Notes from the factory floor.
Short pieces on sourcing, product programmes, and the decisions behind them. Written by Richard Amodio, from thirty-five years of doing the work.
All articles
The factory side of the inventory equation
Everyone reads inventory from the brand or the retailer side. The decisions that set it are made months earlier, on the factory floor, against capacity that was booked and materials that were already committed.
Six countries, one thread: where each market fits
China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Korea, Thailand, Mexico. What each country is actually for in an outdoor and hardgoods supply chain, and why the footprint is a list of relationships rather than a list of capabilities.
Solution dye versus conventional dyeing, by the numbers
What solution-dyed fabric is, what the published comparison says about water, chemicals, energy, and CO2, and where the process fits in an outdoor product programme.
Retainer, project, or a single call: choosing the shape
Most advisory relationships start as one shape and become another. How to tell which of the three fits the decision in front of you.
Before the brief: the case an item has to make
A good breakdown of the road from brief to production run went round recently. The clock starts earlier than that. Before the brief there is a budgetary proposal and a line strategy, and the item has to earn its place in both.