(War Stories) Production houses we rejected - part 5

After the inspection-that-yielded-no-insights, we all sat together around a conference table.  This, I gradually came to understand, was the forum for announcing my impression of the factory and its wares, make polite noises, and initiate some sort of trial run.  Of course, with no prototype and no specs, there could be no trial run.  We all knew that.  And yet, as if the routine had been indelibly carved into the factory rep’s head by the countless procession of prior would-be clients who knew the drill, we marched right into that conference room anyway.  Factory after factory.  (We stopped for coffee at - yep.  Even in Ningbo...) 

And if there was torture, these conference rooms were it.  See me sitting with (poor!) Linda and a handful of factory people, as well as the ever-helpful Ms Fan, groping for something – anything! – halfway intelligent to say rather than sit in painful, prolonged silence.  ‘How many garments do you produce in a year?’  I was more journalist than businessman.  Sometimes the strain was too much, and I blithely turned things over to Linda while I made some show of jotting important-looking scribbles into my notebook. 

And yet, for all that, not a moment was wasted.  I learned a ton. 

I have to start somewhere.  Might as well be in the basement.

(War Stories) Production houses we rejected - part 4

(Ms Fan’s dashboard)

Okay, back to my factory tours.

I mentioned a “tortuous” experience.  I have to be careful what I write in this blog. I keep forgetting that my mom reads it, and she has a tendency to take my editorials literally.  So, to alleviate any concerns out there and dampen the Ningbo mobilization of any human rights activists who are RSS subscribers to my monologue: I neither witnessed nor was subjected to nor committed any acts of torture during my factory tours. 

That said, it was tortuous.  I mentioned a couple days ago my strategy: to go in with inquisitive eyes and a learner’s mindset, to admit honestly how little I understand about the industry and grab every opportunity to find out how the whole thing works.  (There’s no mystery to manufacturing clothing, I’m sure – once it’s been demystified.) 

What I didn’t consider, at all, is just how alien this approach is to the people who run these production shops.  The garment industry has a well-developed script for factory visits from would-be clients.  The client brings along a prototype garment and a detailed spec sheet for how that garment is constructed (there are literally hundreds of options, and they all impact cost, complexity and quality).  The factory representative studies these items, comments on his workshop’s capabilities vis a vis the client’s requirements, and then leads the client on a tour to see for himself.  If the client likes what he sees, he may leave the prototype with the factory and order a trial run of 100 garments.  Upon delivery and inspection of the trial run, if the client still likes what he sees, he’ll start talking serious numbers. 

My own factory visits all went a bit differently.

‘Have you brought a prototype with you?’

‘No.  Actually, I was hoping I could maybe see some of your samples.’ 

‘Certainly.  Did you bring along a list of specs?'

‘Uh...no.’

So they would guide me to their showroom, full of (no surprise there) garments, lead me over to, say, a suit – and stand there, expectantly.  I got the hint and made some show of inspecting its quality, but (and this is now first on my learning list) other than fabric quality I had a hard time seeing much difference between one suit and the other.  (I did learn, later in the day, that most of the difference is in the inner construction…more on that later.  Turns out (a) it’s significant to the quality, feel and life of the suit and (b) the suit I wore today, brand name notwithstanding, isn’t half as good as it could be.)

(War Stories) Production houses we rejected - part 3

He then toured us around the equipment in the factory.  Here’s one example.  This machine makes trouser pockets.  In about half a second.  It’s a minor miracle to watch it go – place AND set AND press AND – KAZPLUFWIPIT!  (that’s the sound, KAZPLUFWIPIT!) you’ve got a pocket.  I should have captured a quick video on my mobile.  

It’s almost painful – to know how much I paid for a Hugo Boss suit and then see how little it costs to stitch the thing together.  (Hugo Boss, Armani, Zegna, Gucci, Calvin Klein…they’re all making suits here on the mainland now.)

Can you see the machine’s nameplate?  Durkopp Adler.  Made in Germany.  This is the other thing I realized today.  Even in a rundown ex-Communist ball-bearing factory, only recently converted to the service of the world’s menswear brands, the machinery is all imported from Germany, Italy and England. 

I kept thinking about that fact, as Ms Fan led us to one factory after another, and everywhere I came across imported European hardware from equipment manufacturers with names like Moll Automatische Nähsysteme GmbH, Santoni, Sangiacomo, Framis Italia, and Oorkopp.  I also came across a fair number of Germans – supervisors, consultants, and production line specialists.  Only one Italian, though.

It’s funny, when you think about it.  Luxury brands – they make such a big deal about their ‘Made in Italy’ label.  But the word they omit is ‘machine’.  ‘Machine Made in Italy’ doesn’t have quite the same caché.  I suppose it’s one way that they protect their markets (and profit margins) from identical clothing made with identical machinery, supervised by German and Italian specialists hired away from their own factories, in low-cost countries like China or India.  I wonder what would happen to their profit margins if more people realized that, by and large, the major difference between ‘Made in Italy’ and ‘Made in China’ was the skin color of the finger pushing the button.

Lots more to reflect on.  I haven’t even gotten to the tortuous part.  Tomorrow.

(War Stories) Production houses we rejected - part 2

This is the first factory we visited. 

Here was my plan.  Let’s head over to Ningbo, tour some clothing factories, and just get a general sense of the clothing manufacturing process, of factory capabilities, of what might be possible in the vague intersection of (a) the internet, (b) luxury-quality craftsmanship and (c) clothing sourced from China. 

It was a frustrating day.  You could almost say scary.  Hugely instructive.  I came away with a much more concrete sense of the let’s-offshore-to-China phenomenon.  But I had to go through torture to get it.

The first factory visit of the day was also the best.  Ms Fan met Linda and me at our hotel (that’s the front entrance, there) and drove us to…well, I can’t honestly report where she drove us to.  Somewhere in Ningbo. 

It was beautiful.  This factory was right out of the 1950s.  I couldn’t understand the name splashed over the front gates, but it likely read, ‘Ball Bearings For Motorized Wheelbarrows Of The Proletariat, Factory No. 14’.  It had that colorless gray-white ambience so favored by the interior designers of the Revolution.  Think steerage class on a turn-of-the-century steam ship, then put a gray concrete wall around it. 

Cool.

Ms Fan introduced us to the factory foreman, and we began our tour.  Work pretty much ceased when the white man (that’s me) walked onto the floor.  No, I didn’t see any child labor.  Actually, working conditions seemed to be pretty good.  Despite the humble exterior (and interior), the factory has some premium clients.  It turns out a suit for Younger (the Hugo Boss of China, essentially) in mass quantities, and on their showroom floor I spotted several racks of a well-known Canadian label, waiting to be shipped. 

‘How many suits do you produce in a year?’ I asked.  (As the day wore on, I found myself asking a lot of these interesting-but-unimportant questions – steadily coming to appreciate that I was too ignorant to ask anything relevant.)

‘Oh, we’re a pretty small operation,’ said the foreman.  ‘About 100,000.  Maybe 120,000.’  I did the math – about 300 suits a day. 

(War Stories) Production houses we rejected - part 1

(This is a 2007 excerpt from my personal journal.)

It’s the modern field trip.  How many would-be entrepreneurs have taken a domestic flight on ‘I’ve never heard of XXX’ Airlines out to some Chinese city they’ve never heard of for a factory tour.  Whatever the number, add one, because here I go.

Thank god I’ve got my chaperone.  Linda (Li Wei Wei) is a Beijing friend of mine from my very first trip to China, way back in 2005, when I parachuted in for a couple weeks on a project for the Boston Consulting Group.  An analyst and PR rep at the client’s office – a massive mining company – she was my virtual assistant for the duration of my stay.  I was so indebted to her, it was simply imperative that I buy her dinner.  And we’ve been friends ever since.

How I managed to swindle her into flying out to Ningbo with me, I still have no clue.     

Yep, Ningbo.  Another city of five million people (give-or-take seven figures) that we’ve never heard of before.  

Unless you trade with China, in which case you probably do know that Ningbo is one of China’s important port cities on the east coast, second only to Shanghai in shipping volume.  

Linda and I pass the flight going over our strategy once again.  Our strategy.  I’ve never done this before and I have the arrogance to imagine I can devise a strategy.  (Digression:  I was sitting in a bar (CJW) in Shanghai one night, thinking about the question ‘What is strategy?’ – can you believe I actually do this kind of stuff.  Anyway, it’s an interesting question.  And this guy is sitting next to me at the bar, and he says in this twang that I (correctly, as it turned out) identify as Mississippi-an.  “So what do you do?” And I tell him I’m a writer, and a wanna-be entrepreneur, and try to verbally assemble my life into a less-than-chaotic chain of doings.  And that right now I’m writing about strategy.  ‘Strategy?’ he says.  ‘Well, that’s real interesting.’  And it turns out that he’s an entrepreneur, making a lot of money doing some offshoring business, doing really well.  ‘So what do you think strategy is?’ I ask him, honestly curious.  ‘That’s easy,’ he tells me.  ‘Strategy is the hope that I don’t screw up.’)

Strategy is the hope that I don’t screw up.  Amen.  

We arrive at Ningbo’s airport.  It’s already late evening.  I’m mildly shocked that it’s modern and clean – but then I’ve been mildly shocked by the scope of China’s economic development so many times (especially out east) that by now I’m ashamed by this lingering proof of my close-mindedness.  (Journey out west, and it’s a very different China.  More on that later.)   

We exit the secured area, luggage in tow.  A local Ningbonian woman walks over.  ‘Chris?’

I guess there aren’t that many foreigners on each flight, so Linda and I are easy to pick out.  ‘Ms Fan?’ we reply.  And we’ve made contact.

Who ‘Ms Fan’ is, and why Linda and I are in Ningbo right now is a long story.  That’s tomorrow’s adventure, and tomorrow’s entry.  For the moment, it’s enough that we’re here.  

(Oh, this is the view from the hotel.)