Nearly 100 of the world’s leading dyes houses now choose the natific Color Accreditation Program (CAP) as the means of earning straight-to-production privileges (i.e. to cut out the common process of lab dip submission and first production approval). natific randomly selects a CAP mill to feature with a company profile.
We would also like to take this opportunity to welcome new and returning software and service clients with a short announcement, including a special notice to all CAP members.
CONGRATULATIONS to Swisstex California
The Swisstex California mill has been a CAP member since January 2013 and is the March CAP mill profile of the month. Swisstex manage their production for all their clients using the natific system ColorWarehouse in both their California and El Salvador location. Allowing them to track all production color and fastness performance.
We took the opportunity to ask the management of Swisstex California some questions to find out more about the mill and their progress.
What retailers/brands are you working with within the program?
Color Image, Target, Under Armour
What are your mill’s niche area?
Flexibility, efficiency and consistency
How did you first hear about the CAP program and what were your initial thoughts?
We first heard about CAP from Under Armour, which is one of our biggest brands we work for. Since we just finished our Bluesign certification a couple of months earlier we initially questioned why we should do this.
What are your thoughts today about the program?
We don’t want to work without CAP anymore, it brings a lot of benefits for us.
What do you see as your biggest benefits?
The lab dip process, as it is so much faster since the self-approval. We do not need to send lab dips back and forth for approval anymore.
Master Digital Standards (MDS, qtx files) are used within the CAP program, what is your experience working digitally?
It makes it much simpler since everyone involved is using the same standard. There are no more misunderstandings about what the right color standard is.
Do you have any measurable feedback, such as regarding dyeing time, costs, water and energy, re-dyeing, quality etc.?
We usually save 4 weeks in the development of new colors and lab to bulk timesaving is about 2-4 weeks.
You use the system ColorWarehouse to track your mills ongoing production results. Can you comment on how you have used the system internally to monitor your color production’s accuracy and precision?
The internal color production is much easier monitored since the data is very easy available, we use it internally for color corrections.
natific’s note: We were curious to know more about the color production performance at Swisstex and checked their CAP level in ColorWarehouse. We found that Swisstex CAP performance level is an excellent 4 at both their mills (California and El Salvador). This involves 525 production runs with not a single one above tolerance of 1 CMC (2:1).
The level is updated continuously to track the progress and current standing. A mill with a level 4 is a quantifiable statement that the mill is among the best operations globally and can safely go straight-to-production as soon as the color is specified by the brand/retailer.
Let’s have a brief look at what Swisstex is good at, allowing them to go straight to production.
Precision and accuracy in the color production is what the mills within the CAP program are working towards. It is critical since it indicates how well a brand’s final product will look and match in store, at a single point in time and over time. Let’s have a look at five fictive graphs to see how you would notice this in the system ColorWarehouse used by Swisstex.
Graph no 1 shows no precision and no accuracy (worst-case scenario). The 2nd graph indicates accuracy however no precision (this scenario is not preferred either). In the 3rd graph you see precision however no accuracy (might be more preferred but how about other suppliers precision if they are not included there). The 4th graph show accuracy AND precision (this is what you are looking for). But what you are really aiming for is CONSISTENCY in precision and accuracy, as shown in the 5th graph. Where each and every dyeing cycle of subsequent lab dips and batches matches the arithmetic mean of previous batches with a maximum deviation being no bigger than ΔE 0.5 CMC (2:1).
This month we are happy to welcome our new and returning retailers/brands, vendors and mills as software and service clients. Natific is looking forward to our new and continued relationships.
RETAILERS/BRANDS
Product Quality Inspection
Oobe Inc. (United States)
VENDORS & MILLS
Color Accreditation Program (CAP)
Chiu Ying Ltd. Co. (New Wide Enterprise Co., Ltd.) (Taiwan)
Global Dyeing Co., Ltd. (Vietnam)
Guangdong Charming Co., Ltd. (China)
Polartec (United States)
Ramatex Printing Garment (China)
Shijiazhuang Mingshi Printing and Dyeing Co., Ltd. (China)
Tak Sang Textile Printing & Dyeing (An Qing) Co., Ltd (China)
Taltex (Zhuhai) Ltd. Wah Fung Knitters (China)
Brand Certifications
Adidas Group (Turkey)
Atateks Tekstil Isletmeleri San ve Tic A.S. (Turkey)
Changzhou Tooku Garments Co., Ltd (China)
Henateks Boya Ve Apre Sanayi A.S (Turkey)
Gelal çorap. San ve Tic A.S (Turkey)
Imteks Düzce (Turkey)
Imteks Giyim Sanayi Tic AS (Turkey)
Jongstit Co., Ltd. (Thailand)
Kjakar Iplik Boya San ve Tic Ltd., Sti (Turkey)
Marmara Pamuklu Mensucat San. Ve Tic. AS (Turkey)
NK Apparel Co., Ltd. (Thailand)
Ottoman Tekstil San. ve Tic. A.S. (Turkey)
Pacific Apparel (Dongguan) Limited / TAL Group (China)
PT Bintan Bersatu Apparel (Indonesia)
Ratsima Co., Ltd. (Thailand)
Tuntex Textile (Thailand) Co., Ltd. (Thailand)
Yixing Lucky G&L Dyeing and Finishing Co., Ltd. (China)
Y.R.C. Textile Co., Ltd. (Thailand)
ColorWarehouse (on-line system to monitor and track on-going color production)
Chiu Ying Ltd. Co. (New Wide Enterprise Co., Ltd.) (Taiwan)
Guilford Mills Inc. (United States)
Ilshin Spinning Co., Ltd. (Korea)
Masood Textile Mills Ltd. (Pakistan)
Polartec (United States)
Ramatex Printing Garment Suzhou (China)
Samil Vina Co., Ltd. (Vietnam)
ASAP (on-line system to request and manage all color developments)
Alessi International (United States)
Dong Guan Best Pacific Textile Ltd (China)
Guangdong Charming Co.,Ltd (China)
Guangdong Esquel (China)
Kuohwa Garment & Enamel Industry Co., Ltd. (Taiwan)
Merit Tat International Ltd. (Hong Kong)
Lameirinho-Indústria Textil S.A (Portugal)
Polartec Shanghai Ltd. (China)
Shin Han Ind. Co., Ltd. (Korea)
Zhejiang Dejun New Material Co., Ltd (China)
More about the CAP program. Going from a traditional process to the process of the future, mills can be pre-approved on some or all palette colors and no longer be required to submit lab dips or first of production for approval. The CAP is not a pass or fail audit. The program is designed to evaluate the maturity and capability of a mill, determining if a mill will be able to produce any given color to a specific tolerance. It is intended to assess, educate and help mills move towards best practice through production analysis and expert recommendations. Once the assessment is completed, a CAP level is assigned through ColorWarehouse and the mill will have a list of required and recommended actions to be completed. The process score is a formula to calculate what 99% of all production would look like.
The program was developed as a collaborative project with retailers, and has evolved to be the most comprehensive color accreditation program globally. natific’s different certification programs have been carried out at over 500 global factories including the world’s leading mills that are members of the CAP program.
The ColorWarehouse is an online data warehouse that stores transmitted spectral and other data such as season and style for all production batches. This information is uploaded for all CAP participating retailer’s colors. It serves mills by permitting them to analyze production data based on color, fabric and dyeing machine. This provides the mill, vendors and retailers/brands with insight into the mills daily production operations and efficiency.
Contact us at support@natific.com if you have specific questions or would like to know more, we would love to hear from you!