A Stitch in Time: Classic Caps and Embroidery Brings New Practices to Nearly a Century of Tradition

Through the project management of Frank Groenteman, Senior Business Advisor, and assistance of Eduardo Martinez, Lean Consultant and Shingo Facilitator, TMAC helped justify the new building, design the entire facility including production spaces, receiving and shipping, storage racking, owner’s lounge, parking spaces and more. They helped sequence the move into their new Garland facility. It was a challenging project of taking a 46 thousand square foot facility and moving it into a building less than 20 thousand square feet. First, Frank, Eduardo and the Classic Caps’ owners determined what processes and related equipment was going to move along with the relative space requirements. Once TMAC provided preliminary layouts to determine if the potential Garland building would be acceptable for Classic’s future business needs, the owners purchased the building. Frank and Eduardo, using AutoCAD and MS Excel, provided several variations of layouts and documentation of all the utilities requirements. Once a building layout was agreed to, Frank work closely with the owners and contractors to move the equipment into place and properly hook up all the equipment. There were a variety of machines, different processes, and utilities to be managed including electrical, water, drainage, compressed air, HVAC, lighting, ventilation, etc. Frank and Eduardo used their Lean knowledge and techniques to optimize the production flows through out the embroidery room, sewing room and screen-printing operations. The entire factory is now functioning much more efficiently than the old building. light bulb Replacing out dated lighting with LED technology was a consistent action to reduce energy costs by all the facilities.