What should brands and manufacturers consider before investing in a 3D configurator?
At FESPA Mexico 2026, Ben Sosinski, VP of Product at Embodee, shared his perspective on what brands and manufacturers should think about when investing in customization technology, from the initial product setup to what happens once an order reaches production.
A 3D configurator can make it easier for customers to visualize products, choose colors, add graphics, and personalize designs before placing an order. But there’s a lot more happening behind the scenes. Product assets need to be managed, designs approved, and orders prepared for manufacturing. And as customization volumes grow, these processes can become increasingly difficult to manage without adding more manual work.
Throughout the conversation, Ben discusses some of the challenges brands and manufacturers face when scaling customization, why communication between the two matters, and what makes automating production particularly complex in team sports.
Watch the full interview with Ben Sosinski, VP of Product at Embodee, recorded at FESPA Mexico 2026.
1. What should brands and manufacturers know before investing in a 3D configurator?
When businesses start looking into 3D configurators, the conversation often begins with the customer experience. How realistic will the product look? What customization options can customers choose from? How easy will it be to integrate the experience into an ecommerce store?
These are all important considerations, but they don’t tell the whole story. A configurator might deliver an excellent shopping experience while leaving the teams behind the scenes with just as much manual work as before.
Before making that investment, brands and manufacturers should consider how the technology fits into their existing processes. Where will the 3D assets live? How do you get the assets into the system? Who does the artwork? How will approvals work? How do the sublimation files get generated and then sent to the printer? And perhaps most importantly, what happens to the customer’s design once an order is placed?
For example, if every customized order still needs to be recreated in Illustrator before it can be sent to production, the business hasn’t necessarily solved one of its biggest operational challenges. Understanding the hidden costs of production preparation can help businesses evaluate the full impact of that manual work before choosing a platform.
For those earlier in the evaluation process, it’s also worth understanding what a 3D product configurator can do and how different solutions approach everything beyond the visual experience.
The point isn’t that the customer-facing configurator matters less. It’s that the investment should make sense for the entire business workflow, not just the ecommerce experience.
2. What advice would you give brands looking to scale customization?
For Ben, it comes down to communication, particularly between the brand and the factory.
In customized apparel, especially team sports, there are often dozens of design options to manage. Different colors, graphics, logos, and personalization details all need to be communicated clearly, and many of those decisions require visual feedback and approval before production can move forward.
The challenge becomes even greater when brands work with multiple manufacturing partners. Design assets might be stored in one place, feedback exchanged through email, and approvals tracked somewhere else. As more factories become involved, keeping everyone aligned can become increasingly difficult.
Ben’s point is that brands should think about how to bring those conversations and assets together. Having a central place where teams can review designs, share feedback, track approvals, and refer back to previous decisions makes it easier to maintain consistency as the business grows.
It’s not necessarily about eliminating communication between teams, but making sure that communication is organized, accessible, and useful to everyone involved in bringing the product to market.
3. What advice would you give brands looking to scale customization?
When it comes to scaling customization, Ben recommends looking for solutions that combine automation with greater control over product setup.
In many configurator solutions, brands and manufacturers depend heavily on the technology provider to prepare products for customization. Setting up colors, graphics, layouts, and other options can be a time-consuming process, particularly when new designs need to be introduced regularly.
That dependency can become a bottleneck as a business grows. Even relatively simple updates may require additional coordination, rather than being handled directly by the teams managing the products.
Ben explains that Embodee takes a different approach by allowing customers to manage more of that process themselves. Brands and manufacturers can upload their existing 3D assets, apply colors and layout options from a library, and configure products for customization. They can also manage the sublimation setup that supports automated production-file generation.
This gives businesses more control over how their products are prepared and maintained, without requiring the same level of manual involvement from the platform provider for every change.
For brands evaluating different technologies, it’s worth looking beyond the number of customization options a platform supports and considering how easy those options are to manage internally. Our article on 3D sportswear configurators explores some of the product-management capabilities that become important as customization offerings expand.
Automation matters, but so does giving the people closest to the product the tools to manage it.
4. Why is automating sublimation production so challenging in team sports?
Team sports presents a particularly difficult challenge for production automation because of the number of variations involved in each order.
Ben identifies three main reasons why manufacturers have traditionally relied on manual artwork preparation: the sheer number of customization options, roster personalization, and the differences between garment sizes.
The number of customization options
Team sports brands often offer extensive design flexibility so teams can create uniforms that look distinct from one another. Customers may choose from different colors, graphics, fonts, logos, and placement options, creating a large number of possible combinations.
To manage those variations, many manufacturers rely on designers to manually prepare artwork in Adobe Illustrator templates. This gives them precise control over where graphics and text appear, how many characters can fit in a particular area, and whether the finished design meets their production requirements.
The challenge with automation is earning that same level of trust. If a system can’t reliably apply the correct placement rules, manufacturers may still prefer to handle the artwork manually.
Roster personalization
A team typically chooses one uniform design, but every player may need a different name and number. That means a single team order can require multiple variations of the same artwork.
Traditionally, someone has to enter those details into the production templates, check each name, and adjust text that doesn’t fit correctly. A longer surname, for example, may need to be resized to stay within the designated print area.
Automating this process requires more than importing a list of player names. The system needs to apply the appropriate formatting and placement rules to each individual garment.
Different garment sizes
The third challenge is often overlooked: size runs.
A customer might customize a jersey using a single 3D sample size, but that design needs to work across every size being ordered. The correct placement for a player name or number on one size may not be appropriate for another.
As Ben explains, manufacturers need to account for these differences to make sure artwork looks right on the finished garment. That means production automation must understand how placement rules change across sizes, rather than simply copying the same artwork coordinates onto every pattern.
This is one of the areas Embodee has focused on developing. Its artwork-placement tools allow businesses to define precise positioning and apply rules that account for fonts, layouts, and individual garment sizes.
For a closer look at the production side, our article on connecting 3D teamwear customization to production-ready files explains how reusable layouts and personalization information can support automated artwork preparation.
Together, these three challenges help explain why automating sublimation production has been so difficult. It’s not simply about generating a print file. It’s about making sure every personalized design follows the rules required to produce it correctly, regardless of the number of variations, players, or sizes involved.
Beyond the 3D configurator: making customization work at scale
Throughout the interview, Ben highlights a common theme: successful customization depends on more than the technology customers interact with. It also requires clear communication between brands and manufacturers, greater control over product setup, and reliable processes for turning personalized designs into production-ready files.
These are the challenges Embodee Enterprise is designed to address. By bringing product customization, design rules, and production preparation into one platform, Embodee helps brands and manufacturers manage increasingly complex customization requirements without relying on the same level of manual work.
If you’re exploring 3D customization or looking to improve an existing process, we’d be happy to show you how it works.
Contact us at info@embodee.com to schedule a personalized demo
Frequently asked questions about 3D apparel customization
1. Can a 3D configurator generate production-ready files?
Some 3D configurators focus primarily on product visualization and the customer experience, while others support production workflows. Platforms like Embodee Enterprise can use customer selections and predefined product rules to generate manufacturing outputs, including print-ready artwork, layouts, and schematics, reducing the need to recreate designs manually after an order is placed.
2. Can brands manage their own 3D product customization setup? It depends on the platform. Some solutions require the technology provider to set up or update products, while others offer tools for brands and manufacturers to manage their own assets and customization options. Embodee Enterprise allows customers to upload existing 3D assets, configure colors and layouts, and manage product setup within the platform.
3. How can manufacturers automate personalized teamwear orders? Automating teamwear production requires a system that can handle design variations, player rosters, and artwork placement across different garment sizes. By defining customization and placement rules in advance, manufacturers can reduce the manual work involved in preparing individual player designs and production files.
4. What should apparel brands look for when choosing a 3D configurator? Beyond visualization quality and ecommerce integration, brands should evaluate how easily they can manage product assets, update customization options, communicate with manufacturing partners, and prepare orders for production. These capabilities become especially important as product variations and order volumes increase.
