Made in the USA

Posted on February 28, 2006 by John Hunter

Is ‘Made in U.S.A.’ back in vogue?

As the need for speed in fashion retailing becomes ever more crucial to merchants, industry observers say “Made in U.S.A” is once again looking more attractive to some U.S. retailers versus importing from China.
…
The company used to import 70 percent of its merchandise from China and elsewhere and manufactured a smaller 30 percent of it in the U.S. Today it manufactures 60 percent locally and imports 40 percent, according to CEO Moshe Tsabag.

By shifting manufacturing back home, Tsabag said he’s able to deliver his order to retailers in about 45 days versus the 120 to 150 days it would take to source the same items from China.

More evidence of the benefits of “lean manufacturing,” though it seems they are getting only a few benefits (reduction of waste, faster resupply of “hot items”) and they may well not know about lean thinking. By studying and applying lean ideas they should be able to reduce the 45 day turn-around time. Perhaps they should read the Fashion Incubator blog [the broken link was removed].

One more interesting bit of fashion news: Amazon.com bought [the broken link was removed] an internet clothing retailer based in Madison, Wisconsin: shopbop.com. I don’t get it. We will have to see if time shows what Bezos sees that I don’t.

Update: Fashion Incubator [the broken link was removed] and Evolving Exellence posts on this topic

This entry was posted in Lean thinking, Management, Manufacturing, Systems thinking and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to Made in the USA

  1. Pingback: Making Suits in the USA

  2. Matthew says:
    July 23, 2008 at 4:58 pm

    I'm glad that this company is realizing the benefits of manufacturing in the USA. The more Americans buy their own goods, the more American dollars stay in our economy instead of being shipped abroad.

Comments are closed.