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Tips, tricks, and advice on getting a sewn product idea into development and manufacture.
Heather Zager: [00:00:00] Hello everyone, and welcome to today's podcast. My name is Heather Zager. I am the host of this podcast series and founder of Made Apparel Services.
Heather Zager: [00:00:12] Hi everyone. Heather here from Made Apparel Services. Welcome back to my channel. In this final episode of my four part series called Concept to Customer, I'm going to talk about types of manufacturers. But before I start, if you haven't listened to the other podcasts, that is okay as they aren't in any particular order. I only numbered them to distinguish them from my other podcasts that aren't in this series. Now, the topics I discuss in this series of Concept to Customer are on design concepting, material sourcing, and size and fit. Those are the other three. These, along with today's podcast, are the four most common areas of confusion or misunderstanding that I've found that new designers have when it comes to visualizing and understanding how the entire process of getting an idea to market works. To understand the types of manufacture for garments or sewn goods, we first need to understand what manufacture is. So the idea of mass manufacture is founded in the concept that machines can do better work faster than people. Technically, it is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products at a constant flow. Now, humans can certainly accomplish this when you think about the pyramids, for example. But you need a whole lot of people, and even then the work won't be as consistently perfect or reliable.
Heather Zager: [00:01:34] Now, the use of machines helps manage not only the cost of labor, but it removes variables such as differing abilities and skills, which is the consistency of the work, along with things like sick days and vacations, which is the reliability aspect, and even small things like lunch breaks and shift changes or employee meetings and the list goes on. However, mass production is money and energy intensive for the manufacturer. The machinery that is needed to set up a mass production line is expensive, and that machinery uses a lot of power, along with other day to day expenses like maintenance and repair. So in order to attain a profit margin that will keep the manufacturer in business, there must be some assurance that the cost of buying and running the equipment will be reimbursed. And this is where minimum order quantities factor in. There are many ways a manufacturer will evaluate the profitability of a project, but there is only one you need to understand and that is how ready you are. If you already have a sewn product business, that will be very attractive to them for a few reasons. First, you have cash flow. You're not just using a savings account that's limited to cover costs. It also tells them that you are already understanding what manufacture entails and the process behind it. You'll be a little bit easier for them to take forward through the process more quickly. You probably won't have as many questions if it's not your first time.
Heather Zager: [00:03:06] Additionally, you already know your target customer and how to market to them. You also have some skin in the game, so you're more likely to work harder to ensure your product is successful because your business and your brand reputation will depend on your success. And all of this is important for one reason, which is repeat business. For a new designer who isn't already selling product, you'll need another way to prove that you are ready and that you have the potential for repeat business. And that is whether or not you have a tech pack. This is true even for an existing business, but for a new designer it will be the sole determining factor. Let's talk about what a tech pack is and isn't. I get a lot of "tech packs" from people who think they are ready for manufacture, but their tech packs are only 1 or 2 pages and they're just a couple of illustrations, a few call outs and maybe even some measurements. This is a start, but it's not complete from a manufacture perspective. There's an exception to this, which I will explain in a minute, but the production process is like baking. You should have a list of ingredients, where to buy them, instructions on how to combine them, what equipment to use, temperature settings, cook times, and so on. You don't just show a baker a cookie and say, give me a price for making 300 of these. They need the recipe.
Heather Zager: [00:04:29] The exception I just mentioned a few moments ago is that it is totally possible to find a manufacturer who will produce your design from just a spec sheet, but every detail that you leave out is still one that they need. They cannot manufacture your design until they know how it goes together, and they will not manufacture it until you approve a sample. If they do it wrong, they don't want to have made thousands of them. So you'll pay for this development either as an upfront cost or in the per piece price. And you may not even realize that that is being factored in, but you also won't necessarily be involved in their development process. Now, you may be okay with this at first, but when you get the sample to approve, it won't be as you expected. You might think you know how to explain what you want different and send it back to them, but when the next sample arrives, it will likely be wrong in five new ways. So you start chasing this process around and it's called iterating. It is lengthy and expensive and frustrating, and to get caught in this iteration cycle is hard to get out of.
Heather Zager: [00:05:36] So how do you know if you have a tech pack instead of a spec sheet? Well, if you haven't sewn a sample, then you don't have a tech pack. In other words, if you haven't baked the cookie yourself, someone else is going to have to guess at the recipe. I know it doesn't seem like there are a lot of ways to mess up a chocolate chip cookie, but if you don't tell them, it should be round and made with 100% butter and free range eggs, I guarantee you it will come to you in the shape of a bar and be 100% vegan. When you have a sewn sample, more of the process has been in your control before you go to manufacture, and you have a lot more information you can put in your tech pack, and this makes you more ready in their eyes when they do look at your tech pack and see how complete it is. Obviously a sample means that you have a pattern, so they won't need to develop that for you. Make sure your pattern is done to the correct size for your target market though, and I go into more detail on this in the third episode in this series, on 'Size and Fit'.
Heather Zager: [00:06:36] Another aspect of having a sample is that those cut pieces need to be sewn together in a particular order. If you've sewn a sample, you can now include this sequence of construction, or order of operations, in your tech pack so they aren't having to figure it out on their own on how your design goes together, especially if it's complex. Other details come together by having a sewn sample too, like confirming elastic cut lengths and stitch types that are used. But most important is that, again, you are in control of your own sampling process. If you have to iterate a few times to get it right, that is fine. It's putting that iteration process in somebody else's hands that you want to avoid. I have a blog post on 'The Ten Reasons to Have a Tech Pack' if you want to check that out, but I'll go over just a few of them here in a little bit more detail. As I mentioned, a complete tech pack establishes an instruction manual of your product, but being complete and thorough ensures consistency during things you may not even think of, like staff changeover at the manufacturer. The production facilities are also enormous, and it's possible that just one page is torn off and given to only the person on the assembly line that does that task, and a good and thorough tech pack will anticipate this and account for it, making it much easier for your manufacturer to do your design for you and do it quickly and do it right the first time.
Heather Zager: [00:08:00] Your design is also in writing, so you have recourse if there are any errors in production or something doesn't go to plan. I had a client many, many years ago that we did the tech pack for, and she did produce overseas. They sent her everything and I guess she didn't have a sample done, but they did 100 garments for her and they sent them to her and they were all in centimeters instead of inches. She had to send them all back and they corrected the error, but it was just kind of a waste of all the material, too, because they just discard that. That's a whole other topic that one day I'll do a podcast on. Also, being a part of the development of your design to create a complete tech pack will give you a much greater understanding of how the garment is made in the first place, and you'll learn some things about the whole development process. This allows you to speak in detail and intelligently about your design, not only to manufacturers, but also retailers or buyers or investors. You also will own the rights to your pattern and you will have it.
Heather Zager: [00:09:03] If you have somebody else, a manufacturer, develop your pattern, it's going to be in as simple of a format as possible just so that they can get into production for you. They may give you the pattern at any time you ask for it, but it will be a little bit hard to understand by the next pattern maker, and it may be delivered to you in a file format that is not compatible with other software, and it can be kind of a headache. So if you create your pattern with a pattern maker and you're in control of that process, you circumvent that problem. Also, you'll have the flexibility to change manufacturers or use more than one manufacturer at a time if you have your own tech pack and pattern. You can also develop your design in stages prior to manufacture, to help spread out costs and go at a more comfortable pace. This is actually how I do my business. If you look at the 'How It Works' page on my website at madeapparelservices.com, you'll see that I break down the whole process into steps and it makes it a little bit more manageable. You'll also have a comprehensive and thorough tech pack to show that you are a very organized and professional, and at the end of the day, it is just the industry standard.
Heather Zager: [00:10:18] Now that we've talked about the expectations manufacturers have of you and how to be the most ready you can be for them, let's check in for a minute to make sure that you have the right expectations of them. First, I want to define a few things, and that is the difference between a factory, a manufacturer, and an agency, because this will be important in understanding what I'm going to talk about next. So a factory is the place that actually does the cutting and sewing. And that's pretty much it, by definition. The manufacturer is the entity that will own the factories. They can also outsource or contract out some of the production. For example, if you have a jean and they don't do jeans, they may subcontract to a jean factory. Think of them as something of a project manager, and they also may have their own factory in-house. Now an agency is, you can think of them as, a broker in the sense that they don't have their own in-house setup. They are truly using their network of factories and facilities and subcontractors to connect with and together to really outsource your production. So an agency would be maybe a US based entity that's using factories overseas. You will communicate with the agency and they will communicate with the factory, and that can sometimes be a really good way to do overseas manufacture.
Heather Zager: [00:11:51] Sewn goods production can be generally categorized into two types. There's cut make trim, which is CMT, and full package production, which is FPP. Now CMT is more like a factory, which is just the cut and sew, and FPP is more like a manufacturer or even an agency. Neither is better than the other, but if you're expecting a production partner to do a lot of work for you and you've hired a factory, you might think they aren't listening well or doing subpar services. And it could be frustrating for you because they don't have your back, so to speak. Alternatively, if you want to be very hands on, then using FPP might make you feel a little bit left out or in the dark on how things are getting to the points that they're getting to. They won't stop and tell you every single step that they're doing, they're just going to hit milestones, get your approval, and go on to the next step. To break these down a little bit further, a full package production facility is great for those without a lot of technical knowledge, or that are on limited time. Apart from sewists, FPPs have designers, pattern makers, fabrics and trimming specialists and other experts all under one roof. They can source all the materials and supplies that you need, and get them in quantities that make sense for the size of your order. FPP will guide you through the entire process of getting your concept launched, but will be doing all the legwork for you. In the long run, they may actually be cheaper and leave you plenty of room to grow, but the entry level cost is much more than a new designer can usually afford, and many want to be a bigger part of the development process.
Heather Zager: [00:13:26] FPPs usually have much larger minimum order quantities, or MOQs, to offset all the support they offer under one roof, so expect to make at least 300 pieces to start. And if you have a super complex design, it's going to probably go overseas to be done and they're going to require a lot more MOQ overseas. But the good news is that you don't need a tech pack. If you have one, though, you can get into production quicker and at a lower cost with them. So whether they're doing the developing or you're doing it, they can work with you either way. A cut, make, trim facility allows you to retain control over almost everything, including things like tags, labels, and packaging, and they'll almost expect you to. Using CMT can also give you an advantage in terms of tightening lead times and lowering quantities, which can be nice if you have a lot of design ideas. CMT factories have many advantages over FPP, but mostly they're great if you're new to sewn goods and or have limited capital, but be sure you come to them prepared. They will not only require sew by samples, patterns, comprehensive tech packs, but they'll also need your sources for fabrics and trims, and they will also charge you to sew a sample of your design first, before giving you costing for any amount of production. Both types of manufacturers can be found in the US and overseas, but an agency might be best for overseas production. However, full package production can own their own factories overseas too, and they're not an agency because they own their factories, they're not just networking with them. In any case, a CMT will require a tech pack, whereas an FPP can help you even without one. Just make sure you are honest with yourself about how prepared you are, and decide if you need more development and if you want to be in control of that or hand it off.
Heather Zager: [00:15:21] The last thing I want to touch on is small batch manufacture versus large scale production. When we talk about MOQs, or minimum order quantities, we're talking about a production facility offsetting their costs at a per piece rate. Remember at the beginning of this podcast, I mentioned that manufacture equipment is expensive and it consumes a lot of energy. Plus the time it takes for a manufacturer to set up their machines and workers, or any other staff specific for your production run has a cost. If you are not making enough quantity to spread that cost out in a way that is reasonable, they are going to increase the MOQ requirement to make the price reasonable for you. For example, if it costs $1,000 for a manufacturer to set up and produce your design and you only want 10, that's $100 per unit, and you'll probably say no because you're making t-shirts and you can only sell them for $25. But if they made 1000 t-shirts, then they are at $1 per unit and you achieve a profit of $24, in the simplest of terms. If you don't think you can sell 1000 t-shirts, though, then you may feel like that same $1,000 investment is not reasonable for a whole different reason, which is just that you have too many t-shirts. Not to mention the space it will take in your garage because you'll need to store these someplace. So the answer to this issue may be small batch, but at an hourly rate, such as hiring a sewist or even us at Made Apparel. If you have a simple enough design that you are selling at, say, $25 per piece, and four of them can be sewn in an hour at an hourly rate of $100 an hour. Then you are at $25 per piece and you don't have 1000 of them. You won't make a profit, but you don't lose it either. And you still get to sell your design to test the market and try to get traction or get user study feedback, whatever you want to do as you're starting as a new designer with a new brand, but you also save space in your garage.
Heather Zager: [00:17:22] Okay, I lied that that was the last thing I wanted to touch on. I do have one more thing, which is common misconceptions about manufacture, and I have five of them that I tend to find people don't necessarily understand. One is that people think manufacturers can sew anything and it's not necessarily true. Clothing manufacturers specialize in different areas and thus have different capabilities and strengths. So if your design uses something like a stitch type that only a specific machine can create, or you're using a complex fabric such as neoprene or leather, you must find a manufacturer that has the specialized equipment and experience to meet those construction requirements. And this could narrow your playing field a little bit when you're trying to find a manufacturer but that's okay. Just go in knowing that, and you'll just have to work a little bit harder to find a manufacturer that you'll be compatible with. The second misconception is about sharing confidential information. You really do need to share essential details of your design to just get the conversation started. You don't need to send a full tech pack or your sewing samples, but you need to confirm that the manufacturer can do the work. So be prepared to provide a few clear illustrations and answer questions about your design so they can determine if it is a fit for their capabilities.
Heather Zager: [00:18:35] Another misconception is that you don't need to sew samples for each new design, and in reality, you really should. A sewn sample provides an opportunity for you to review the quality and accuracy of the work. It also minimizes production errors by revealing any mistakes before it's repeated hundreds of times. And while you will likely pay for the sample, it can be used later for quality control checks. Additionally, you will get much more accurate estimate of costs by having a sample made. Some manufacturers even require you to approve the sample to ensure you have reviewed their work and understand the costing. If you have something basic like a t-shirt, you may not necessarily need to have a sample done, but generally it's a good practice to get a sample sewn first. A fourth misconception is that because you have a tech pack, a pattern and a sample, you don't need a production agreement. But in reality, a written agreement is always beneficial because it outlines details such as the number of units to be sewn, delivery dates and payment terms and conditions. If you don't have an agreement, then at least make sure your tech pack includes a sequence of construction, a bill of materials, a pattern pieces list, and a measurement chart of your size range. These should ensure the garments are sewn correctly even if you have a disagreement about timeline or payment terms.
Heather Zager: [00:19:54] Another misconception, and we touched on this a little bit, is that all manufacturers are the same, when in reality they're not. There's the CMT versus the FPP and there will be some overlap between these, but if you choose one expecting the services of the other, you will likely end up confused and frustrated and so will they. So take time to understand the unique services that each manufacturer provides, so that you're clear on what they do or don't do. Also, keep in mind that a factory's business model, or the type of work they will do, can shift with the economy or with demand. A great example is the COVID19 pandemic. Hundreds of manufacturers halted independent garment production and shifted to contract work making masks. So be flexible or have a backup manufacturer in case one gets busy, shifts priorities, or otherwise can't meet your needs. But this also means if you reach out to one today and they can't help you, they might be more willing or able to tomorrow. So don't give up trying to find a manufacturer that is a good fit for you, no pun intended. Okay, that's it for today's podcast. Thank you so much for listening and I hope you enjoyed it.
Heather Zager: [00:21:08] Thank you for listening to today's episode. We hope that you enjoyed it. If we didn't answer all of your questions, or you just have some comments or suggestions about future podcast episodes, please email me at heather@madeapparelservices.com.