Bespoke Uniform and
Leadtimes

Over the last couple of years the number of requests made by clients and potential clients has been on the rise. As a consequence at Uniforms by Creative we have had to shift our focus and offering and enlarge our supplier base to meet the demands and needs of our clients.

I recently sat down with one of our suppliers to find out how a good quality garment is made and why the leadtimes can vary:

Where are garments made?

“We own factories in Romania, Bangladesh and China, whilst we also work in partnership with a number of other factories in China”

There are of course a number of reasons for this:

• Cost - The further ‘East’ you go the cheaper the garment it is to make, the con with this is the longer the leadtime
• The sourcing of raw materials for the garments
• Skilled workforce
• It is important to be based across a number of different continents due the forever changing global political landscape; in addition factories in China close for Chinese New Year which can also have an effect.

What are the benefits of owning your own factory?

• Quality control - We have absolute control at every stage of the process. If something isn’t right it doesn’t go any further we rectify it there and then or start the process again.
• Communication - People at the coalface as it were, are able to report live if there are any problems. Again this gives us the opportunity to intervene at any time and sort any problems immediately.
• If something needs to be done we can keep running 24/7.

Time in transit:

• Naturally, the further away a garment is being made the longer it is going to take to reach the UK. This is again part of the reason why we have factories in Europe as it can take weeks off the leadtimes,

Something to note about transit is that, places are becoming far more accessible and the time in transit has greatly reduced over the last decade alone. For example the other week a new (or ancient in actual fact) trade route has opened between London and China.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38497997

Arriving in the UK - Warehousing

• It’s important to note again that no garments would reach the UK unless they have already met strict QA requirements. However the garments are checked in and then -
• Steam cleaned
• Further QA checks to ensure nothing has spoiled in transit
• We then securely store all garments until they are called off.

For ourselves this is pretty much the last step before we deliver the garments to the various places. We leave the branding of our garments up to suppliers like Uniforms by Creative.

Other things to mention -

Almost all of the time there is a minimum order quantity.

Design of garment and the composition of the fabrics.