCIA) Greece; Sanjotec - Centro Empresarial e Tecnolรณgico (SANJO) Portugal; Clear Communication Associates Ltd (CCA) UK.
DISCLAIMER All information included in this document is subject to change without notice. The Members of the TCBL Consortium make no warranty of any kind with regard to this document, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The Members of the TCBL Consortium shall not be held liable for errors contained herein or direct, indirect, special, incidental or consequential damages in connection with the furnishing, performance, or use of this material.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The TCBL project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Programme for research, technology development, and innovation under Grant Agreement n.646133.
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