Making Labels for Less
In the dense industrial center of Dongguan, in southern China, clothing maker Luen Thai Holdings Ltd. is busy cobbling together a "supply-chain city," a vast industrial campus that includes a factory, dormitories for 4,000 workers, and a 300-room hotel complete with coffee shop, gym and even a karaoke lounge.
The two-million square foot facility -- actually a garment factory in transformation -- promises to radically alter apparel production in the future.
It's being developed as a one-stop base of operations for Luen Thai and customers such as Liz Claiborne Inc. that now work in far-flung offices and factories around the globe. As early as next year, Liz Claiborne designers will be able to sit down with engineers from the factory and technicians from fabric mills to work together, bringing a garment from sketchpad to production in record time.
Liz Claiborne already has moved several sourcing employees from its Hong Kong offices to the Luen Thai campus. Some New York-based product development staff have been transferred to Hong Kong so they can be closer to the factory.
Luen Thai's supply-chain city underscores the major transformation in clothing production now under way as the industry prepares for the end of international apparel quotas on Dec. 31. The 30-year-old quota system was designed to put limits on the amount of textiles developing nations could export to industrialized countries. Because it prevented any one country from dominating the textile trade, it allowed fledgling apparel industries in nations such as Bangladesh and Saipan to flourish. When the agreement expires on Jan. 1, textile production is expected to consolidate into the few countries that can produce the best quality at the lowest cost.
No longer restricted in where they manufacture clothes, many big apparel companies are now preparing to consolidate operations, cutting down the time and expense of producing in various parts of the world. The liberalization of trade is expected to shutter small textile industries in countries like Mauritius, and result in a massive migration of jobs to low-cost, high-efficiency centers like China. It is also expected to lead to accelerated deflation in the industry, and cheaper garment prices.
Over the past year, apparel companies have been trying to figure out just how to prepare for the new post-quota landscape. Many in the industry are watching the progress of Liz Claiborne and Luen Thai to see whether supply chain cities will become a model in the future. "You can have fewer relationships and deeper ones than ever before," says Peter McGrath, chairman of J.C. Penney Co.'s purchasing corporation, and chairman of the U.S. Association of Importers of Textile and Apparel. "But that's a new model. It hasn't been tested before."
This innovative factory -- part of the Luen Thai campus in China -- produces clothing for brands including Liz Claiborne and Ralph Lauren.
Liz Claiborne, for example, currently has 250 suppliers in 35 countries as diverse as Saipan, Mexico and Cambodia. Currently, its designers in New York come up with a concept for a clothing line, which they then ship to their sourcing team in Hong Kong.
The teams confer with Luen Thai employees in Dongguan on what modifications need to be made in order to produce the line at the right cost. Luen Thai then goes looking for the right fabric. Any modifications that are made need to be checked all the way back up the line.
"Right now, there is a lot of duplication," says Chris Chan, Liz Claiborne's vice president for Asia. When prototypes come out of the factory they are sent back to New York to be inspected and possibly modified, then shipped back again to the factory in China. "When it's all finished, it gets checked again," Mr. Chan says. The process sucks up precious time and requires additional staff.
Instead of having 100 people spread between New York and Asia doing the same job, the new supply-chain city will enable the two companies to reduce staff to 60 people in China, concentrating all functions closer to the factory floor, Mr. Chan said. By moving all but the most critical designers and trend spotters to Asia, the company can dispense with the tedious back and forth, slashing precious weeks off production times and getting up-to-minute fashions into stores sooner.
After quotas are removed, Liz Claiborne expects to eventually consolidate sourcing in just a few countries from 35 now, says Mr. Chan. Its 250 suppliers will be reduced to about half that number within five years, vastly streamlining its supply chain.
Liz Claiborne's decision to make the big shift to China came last year after Luen Thai Chief Executive Henry Tan and Mr. Chan, long-time golf partners, tried to figure out how the end of apparel quotas would change their businesses. They knew that the volume of clothes made in China would skyrocket as buyers scrambled to relocate in low-cost areas, the two said. But they also thought that the savings in labor were just the tip of the iceberg. The real gains would come by reorganizing their entire production process so as to be able to cut down on turnaround times for new clothes and coordinate logisitics.
Mr. Tan developed a video presentation entitled "The Apparel Dream" that explained the vision for the supply-chain city. Mr. Tan shopped the video around to some of his customers, such as Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. A spokeswoman for Ralph Lauren said its sourcing executives found the video "interesting" but the company has made no commitment to the supply chain city concept as of yet.
Bringing together everyone from fashion designers to fabric suppliers and button-makers in one place presented an unusual opportunity in the industry. "If I get the customer to design the clothes in the same place where I have the fabric library," says Mr. Tan. "We can say, 'Is this what you want? How about putting this button on it?' That helps the button guy, too."
Mr. Chan already has begun re-engineering his sourcing operation to test out the new model. This spring, instead of designing the company's new handbag and jewelry line the old way -- with designers in New York and production people in Asia, he brought everyone to the factory. "I booked two function rooms in a hotel in China. We brought over 30 people from New York, including the president (of the division), everyone with the authority to make decisions."
He told them everything had to be settled before they left the country. The process, which usually took over a month, was completed in 10 days. "If you want to change the strap on a handbag, they can walk across the street to the factory and have a new prototype in an hour."
The ability to make those kinds of changes quickly and at the last minute will allow clothing labels to tackle one of their biggest weaknesses: getting new styles into stores faster. Even the quickest clothing companies have a concept-to-shipment cycle that is more than 90 days. That means that clothes designed in November don't appear on the rack until March. In the meantime, new fashion trends might have emerged that send even just-arrived clothes to the remainder bin. "Even 90 days is too long. Ideally, we will do this in 60 days," says Mr. Chan.
This means convincing a lot of New York-based designers and product development staff to move to China. Of course, many of the core fashion functions will always stay in New York, close to the end market. But many other jobs, especially on the technical level, don't have to be. Bob Zane, Liz Claiborne's senior vice president for manufacturing, says it hasn't been that difficult to get people to move. "We've tried to create attractive opportunities. We make it clear that it's good for a person's career."
Mr. Tan is planning to accommodate them. In addition to the just-completed hotel, he is building product-development centers next to the factory where his customers can work on new lines. Pointing to a map of his factory site, he says, "I think I'll leave these trees and grass in the middle. It's important to have some green."
The more production a company like Liz Claiborne moves to China, the more it can reap economies of scale. Under the current quota system, Liz Claiborne clothes arrive in the U.S. from factories all over the world. But in its stores, Liz Claiborne doesn't just tout a single skirt, it tries to sell customers an entire outfit -- a skirt, a top and maybe a matching handbag. The only way to get all those different pieces to the right stores in the right quantities is to have them shipped to three distribution centers it maintains in Ohio, New York and New Jersey. There the garments are repacked and sent off to individual stores -- at a cost between 80 cents and $1.20 a garment.
In the new supply-chain city, everyone from the fabric mill to the store will use the same scan-and-track inventory system. Goods can roll off the factory floor and go straight to a store in Seattle, reducing the unit cost to as little as 20 cents, Mr. Tan says.
Making any of this work, however, will require a level of trust that suppliers and buyers have never had before. By concentrating its suppliers among just a few factories, a glitch at any one could run an entire season's clothing line. "Customers are trying to pick the right factories. Factories are trying to pick the right customers," he says. "It's kind of like getting married. You've got to pick the right one."
服装业的“供应链城市”之梦
在中国南方的工业密集中心城市东莞，服装制造商联泰控股有限公司(Luen Thai Holdings Ltd., 0311.HK, 简称：联泰控股)正忙于打造一个“供应链城市”。在这个庞大的工业厂区内，有一家工厂，有可供4,000名员工居住的宿舍，有一家300个房间的酒店，并配置有咖啡厅、健身房，甚至卡拉OK厅。
这个18万平方米的“城市”实际上是一个正在转变中的服装厂，可能会给未来的服装生产行业带来革命性的变化。
计划是把这个厂区变成联泰控股及其客户（包括Liz Claiborne Inc.等）的一站式运营基地，以解决服装厂与客户办公室相隔遥远带来的问题。最早明年，Liz Claiborne的设计师们将能与工厂的工程师们以及纺织厂的技术人员坐下来共同合作，在最短的时间内将一件服装从图纸变成成品。
Liz Claiborne早已将几位采购人员从香港的办公室派到了联泰控股的厂区，纽约的一些产品开发人员也已转至香港工作，以便离工厂近一些。
联泰控股的供应链城市模式凸显了服装生产行业正在经历的巨大变化：截至12月31日，国际服装配额将不复存在，生产企业正在为此纷纷做好准备；已有30年历史之久的配额体系原旨在限制发展中国家向工业化国家的纺织品出口。由于它阻止了任何一个国家主宰纺织贸易，孟加拉国、塞班岛等国后起的纺织行业得以繁荣发展。当配额协议于明年1月1日失效后，纺织品生产预计将集中到少数几个能以最低的价格生产最优品质产品的国家。
在服装生产产地不再受到限制后，许多大服装公司准备将业务进行整合，以减少因生产分布在世界多个地方带来的时间和费用成本。预计贸易自由化将使得毛里求斯等国家的小规模纺织行业濒临倒闭，导致大量的一线制造工作转向中国等低成本、高效率的制造中心。
过去一年，许多服装公司都在试图摸索出一条后配额时代发展的路子，其中不少也盯著Liz Claiborne和联泰控股的计划进展，对供应链城市能否成为未来的一个模式拭目以待。“你可以比以前少一些关系协调，更专注产品本身，”J.C. Penney Co.采购子公司的董事长彼得?麦格拉斯(Peter McGrath)表示，“但这是一种新模式。以前从未尝试过。”麦格拉斯也是美国纺织和服装进口商协会(U.S. Association of Importers of Textile and Apparel)的主席。
比如，Liz Claiborne的250个供应商就分布在塞班岛、墨西哥、柬埔寨等35个国家。公司纽约的设计师们设计出一个服装系列的草样后，就传到香港的采购部门。然后，采购部门会和东莞的联泰控股员工进行交流，商讨需要作怎样的修改，才能使得这个系列的成本更为合理。之后，联泰控股负责寻找合适的面料。任何的修改都需对整个系列进行复检。
“现在有很多的重复劳动，”Liz Claiborne的亚洲副总裁克里斯?尚(Chris Chan)表示。当样衣在工厂制作完成后，需先送至纽约进行检验，检验结果有可能是要再做修改，然后运回中国的工厂，等工厂修改完后，再送回纽约进行检验。这个过程往往耗费了宝贵的时间和人力。
尚表示，如果采用新的供应链城市模式，就不再需要现在在纽约和亚洲两地间进行远距离协作的100名员工了，两家公司只要改派60个员工驻中国大陆就可以了，所有的职能都能在临近工厂的地方集中进行。将除了最重要的设计师和流行趋势观察人员之外的所有职位转移至亚洲，可以不必再忍受反反复复的协调修改，这个过程往往会使得生产时间往后推几周之多。
尚表示，Liz Claiborne计划在配额取消后，将采购地区从目前的35个国家逐步减少至几个。5年内，250个供应商将减少一半，大幅精简供应链。
Liz Claiborne大举转向中国大陆的决定是去年作出的，此前联泰控股的行政总裁陈亨利(Henry Tan)和其多年的高尔夫球友尚之间就服装配额时代终结将怎样改变他们的业务进行了探讨。他们知道，随著采购商纷纷转移至低成本地区，中国制造的服装数量将大幅飙升。但劳动力成本的节省，只是明显可见的优势之一。真正的好处在于通过整个生产流程的重组，将能缩短新衣上市的周期以及协调物流的时间。
陈亨利为供应链城市的前景开发了一个视频展示文件，名为《服装之梦》(The Apparel Dream)。陈亨利曾向Polo Ralph Lauren Corp等客户演示过这个文件。据Ralph Lauren的一位发言人称，公司的采购经理认为这个文件很有意思，但该公司目前还不打算作出什么决定。
从时尚设计师到面料供应商、纽扣制造商等全都集中在一个地方，将为这个行业提供一个异乎寻常的机会。“如果客户设计服装的地方也有面料资料库，”陈亨利解释说，“我们就能问客户，这是否是他想要的？把这颗纽扣放在上面怎么样？”“这对于纽扣制造商也有好处。”
尚早已开始调整其采购业务，以检验新模式是否可行。今年春天，新的手袋以及珠宝系列产品的设计没有因循旧法（即设计师在纽约，生产人员在亚洲），尚将每个人都带到了工厂里。“我在中国大陆一家酒店预定了两个功能厅。我们从纽约请来了30多人，包括（部门）总裁，每个人都有权当场拍板。”
他告诉这些人，在他们离开中国大陆前，一切都得敲定。结果，通常需要1个多月的流程10天就完成了。“如果想把手袋上的带扣换一个，他们只要穿过马路到对面的工厂去一趟，一个小时后就可以有新的样品出来了。”
这样的模式使得产品设计可以很快作出调整，即使是在最后一刻，使得服装行业能更自如地解决其存在的最大的一个问题：如何将新的流行服装更快地送上货架。即使是行动最迅速的服装公司，从图纸到成品的周期一般也要90多天。也就是说11月份设计的服装要到来年3月才能上架出售。而且，最糟糕是可能出现新系列刚刚上架，其所代表的时尚元素就已经过时了。“即使90天也太久了。如果理想的话，我们将在60天内完成，”尚表示。
这意味著需要说服大量的纽约设计师和产品开发人员到中国大陆来工作。当然，许多核心设计职位将继续留在纽约，因为那里贴近终端市场。但其他许多职位，特别是技术层面的，说服不一定很困难。Liz Claiborne的制造高级副总裁鲍伯?扎恩(Bob Zane)表示，让人们换地方工作并没有那么困难。“我们试图创造具有吸引力的就业机会。我们清楚地表明，这对一个人的职业是有利的。”
陈亨利正在计划如何安排这些人员的生活起居。除了刚刚完工的酒店，他还在工厂旁建了一些产品开发中心，在那里客户们能围绕新系列进行工作。他指著一张厂区示意图称，“我想我会在中间留下这些树和草。拥有绿色很重要。”
Liz Claiborne等公司将越多的生产转移至中国大陆，就越能取得规模效应。根据配额体系，Liz Claiborne的服装从全球各地运抵美国。但在其店铺中，Liz Claiborne并不仅仅出售一条半截裙，它打算向顾客出售一整套行头，从半截到上衣，甚至还有一个搭配的手袋。要让所有这些不同的商品以正确的数量运抵正确的商店，需要首先将这些商品运抵Liz Claiborne位于俄亥俄州、纽约州和新泽西州的配货中心。在那里，这些服装将得到重新包装，并发往各个店铺，每家衣服增加的成本为80美分至1.20美元。
采用新的供应链城市模式后，从纺织厂到零售店铺的每个环节都将采用同一扫描和跟踪库存系统。因此商品从工厂启运后，就可直接发往如西雅图的一个零售店，陈亨利表示，每件服装由此至少可降低成本20美分。
但要使这些成为现实，需要供应商和买家之间建立前所未有的信任。如果供应商集中于几家工厂，任何一个环节出现差池都可能影响整个一季的服装产品。“客户们需要选出合适的工厂，工厂也要选出合适的顾客，”陈亨利说，“这有点像结婚。你得找一个合适的。”
