22 seconds of Factory life

Here’s a behind the scenes look at  t shirt manufacturing – a 22 second glimpse of our CMT (Cut, Make, Trim) factory.

The garment in this video, is  in the previous post about LavaLab designer wear. This factory has, and is still producing for companies like Truworths, so the quality is top-notch and that’s why we use them.

Straight from the LavaLab, these 230 gram ladies tops are creatively fresh and make a bold statement with its shocking pink trims. Loudgear (our client) designed these tops to ensure  that the Queens of  Tugwell Hall at UCT are hip and happening – but this was a task intensive process that had us biting our nails right up to the last minute because of its extremely tight deadline.

Here’s a summarized version of what happened:

1. We developed patterns from scratch according to the client’s specification and size curve
2. sourced 230 gram ribbed fabric (black) at a price that was good enough to maintain the client’s budget
3. dyed the pink fabric according to clients specification
4. supplied fit samples
5. processed artwork for screen printing
6. processed artwork for digitizing
7. cut and soabarred the garment panels to ensure that all panels and sizes were easily identifiable
8. pre-planned printing and embroidery to ensure consistency in  colours for printed and embroidered finishes i.e. the print colours had to match the embroidered colours.
9. also ensuring that the sizing of the print and embroidered logos were suitable for all the garment sizes (small to 3 Xlarge)
10. sent the appropriate panels for printing (2 colours sleeve, 2 colours back)
11. sent the panels for embroidery
12. assembled the garments
13. quality checked and removed rejects
14. ironed and flat-packed
15. re-did  all rejects.

All of this in 16 days.

The result is a beautifully mass produced garment that could be mistaken for something that was bought from a designer store like YDE or Lacoste.

PS. Apologies for the low quality images

Forget those boring pen sets, bottle openers and conference folders – give gifts of substance is what I say. These knee blankets make great companions on those cold winter nights out on the porch. I’m proud to say that Lava Ink has perfected the process of manufacturing and branding of these knee blankets which are proving to be a popular item of choice for large corporates. It costs about the same as a branded t shirt and is a much warmer gesture than a pen set. We make these up in an array of fabric and blanket stitch colours.

We have just completed some excellent gifts for Glacier (a division of Sanlam). The task was to manufacture and brand some polar fleece knee blankets. At the start it was a bit tough because their vision entailed a specialized finishing process, namely blanket stitching. After one week of searching we finally found the machine that could do the job, but it took another week of training and fine tuning until we were satisfied with the quality of the operation. It is great when your bounderies are shifted by a client (ie, she knows what she wants and won’t settle for anything less) because the result is a positively coerced product development process which is educational and uplifting. Lava Ink is now a polar fleece blanket supplier (with binding, overlocking or blanket stitching).

More about this client (taken from www.glacier.co.za)

Glacier was launched in August 2006 to spearhead Sanlam Life’s expansion into the local affluent market, in line with Sanlam’s retail strategy of customer centricity through market segmentation.

Our aim is to assist affluent individuals to create and preserve their wealth. We achieve this through:

• Partnering with highly competent intermediaries to create a sustainable business advantage for all
• Customising our solutions to meet clients’ individual needs
• Providing access to an extensive range of financial services providers
• Facilitating best financial and governance practice
• Delivering superior customer service at all times

Glacier is backed by Sanlam, one of the oldest and largest life insurance companies in South Africa.

More about Glacier.