A Chinese Men'S Wear Brand Has Opened The Door To The Factory. What Do We See?

The supply chain is the lifeblood of brands. From luxury brands to fast fashion brands, they are striving to build a high-quality and sustainable supply chain system. Supply chain is not only the guarantee of product quality, but also the cornerstone of brand building. With the increasing awareness of environmental protection and the increasing concern for labor rights, consumers hope that the manufacturing process of products will conform to sustainable standards and ethics, and urge enterprises to present their supply chain more transparently to the public, Even if it does so, it will face the risk of disclosing key assets to competitors.
"Every factory has a story" is the slogan of the American Internet fashion brand Everylane. Since its inception, the information of every factory in the world has been truthfully published on the official website. Consumers can not only see the factory location corresponding to the product, but also browse the photos and videos recording the factory's working environment. Not only fashion start-ups, but also many large fashion enterprises in western developed countries are trying their best to promote the process of "supply chain transparency": the U.S. clothing retailer GAP, the famous British fashion and grocery retailer Marks&Spencer, the Swedish fast fashion brand H&M, the sports giant Nike, Niuzai's old brand Levi's, the German sports giant adidas, etc. have all announced the supplier list; In the past two years, Japan Fast Retailing Group has successively released the list of the main OEM factories of its brands Uniqlo and GU. In addition to the cooperative garment factories, it has also expanded the scope to the fabric factories of secondary suppliers.
It is worth noting that Chinese factories account for more than half of the list of suppliers published by Uniqlo; On the official website of Everylane, nearly one third of the 30 factories currently under cooperation are located in China.
People say that China is the factory of the world, but few people have ever entered the factory of China, and few Chinese brands have ever talked about their supply chain. "How can we understand the real situation of China's fashion supply chain?" - Many readers have expressed this curiosity to us.
Last year, we investigated the brand's measures in sustainable production and social responsibility. Not long ago, in Jinjiang, Quanzhou, Fujian, an important textile and clothing production base in China, the famous Chinese menswear brand LILANZ also opened the door to our factory, presenting a complete sample of local fashion enterprises achieving industrial upgrading through vertical integration and continuous optimization of the supply chain system.
About half an hour's drive from Lilang headquarters, we arrived at the factory located in Wuli, Jinjiang. In the middle of August, before the arrival of a new round of typhoon, the weather in Minnan Harbor was sultry and humid. When we walked into the clean and bright factory buildings, it suddenly became much cooler.
Behind the "Chang'an 12 hour co branded fund": how to achieve the "fast turnaround" in three days?
There is a popular saying in Lilang: "Let Wuli Factory solve all the problems." At the entrance of the fifth floor of Lilang's own factory, there is a small workshop dedicated to accepting various small orders and trial orders. Compared with the batch production workshop downstairs, it is more like a studio.
It is here that Lilang's co branded clothes with the summer hit drama "Chang'an 12:00" come from.
We learned from Lilang Commodity R&D Department that it would take about half a year for the birth of an IP co branded product, if market research, data integration, cooperation signing and other preliminary work are included, plus the design, production and sales. However, it only took Lilang 10 days to co name with the summer hit "Chang'an Twelve Hours".
At the production site, Yang Kunhua, the general manager of Lilang Manufacturing Corporation, told us that the factory could achieve a quick response of 3-5 days with such co branded funds. On the day of the visit of Huali Zhi, the fast reaction workshop was making four products at the same time, each with a quantity of 100-200 pieces.
The "quick reaction" in the general sense of the clothing industry usually needs to be coordinated from all aspects of the supply chain, such as design, procurement, production and distribution. In the headquarters office, Shi Meiya, director of the production management center, demonstrated a set of self-developed order management software to us. This system implements a thorough management of the above links, so that each user can clearly see the completion of each link and the impact of their own behavior results on other links. The information between suppliers and purchasers is also completely transparent. After seeing it, the supply partner called it a self created "clothing fast reaction blockchain system" - automatic, efficient, clear nodes, automatic and timely payment, without any room for private tampering.
In the team led by Shi Meiya, there are 70 people for ready to wear clothes, 15 people for accessories, 15 people for warehousing, 25 people for washing and printing, and more than 600000 documents are approved a year.
With regard to the order fulfillment, Lilang has implemented an extremely strict standard - "according to the contract, it will be launched on October 1, and it will be reached on or before October 1, and it will be zero every day". After more than a year of running in, the Lilang orders reached 58% in 2018 and 85% by August this year.
"What we do is in the fashion industry. There are more models than quantity, and the cycle is very short. There are 10000 models a year, and the average cycle response is three months." Shi Meiya said that this intensity is higher than the common standard of other garment industry peers that "less than 1000 models can be prepared six months in advance".
Upward supply chain reform, grasp the voice and profit space of technology and process
This interlocking management system is a centralized presentation of the results of Lilang's supply chain reform. Behind it are efficient self owned factories, massive self owned style data, prices and fabric files.
Traditionally, the supply chain of Chinese local brands is highly dependent on cooperative processing plants, and they do not directly grasp the process technology and raw material information of garment manufacturing, let alone lack factory management experience.
"Self built factories have two cores, the first is to have people, the second is to have goods to do", Pan Rongbin, president of Lilang (China) Co., Ltd., frankly pointed out the biggest pain point of supply chain reform to Huali Zhi. To this end, he took the "three axe" to implement reform:
First, we will expand the production capacity by adjusting the work cycle of our own categories, and train the same group of workers to "be able to make both coats and pants" - "The number of pants is large, 1.5 million to 2 million a year. Just after the winter down jacket is finished, we will start ordering in the spring and summer of October, and achieve the next March, and then connect with ordering in the autumn. This cycle ensures that workers have a large output of more than 280 days a year. "
Second, independent research and development of all kinds of products, from suits to underwear, to research from molds, so as to cultivate talents of all kinds, which is enough to carry out a complete set of production system output and technical guidance for external processing plants, "as long as there are workers, one month can complete the process from learning to skilled manufacturing".
Yang Kunhua, the general director of Wuli Factory, is the "Godfather of Mould" that Pan Rongbin attaches great importance to. He previously worked for Lianya Group and managed factories in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and other places. Making good use of cutting-edge processes and digital systems to transform molds to solve new problems is what the old factory director who has been in the clothing industry for decades is best at.
Solving human problems is the third and core part of factory reform. Where do workers come from and how can they be retained? Nine years ago, the post-50s and post-60s were the main force. This year, the post-85s and post-90s young people have become the backbone. In addition to social recruitment, the factory has established cooperation with 20 schools to provide internship bases to attract new graduates.
In terms of salary, the factory implements a floating system: the first month's minimum wage, the second month's minimum wage plus piecework wage, the third month's increase in the proportion of piecework wage, and the fourth month's full piecework wage. In order to ensure the accuracy and efficiency of piece counting, the factory disassembled all the production processes and announced the price of each link before the payment. Every day, workers can know how much money they earned the previous day, and at the end of each month, they can get the piece rate wage of that month. In addition, the factory provides a series of benefits such as dormitories, canteens, and children's enrollment to ensure that workers can live in the park.
Above: The technical workers of Wuli Workshop are making down jackets that will be launched this winter
Ten years ago, Lilang's supply chain database was a desert. The core of product development and production is not controlled by brands, but "driven by suppliers, and pushed to consumers after brand acceptance". Chen Guozhong, head of supply chain management and director of commodity regulation center, "At that time, Lilang's products were all OEM produced by the processing factory. They helped to purchase fabrics and offered higher prices. In order to ensure profits, the brand had to raise the retail price and transfer costs to consumers.".
"When we go abroad, let's not mention Uniqlo. One shirt of CK is only 50 dollars. What's the concept? It is equivalent to 350 yuan, and our shirts with the same fabric will be sold for 600 or 700 yuan. You said that in the future, when people will enter the Chinese market, what will we do? " Wang Liangxing, president of Lilang Group, recalled the scene ten years ago and still remembered the crisis at that time.
On the other hand, Lilang is facing the squeeze of channels. At the stage when department stores and street stores were in the mainstream, Lilang had relatively limited high-quality agent resources than its earlier counterparts who seized channel resources. "We are forced by the market to do direct marketing, but we lose money when we do it." The business data of Lilang shows that the single store model of selling only one category has failed, and the whole category is the new direction.
How can we keep costs down? How can we expand more categories? Learning from the experience, Lilang decided to go up and take a path of streamlining supply links and independent research and development.
In 2013, Lilang ended its cooperation with all OEM factories, and fabric trading houses directly recommended fabrics; Due to the loose and small-scale trade, the fabric quality is difficult to control, so we have to find a large fabric factory; In the face of large factories, I found that the communication language could not be connected.
"Before, we didn't get through. We only talked about color, feel and style, which were all sensory things. The fabric factory didn't understand. We had to tell the yarn density, composition and weight," said Chen Guozhong.
In order to clearly express the needs of the brand to fabric suppliers, Lilang is determined to train its own pattern makers and engineers. From 2013 to 2015, the number of engineers increased from 2 to 30. There are two floors in the pattern making center, where the pattern makers "translate" the designer drawings into product manufacturing sheets and submit them to the sample clothing workshop. "At the beginning, only three of the ten models could be developed, which was very difficult." Chen Guozhong said that the process was like raising a child by himself.
Going further, fabric suppliers can no longer meet the needs of brands. "Their adaptability to the market is worse than that of trade. When we need new yarn raw materials, we will be limited, and we can only propose changes in pattern, color, and yarn density." Therefore, Lilang further integrates manufacturing processes from yarn cutting to dyeing, finishing, printing, etc.
Researchers in Lilang's Fabric R&D Center showed us several thick stacks of brand specific color cards - because the surface structures of textile fibers are different and the same, different dyes are used, and the color effect will be different. Lilang's fabric color blending system can create color cards according to different fiber components and different category needs.
The whole reform has made Lilang Group go through great pains. "Previously, hundreds of cooperative suppliers completed the work separately, and we were in a hurry", Chen Hongsheng said, "The fabric was sold out, the accessories were not in place, and the matching was not good, which delayed the delivery of the factory".
Specific problems like these continue to challenge Lilang's supply chain nerves. The production management center has become the most high-pressure department in the whole group. After seven or eight years, the staff turnover rate has reached 70%. "It's too hard. You have to buy every stitch. Until 2018, you will have solved all major problems and found out software solutions.".
With the integration of the supply chain, there is also the hidden pain of cutting off family ties and interests. Pan Rongbin said that this process was extremely painful, and the open thinking and decentralization of the three Wang brothers, the founders of Lilang, were crucial to the implementation of the reform. With the adjustment of the company's board structure and governance system, "they study strategies and tactics all to us". The professional manager team led by Pan Rongbin implements flat and efficient management. "In this processing and manufacturing industry, the most important thing is to keep the internal mechanism alive, clear and responsive," he emphasized.
Now, in addition to its own factories undertaking part of the key production capacity, Lilang gives priority to the top three high-quality suppliers in all categories and links, and all suppliers have decreased from more than 400 in the peak period to about 50. According to the 2019 interim performance report of Lilang, as of June 30, the net profit of Lilang had risen by 14.0% year on year to 390 million yuan, with a net profit rate of 25.2%, leading the apparel industry.
Quality inspection is in advance, and clothing is made with the determination of "food safety level"
On the corridor of Lilang Lab, there are various kinds of problem goods on the wall. Common problems include redness, discoloration, pilling, etc. Gao Bing, the person in charge of quality control, told us that these problems are visible to the naked eye, but there is another kind of problem that consumers simply cannot recognize with the naked eye.
In 2008, when the melamine incident broke out, Pan Rongbin asked sensitively whether food safety problems also existed in clothing? He asked to test a batch of clothes produced in the current season, and found that the azo content was 47 times higher than the standard. He made up his mind and burned 60000 substandard clothes. The product safety problem of the clothing supply chain is shocking, such as the alarm bell hanging on the head.
It is reported that dozens of carcinogens such as formaldehyde and aromatic amine are common in textile fabrics. In the process of garment production, due to the need to introduce certain chemicals into fabric finishing, if the content is not well controlled, chemicals will exceed the standard.
Gao Bing said that the difficulty in solving clothing safety lies not only in the cost burden brought by the introduction of relevant imported testing equipment to enterprises, but also in the implementation of testing itself.
This is one of the main purposes of Lilang's self built laboratory. This laboratory only serves Lilang, and many of the detection value standards for chemicals are even above the national standard. For example, for the color fastness requirements of clothing, in addition to complying with the water resistance, perspiration, friction and other indicators under the national basic safety technical specifications for textiles, Lilang also added a number of specific requirements such as light resistance, heat resistance and pressure resistance.
"Quality inspection in advance" - this is a frequently heard saying in the on-site communication between Huali Zhi and the person in charge of each link. In the traditional mode, quality inspection usually takes place in the finished product stage in the form of "spot check". In other words, quality inspection is dissociated from production. Even if there is a problem in the inspection, we can only use passive prevention. For the whole batch of goods, it is too late to make up for it.
The "quality inspection first" emphasized by Lilang is to "integrate quality inspection into production", moving this link forward to after fabric research and development and before large goods are delivered. All fabrics need to pass the internal quality inspection of the laboratory before they can be circulated to the garment production link. From tailoring to semi-finished products, and then to washing, the production process of a product needs six inspections.
Lilang believes that front-end intervention is better than back-end prevention, which actually avoids causing greater losses to the enterprise itself. The premise to achieve "quality inspection in advance" is that the brand goes deep into the supply chain, has a say in design and research and control over raw materials.
"We make clothes according to the requirements of food safety. For consumers, this is a basic requirement that will not be mentioned, because it cannot be identified through feeling. But we know that we must do this," Pan Rongbin told Hualizhi.