SPC EXPANDS TO 5,000 SQ. FT. FACILITY ON THE NORTH SIDE OF CHICAGO
To keep up with demand, we moved to a rented 5000 Sq. Ft. space in an industrial building on the North side of Chicago. This move enabled us to invest in more machinery, create more local jobs, and add the capabilities needed to become the full service custom sewing plant.
To add more employees to keep up with demand, we moved to a rented 5000 sq ft space in an industrial building on the near north side of Chicago. This enabled us to invest in more machinery and the necessities to become the full service sewing plant we wanted, including adding a significant number of employees.
We expanded to also include contract labor for other manufacturing factories. This time period was important because it gave us the time to slowly build our own client base, we learned other sewing techniques and products. Most importantly, we could see by changing some labor techniques, we could manufacture products to look high end, but redesign slightly to save significant labor costs. Companies found we could manufacture a good product at a lower price while still holding on to the look/feel/integrity of products.
As our name grew through the Midwest, we found a niche in the advertising specialties market. Since the majority of our products were silk screened, we invested in our first printing equipment. A heat tunnel enabled us to immediately start sewing on fabric as soon as the printed piece came out the dryer. Our turn around time was decreased by a couple of weeks, a metric that is very important for the advertising specialty market.
Manufactured large volumes of canvas grocery bags with store name screened on the bags. Standard orders ranges from 5000 to 25,000 bags for chain stores. Stores began implementing savings offers to their consumers to reuse their canvas bags, deducting .25 to .10 every time the bags were used.
Besides the standard bags and ad specialty products, we began to expand our line to accommodate clients’ needs; binders, pouches, luggage and to take on more challenging projects. We gave our clients alternatives to “standard” products. We began to manufacture items of point of purchase displays to major retail stores, including table skirts and banners with oversized imprinting. Some of these items were displayed internationally.