"Embroidery and service quality will not be matched and with our constant investment in new machinery we are proud to house the largest collection of new machinery in the country, operated by an experienced workforce who has average service length of more than 10 years," it says. This year will see heavy investments in new systems, enabling customers to have unprecedented order visibility.We asked the company about the current market and its place within that:

In which areas are the latest technological developments?

The last few years have been relatively stable with regards to embroidery machine technology advancement. The new machinery we have is very versatile, all the machines being able to embroider garments, caps, bags and panels.

2008 has seen us launch our new goods in and order tracking function. Historically customers would not have the required visibility of goods being delivered but we have developed systems which inform our customers when goods land and their specific location within our new 14,000 sq ft warehouse. This lets customers know where the order is from delivery, production, through packing and QC and finally despatch.

Are there any particular areas in decline or growth in the Contract Embroidery market?

We now believe the shift from UK to offshore production has stabilised and the contract embroidery market here is now positioned for rapid response high service vendors, who are able to deal with small to medium runs.

In recent years we have been working side by side with offshore projects to fulfill either initial requirements or final delivery shortfalls. However, in comparison UK embroidery output still provides a higher quality more reliable option.

Many of our customers have also identified the cost, time and efficiency savings that can be made by outsourcing their embroidery function to a specialised contract embroidery company. Because of this they have reduced their own in house embroidery capacity and taken advantage of what's available at our plant.

Another area of growth we have enjoyed is through Europe. Many of our customers operate throughout the continent and with competitive transport rates this has resulted in a centralised embroidery requirement. Approximately 15% of our output now ends up outside the UK market.

What are the current trends in areas such as design and thread use?

Design: 90% of our production uses designs digitised by our own design department. While design make up has not changed significantly during recent years, we have seen a significant reduction in lead times.We now offer a same day digitising service accompanied with a sample run out picture, allowing our customers to present end users with visuals within hours of received instructions.

Thread: Our main production uses Rayon and Polyester threads, but we are occasionally required to use Metallic, UV and Fire Resistant thread for specific customer requirements.

What makes Slick Stitch different from other Contract Embroiderers?

Slick Stitch now has the largest collection of new machinery in the country and with 24-hour production we embroidered approximately 55,000 garments a week during 2007.

Along with our new machinery we have an experienced "family based" workforce (totaling 50 employees) with average service length of 10 years. This ensures our quality levels are the industry's best and our wastage levels falls well below national averages.

We have now doubled our premises by 14,000sq ft to 28,000sq ft, enabling us to develop our order tracking capabilities and accommodate our forecasted production expansion (2008; 300 heads embroidering 75,000 garments a week).

We also have our own design department that digitises designs with UK based punchers. This means we maintain the highest quality levels and can offer a same day service for designs and samples. They currently produce 300 designs a week for use within our own facility and other embroidery companies around UK and Europe.

A very popular new service is our custom badge.We now embroider and manufacture a large number of badges for our customers, samples and details are available on our website.

Tel: 01902 313368

Email: embroidery@slickstitch.com

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