11th January 2021
The UK is in a National lockdown until at least the middle of February, however the rumours are that this lockdown could last until at least March if not longer as the rates of infections are still increasing.
The good news is we are still working full time and designing and developing our client’s projects.
The bad news is that this is having an effect on the lead time for samples from some of our EU factories. Pre-Christmas, several of our factories closed their merchandiser and management offices due to outbreaks within their factory. All workers were requested to work from home and isolate and some of the merchandisers we work with unfortunately caught the virus. Luckily, they are now fine, however taking time off to recover and trying to work from home is obviosly having an effect on the factories ability to produce samples.
This isolation and working from home also effected all the pattern and sample makers and while they tried to make the best of a pretty terrible situation, the delays are being realised.
We are in constant communication with all of our factories on a daily basis, making sure they have everything required to produce our samples as fast as possible.
This 2nd strain of Covid-19 looks like it is much more contagious than the first and most of Europe is now experiencing an increase in infections and hospital admissions. Some countries in Europe are also in National lockdown and obviously this will effect the supply of zips, fabrics, trims, components and probably the labour to produce samples and bulk.
China and Vietnam have been much less effected; however, they also are experiencing some delays in obtaining fabrics and components due to the lack of bulk production that happened over the last 8-10 months. This has resulted in us having to use alternative fabrics and components for sampling until we go into bulk production.
We thank our clients for their understanding and patience and please be assured we and our European factories are working as fast as possible to maintain lead times and developments.
ORIGINAL POST-
6th November 2020
Earlier this week, the UK went into National lockdown for the next 4 weeks, however there is speculation that it could last longer than this.
Most of Europe is also in lockdown or under some kind of restrictions with regard to meeting up or travel.
How does this effect your activewear development and production?
So far, everything is fine. We are all still working full time and therefore progressing as normal with your projects. The factories, fabric mills and trim suppliers are also all still open and again, no delays are currently happening.
Hopefully nothing will change and even if lockdown and restrictions last longer, providing factories are still allowed to open, then things will remain as they are. If, however lockdown across Europe increases and factories are forced to close, then all developments will be effected that are currently developed in Europe.
China and Vietnam seem to be managing much better with the virus and all factories are functioning as normal with no lockdowns in place.
Note however that generally, there are some delays with developments and also couriers are taking much longer than normal. Nothing drastic, but new practices and shift work within factories along with the backlog of developments that were not worked on for 3 months at the start of 2020 are still having a small effect and couriers are taking longer to deliver goods and samples due to the lack of planes travelling the world right now.
Fingers crossed, no more severe lockdowns are required to force factories to close again and rest assured, we are working to normal capacity and will remain so, even though the current lockdown.
Stay safe