The garments made by Hong-Kong based TAL Apparels Ltd. are distributed in the U.S. and Europe under brands such as J. C. Penny Co., Banana Republic, Brooks Brothers, L. L. Bean, Calvin Klein, Nike, Polo Ralph Lauren and others. According to the company one in every seven dress shirts sold in U.S. is produced by TAL. The company is well-known for standardizing its manufacturing practices at company facilities in nine markets, where a total of 25,000 people are employed. TAL’s largest production bases are China and Thailand. It has additional factories at Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietman & Mexico. The company also operates a spinning-and-weaving mill in the U.S. state of North Carolina. The company had a revenue of $696 million for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2007.
In a recent interview published in WSJ the managing director Dr. Harry Lee emphasized that after the company saw huge losses, it was forced to rethink processes and now vigorously limits inventory. TAL produces over 55 million pieces of apparel in Asia with its largest facilities in China and Thailand, but also in Mexico and North Carolina. Dr. Lee explains that you do not need to much inventory to serve your customers better. TAL has shortened its production lead times to deal with this, which increase costs due to infrastructure, but the plants work more efficiently, which decreases risks. He also says that his competitors have a hard time emulating the strategy, which is very basic and well known by all, because there are lot of smaller, background tasks involved and that knowledge comes with experience. Dr. Lee assert that the people working at TAL are the key to its success and highlight the extremely low turnover at its top ranks as well as its entry level employees.
Source: Cheng, Jonathan. 2007. "Behind a Garment Maker’s Textbook Supply Chain," Wall Street Journal, 04 June.