Aster Textile, Turkish garment maker to open plant in Serbia in Sept

Aster Textile, one of the largest and fast growing knitted (jersey) and woven womenswear, menswear and kidswear producer and ranked one of the top ten exporters in Turkey plans to open a plant in the Serbian southern city of Nis, the local Office for Economic Development in September.

The investment in the production facility will total 7.2 million euro ($7.9 million), of which 2 million euro are state aid, Prime Minister-designate Aleksandar Vucic said during his visit to Nis in April.

The production facility will be housed in a former industrial building, whose reconstruction will be completed next month. It will initially employ 250 but the staff is seen to reach 2,000 in three years, owner Ismail Kocali said.

The investor also said that the factory will produce garments for the world’s most famous brands. Exports are expected to reach 60 million euro a year.

Aster has a very strong design team and 95% of their orders come from their own design besides they have one of the largest showroom in Turkey.

The company has also implemented an “ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)” module initially in its factories, and since has instigated the module across all departments. Another critical path program (CPP) has been integrated into this module. Within this module, all departments can view the production plan and deadlines. Since scheduling is based on the planned CPP, production planning is more effective. As a result of the production timetable, overtime hours have decreased over the last three years.,