The Toyota Way in the clothing industry, examples to pay attention

If you have been following this blog, it is no news for you that I’m a big fan of what is known as Toyota Production System and it’s ideas as described by Jeffrey Liker in the famous “Toyota Way“.

What you don’t know is that I’m a big fan of many other companies that exhibit some of the same characteristics. How about this one: this is a clothing manufacturing and sales company that pays it’s employees above minimum wage, is located in one of the most expensive states in the US (California), and has grown 40% last year, and still takes environmental sustainability pretty seriously!

The key here is that clothing manufacturing is an industry that has been heavily de-localized to India, Mexico, China, etc. And here is a company that competes with this cheap labor competitors and still manages to turn a handsome profit!

The company I’m writing about is American Apparel and Kevin Meyer from Evolving Excellence has an excellent description of a recent visit he made to American Apparel. Check it out!