The garment manufacturing industry has slowly been fading in Hong Kong over the past decade. Some of the many reasons include rising rents in Hong Kong and cheap labour in the mainland and other countries. Companies face an uphill battle in order to remain competitive, but the secret of success, according to one company, is to produce garments that are of excellent quality. Must Garment has been working with major international retail chains including Abercrombie & Fitch, Gap, H&M, Tommy Hilfiger, Zara, and department stores such as JCPenney, Target and Wal-Mart for years. Established in 1981 by the Mahtani family, the company started with a single office and a handful of employees. Their perseverance and commitment to providing top quality garments turned them into an international company with more than 20,000 employees - a testament to the fact that quality assurance is indeed the key to success. With factories and offices in Hong Kong, the United States, Britain, the mainland, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Egypt and Bahrain, the group exports more than 35 million garments to top brands in the United States and Europe a year. The company strongly believes that customers must receive good quality products, said Sanjeev Mahtani, managing director of Must Garment. He encourages employees to pay close attention to the quality of their garments and constantly reminds them to think of this question before producing the pieces: 'Do you really think the garment is something you would wear?' Basic requirements of the company include making sure that none of the garments have any defects. As a result of this, the company maintains a low return rate from clients, such as the 0.25 per cent from Wal-Mart stores. 'Things have moved on where people inspect at factory level,' said Mr Mahtani. The company not only trains its managers, but also provides in-depth training to every operator. Everyone in the production line is trained to continuously check the quality of all garments. They use the 'finger technique', which basically requires a person to run their finger along the garment and see if the stitches are smooth and the attachments are fastened properly. Every piece is checked this way. Mr Mahtani often reminds his employees about the sequence of hand movements when checking the pieces. Everyone works in an anti-clockwise direction and has to check 20 different parts of a single garment to make sure that it is up to standard. The company has also set up an identification system in which the names of every person involved in different production lines and stages are recorded so that it is easier to trace where the faults come from. To help employees understand that quality is paramount in the company, they are given ongoing training. They are sent to stores to observe garment sales and are encouraged to give comments and exchange information with frontline staff to ensure improvements. Aside from quality control, the company attributes its success as one of the world's renowned garment manufacturers to two major factors: trained professionals and state-of-the-art machinery. The company never hires people who have experience in the industry as it says these workers usually have predisposed benchmarks and it would be difficult to get them to adjust to Must Garment's standards. The company prefers to employ fresh graduates or people from other professions, providing them with on-the-job training on the company's standards and the different aspects of the production line. 'I always say to people that it doesn't cost more money to provide better quality,' said Mr Mahtani. 'It is difficult to control 20,000 people, so we train them to create self-awareness [regarding quality control].' But well-trained staff may not be enough to ensure quality control. Machines are constantly serviced, and only the best quality threads and attachments are used. Employees are trained to understand the functions of all the machines and the different ways of stitching so that when they sell or produce the products, they know which stitching would be best for a particular piece of clothing. Merchandising staff are also expected to know all about the machines and be aware of the different production processes. Out of the 20,000 employees, the company has about 3,000 quality assurance staff who are placed at each stage of production to check every part of the garment. Quality controllers on the first level do a check of garments every hour. The second level check is done twice a day, and the third level and final check is done at the factories. The director of quality assurance then overlooks the quality of all products from the different production lines. In terms of potential employees, the company looks for people who take pride in the quality of clothing. 'Only 2 per cent of our products are not up to quality in our largest factory in Bangladesh,' said Mr Mahtani. 'The strength of the company is in its people. They are strong, loyal, honest, responsible and dedicated.' This is one of the major reasons that there is a high level of satisfaction among employees and a low level of returned goods from client's stores. But most rewarding is that the hard work of employees has been internationally recognised through awards such as the JCPenney Purchasing Partnership Award in 2006 and Wal-Mart's International Supplier of the Year in 2001 and 2002.
