EngD in Digital Textile Ecosystem Identification and Orchestration

You will build labeled image datasets with repair and sorting partners and train computer vision and machine learning models that classify damage, condition, and material. You will combine these assessments with product passport, manufacturing and production data, partner capacity and environmental impact into decision models that route garments to repair, reuse, resale, remanufacturing or recycling. At ecosystem level, you will explore how AI can orchestrate the value chain, feeding what is learned from used garments back into design and manufacturing so that companies can plan production, repair and recovery together.

This is a collaborative role. You will work alongside manufacturers, designers, sorters, and repair specialists, learn how they make decisions today, and translate their expertise into data and models they can trust. You will be part of a public-private field lab with TU/e, industry, design researchers, and the Dutch Textile Campus, with close supervision and room to grow as an engineer.

Your work keeps textiles in use longer, provides SMEs with evidence for new European producer responsibility rules, and turns textile waste into a resource for new production that works together. In this project, we examine how the knowledge generated informs all industries in the region.