Supporting a Client Moving to Asset Light Operations
A long-standing customer shut down their own production lines to become a pure brand operator. Their narrow fabric supply had to survive the transition intact.
Client Background
A long-term customer that closed its manufacturing and became a brand operator
The Challenge
The customer announced the full shutdown of their production lines and moved to outsourcing all manufacturing to third-party contractors. Everything that had been controlled in-house now had to be specified, documented and handed to someone else.
Customer Pain Points
- Quality consistency passing out of the brand's direct control
- Delivery schedules negotiated by a contractor rather than by the brand
- After-sales responsibility becoming harder to place
- Component specifications that only existed as shop floor knowledge
What We Did
The webbing specification was documented properly rather than carried in people's heads: width, thickness, fibre, dye reference and jacquard plate all recorded against the brand's own reference so that whichever contractor assembles the product, the strap arrives identical.
How It Ran
- Existing specifications written down in full against the brand's reference
- Dye references and approved woven samples archived at the mill
- Jacquard plates filed so branding survives a change of assembler
- Supply quoted to the brand while shipping to whichever contractor they nominate
- One point of contact retained on the brand side through the change
Result
The component specification stayed stable through a change that moved almost everything else. The brand kept control of the one part of the product that carries its name.
What A Buyer Can Take From It
Asset-light works when the specification, not the factory, is the asset. Archiving colour references and jacquard plates at the mill is a cheap way to keep that asset intact.
Ranges Involved
Jacquard Webbing
Your logo woven into the strap itself on computer jacquard looms, so the branding cannot peel, crack or wash off.
Polyester Webbing
Dimensionally stable polyester tape for straps that must hold their shape, their colour and their rated load outdoors.
Book Head and Tail Bands
Bookbinding headbands and endbands that finish the head and tail of a hardcover block, in cotton, linen and polyester.
Relevant Industries
Other Order Stories
Questions This Order Raises
We are outsourcing assembly, can you ship to our contractor
Yes. We quote and invoice you and ship to whichever assembler you nominate, working from the specification archived under your reference.
How do you keep our branding consistent across different assemblers
The jacquard plate and the approved dye reference stay with us and stay attached to your order reference, so the strap does not change when the assembler does.
Bring Us The Awkward Order
A fixed date, a contractor in another country, a colour that has to match something from three years ago. Those are the interesting ones.