Lesson #5: Make Efficiency Your Secret Weapon
Lesson #5: Make Efficiency Your Secret Weapon
Bailey is now American Apparel’s Vice President of Operations and the efficiency he brought to the company remains. One of his main strategies was to create what he calls “team manufacturing,” where groups of eight to ten people work on a single garment together, each performing a different task.
“Every nine seconds there’s a garment moving from operator to operator,” says Bailey. “We have teams that are producing 3,000 pieces a day. Right now, I can manufacture a t-shirt from start to finish in 90 seconds.”
Charney claims that his downtown Los Angeles factory can now produce more than one million garments a week. “As a result of this system, we’re able to compete with China and kick ass the American way,” he says. “It's less expensive, for me, the way we do business, to manufacture here in the United States. There's a high cost to going offshore.”
Having what Charney calls a “vertically integrated” system, with everything being knitted, dyed, cut, and sewn in Los Angeles not only saves him the costs of outsourcing, but it also lets him capitalize faster on the latest trends. “If you're working with a supplier in China, you've got to work months in advance,” he says. “If you're working with your own factory, you can wake up one morning and say, ‘Hey, let's make 10,000 tank tops today.’”
The clothes are made as efficiently as possible. For instance, American Apparel’s best-selling underwear is all made from recycled fabric scraps. Charney also insists on quick transfers between stores should there be a need. “Let's get something small – maybe a moped!” Charney exclaimed once. “Get a kid to just ride it from store to store. Some kids get off on that – living off exhaust! A customer could wait while this yahoo gets on his bike and gets his ass over here.”
Charney is determined to be as efficient as possible. It is not only the production side of operations that has been streamlined. Customer orders are processed faster than most others in the business. So long as a customer orders a product before 3:00 PT, the company will ship it the same day. If a product is out of stock, because everything is done from the same downtown L.A. factory, it can still be cut and sewn in time for the afternoon shipping deadlines.
“You know the face of your worker ... engineers and designers and finance people and knitters and dyers and chemists can come together in one location and say, ‘How can we do this better?’” says Charney. “You can produce products more efficiently than they can be made on an outsource basis.”
Lesson 5 Make Efficiency Your Secret Weapon
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When Charney filed for bankruptcy it was because American Apparel was suffering from a lack of one thing: efficiency. His staff were all in their 20s, a wildly creative bunch when it came to graphics and design, but few knew the ins and outs of running a business. And so Charney brought on Marty Bailey, an industry expert, who helped make efficiency American Apparel’s secret weapon against its competitors.
Bailey is now American Apparel’s Vice President of Operations and the efficiency he brought to the company remains. One of his main strategies was to create what he calls “team manufacturing,” where groups of eight to ten people work on a single garment together, each performing a different task.
“Every nine seconds there’s a garment moving from operator to operator,” says Bailey. “We have teams that are producing 3,000 pieces a day. Right now, I can manufacture a t-shirt from start to finish in 90 seconds.”
Charney claims that his downtown Los Angeles factory can now produce more than one million garments a week. “As a result of this system, we’re able to compete with China and kick ass the American way,” he says. “It's less expensive, for me, the way we do business, to manufacture here in the United States. There's a high cost to going offshore.”
Having what Charney calls a “vertically integrated” system, with everything being knitted, dyed, cut, and sewn in Los Angeles not only saves him the costs of outsourcing, but it also lets him capitalize faster on the latest trends. “If you're working with a supplier in China, you've got to work months in advance,” he says. “If you're working with your own factory, you can wake up one morning and say, ‘Hey, let's make 10,000 tank tops today.’”
The clothes are made as efficiently as possible. For instance, American Apparel’s best-selling underwear is all made from recycled fabric scraps. Charney also insists on quick transfers between stores should there be a need. “Let's get something small – maybe a moped!” Charney exclaimed once. “Get a kid to just ride it from store to store. Some kids get off on that – living off exhaust! A customer could wait while this yahoo gets on his bike and gets his ass over here.”
Charney is determined to be as efficient as possible. It is not only the production side of operations that has been streamlined. Customer orders are processed faster than most others in the business. So long as a customer orders a product before 3:00 PT, the company will ship it the same day. If a product is out of stock, because everything is done from the same downtown L.A. factory, it can still be cut and sewn in time for the afternoon shipping deadlines.
“You know the face of your worker ... engineers and designers and finance people and knitters and dyers and chemists can come together in one location and say, ‘How can we do this better?’” says Charney. “You can produce products more efficiently than they can be made on an outsource basis.”
Lesson 5 Make Efficiency Your Secret Weapon
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Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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