Having the right machinery for the job is key to this 24/7 operation. No surprise that being the best involves a £250,000 a year spend on machinery. I catch Inder in the midst of a £150,000 five-phase development plan which has seen the company grow from one to four units on its present site, now totalling 42,000sq ft.

This summer, Slick Stitch invested £30,000 on an industry leading electronic ordering system, which makes the whole process completely transparent for customers. But more of that later. While other firms struggle, Slick Stitch goes from strength to strength.

"Business has probably grown by 60 per cent this year and will double again next year," Inder tells me. Updating the building includes a new canteen, state of the art office block and toilet block for the 68 staff in and a new warehouse for the recently added logistics side of the business.

At 29, Inder and wife Neety are bringing a youthful dynamism to the family business. A key, perhaps, to the company's enviable growth during a global recession.

"If you look at the demographic of the management of the (embroidery) industry, it will be the generation above mine. And because of that, those companies are less likely to move forward," Inder suggests.

Inder's mother and father, Jan and Anita, are still heavily involved in the business, but there is a young management team which has gone all out to embrace new technology in a traditionally low tech industry.

Slick Stitch's proud boast is to be the first within the industry to have eBOS (an electronic based ordering system). "It's an industry first," Inder beams. "The one feedback from customers was that they would like to have more visibility on order status. We wanted to make the process completely transparent."

Within two hours of their stock arriving, customers are reassuringly alerted by email. The system also interfaces with Slick Stitch's website, meaning customers can log in at any time to see their stock. "We implemented that about a year ago," says Inder. "Next came the ordering side."

Email orders were becoming difficult to manage - account managers often having to process hundreds of orders in their inboxes.

"If someone was on holiday, we were having to sift through their emails, and there was no visibility on production, from our point of view. How much we needed to do on a particular day or whether we could even do it."

Now, there is just one email address for orders and the system neatly organises them, recognising the customer, quantities involved, stitch count, delivery date etc.

Everything goes into a central database and onto the website so that orders can be cherry picked and customers can track progress. They can also add notes and make amendments. "No one in the industry has done it," says Inder. "It has taken a while to develop because every customer orders in a different way. Since week one, we saw a 22% drop in phone calls. Customer service has got better because visibility is key."

Some of Slick Stitch's biggest customers have also given their customer service teams access so that they can follow the progress of orders. "Because we know no other embroidery decorator does it, it ties the customer in and it gives another dimension to the business," adds Inder.

It all seems light years away from the company's origins 18 years ago. Inder explains: "Dad used to run a stall in Wolverhampton market. There were

lots of clothing stalls. One afternoon, he noticed that every stall opposite him had embroidery on and that was his flashpoint. He started looking into it. He used to buy garments from local manufacturers so he asked the question - do you have any demand for embroidery? And they nearly bit his head off."

After a chat with the bank manager, Jan bought his first machine and launched the business in a 2000 sq ft building not far from the current premises, "Within a year, he had five machines, just because of the demand," says Inder. "In the early 1990s, there was so much happening here, you couldn't do enough work."

In the late '90s, however, volumes fell as customers turned to the Far East for embroidery.

Slick Stitch predominantly became a contract embroidery operation working for other embroiderers.

After gaining an economics degree at Durham, then training as a chartered accountant, Inder joined the company in 2004 and the business changed direction.

"We started approaching the big, global sports companies as well as the big workwear and schoolwear firms." Working for such big hitters forced the company to be better, according to Inder. It meant taking a fresh look at everything from systems and sign offs to machinery and regulations.

With an average weekly output of 74,000 units a week (80,000 capacity), Slick Stitch cannot afford to cut corners. "We mainly use Barudans and Tajimas," Inder told me. "All the machinery is new - which you won't see anywhere else. And all of the machines are busy."

Frequent power cuts were a cause for concern. "The power would be off for about six hours. So after about the fourth time, we invested in a huge, fuel-powered generator which kicks in in 30 seconds."

On-site engineers ensure the smooth running of the embroidery machines. "Our machines now work through a central server which records

everything, from how many thread breaks there are to where the thread breaks are, where the needle breaks are -  all the parameters." Inder admits that the system did not initially go down too well with staff.

"It wasn't popular when we first launched it, because we can tell which members of staff are working better than others, break times and things like that."

It is useful, however, to be able to report back to Barudan and Tajima, who have been receptive to the feedback. The fact that the machines stopped for just 42 hours last year speaks volumes for the huge output at Slick Stitch.

"We even work Christmas morning and New Year's Day," says Inder. The industry is changing, he says. "In the UK in about five years time there will be space for just one big embroiderer. The recession has also seen organisations change their buying habits. Instead of tying up cash in stock that was being embroidered abroad, that offshore business is now coming home.

Some customers with embroidery plants of their own have been forced to close them because of high overheads and give all the work to Slick Stitch. "That has happened probably four times this year," says Inder. He admits that within five years, the company will outgrow its present premises and will "need to find a big shed".

"The biggest issue will be the staff, because 60% of them live on this road." The operation is, in fact, like one big family. "It's all families, brothers, cousins, wives, etc" says Inder. "And when we are recruiting, we ask within the workforce. We have third and fourth generations working here." With a sporting decade on the horizon, Slick Stitch is going to be as busy as ever. "We have just done a huge sample set for the Olympics. On top of that, we're doing in excess of 50,000 units for the Ryder Cup next year."

Slick Stitch is well-practised at delivering the goods to the sporting world. For the last Rugby World Cup, they embroidered the two semi-finalist's flags on caps brought in from China for the executive boxes.

"Because of the time between the semi finals and the finals, we had three days to embroider 10,000 pieces," recalls Inder. "We also had to ship them to France and organise everything at their end. It was a very short lead time. And it took them two days to approve the design!"

In fact turnaround is one of the company's biggest advantages. "We can offer turnaround that no one else has. And because of the new machinery and highly trained operators, our quality is second to none," emphasises Inder. So how does he intend to maintain the company's market leading position?

"Things like eBOS will help us; being innovative in terms of systems. We can drive lead times down, but only to a certain point. Maintaining our machinery and keeping our staff all play a part. Average staff retention is eight to nine years. We have a motto - when you come to work here, it's your last job."

Next year, there will be webcams on machines, allowing customers to see their order being embroidered. Inder admits it's a gimmick. But it's all part of that crucial customer service that gives them the edge. "Becoming the biggest embroider in Europe has just happened," he says. "But it isn't about being the biggest. It's about being the best. I am happy when I can see orders going out on time correctly. Monitoring everything, making it transparent, that's my main goal."

For more information visit www.slickstitch.com

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