p76-77 Embroidery:Layout 1 17/08/2009 13:54 Page 77
COMPANY PROFILE
Initially, the company used Happy machines but
after a six month trial, it has now invested in
Barudan.
The machines were tested side by side, said
George. “The differences are tiny from one
machine to the other but we can see it and if we
go out and say we are the best we have got to
make sure it stacks up.”
There were further moves to 3,000 and 7,000sq ft
premises as the company grew. “We were starting
to be asked for garments as well, so rather than
just decoration we were providing the whole
service.”
He puts the company’s success down to quality
and service.
“Customers would rather put things through us,
where they know it’s going to happen, than risk
putting it somewhere else,” said George.
Print was another area that took off. “Direct to
garment print was the easiest solution,” added
George. “If we look at the Kornit digital machine,
we were the first people in Europe to have it. We
have machine no.7 worldwide – which shows our
commitment to what we are trying to do.”
The Kornit was fine, but as a bulk supplier,
Essential needed to develop the printing side of
the business and began looking at screen print.
“But our problem was space,” said George. “I did station machine. then, George has started sourcing garments from
start looking for other premises to maybe open a “The challenge at the moment is that our key further afield. “Over the last couple of years we
separate screen print plant and considered looking customers are buying less,” said George. “Our have tested a lot of factories and built
for a screen printers to buy. Then these premises target has been the large bluechip customer. We up a network of suppliers,” said George. “I have
came up, so we went for them and at the end of are very strong within banks, oil companies and looked at different parts of the world – Turkey,
February/beginning of March our screen printer telecom companies. But the banks, at the moment, China, Bangladesh – and have built up a network
was installed and is now up and running.” are not buying. I believe it’s a temporary situation. of factories that specialise in various areas so that
Essential had, in fact, been offering the service for The banks, historically, are the type of people who we can put work through and control it. For our
two years, via a sub contractor. “But we were will promote themselves out of problems, but their customers, we take away a lot of the minefields
never in total control and I am not happy if I don’t hands are tied. out there.”
have total control of what we are producing,” said “People are being far more careful with their Essential has the facility to design garments and is
George. “All our existing customers use screen budgets. I still believe it’s very temporary. We have pro-active in going out and offering designs to
print so we are slowly getting new customers on got the Olympics coming and for anyone in our customers. “Slowly but surely it is becoming a big
board. It’s an ideal scenario for us because all industry, that’s a major thing. part of the set up,” said George.
existing customers will use screen print. And for “I can’t believe this country is going to go into the Examples of their work include the new T mobile
the new customers who come on board for screen Olympics virtually bankrupt. We have a major uniforms which were designed by Essential and
print it gives us the chance to sell embroidery.” problem on our hands at the moment, but I think outsourced. George admits it was hard finding
Essential has employed a print manager to run the it is going to be quite short-lived.” factories that work to his exacting
screen printing operation and trained up existing Another big area for Essential is bespoke clothing, standards.
staff to work on the £100k MHM nine colour, 12 initially sourced from standard suppliers. Since “We are not going to find factories with our kind
of set up in Bangladesh or Turkey. But we will
reject things and get things put right before they
are put through to our clients. We still play a major
role in the quality,” said George. “So many of our
clients are high profile organisations; we want to
make sure we are dealing with factories who have
ethical and social responsibility.”
Essential is one of only a few companies which still
has in house digitisers. He acknowledges it would
be cheaper to outsource, but again, it boils down
to quality.
“For quality, you have to use some of the older
manual systems. It makes a difference,” he said.
The company sells itself not on price, but on
quality of service. “It’s not by accident that we
have achieved this. If I do something, I want to do
it properly or not at all,” said George.
“With screen print, it would have been easy to buy
secondhand machinery and set it up on a budget,
but we have bought the best on the market –
MHM – and it’s already proving very popular and
very successful within a few weeks. “I’d be
shocked if we don’t bring in another machine by
the end of the year.”
For more information call 01582 475801.
Website:
www.eed-uk.com
www.printwearandpromotion.co.uk September 2009 | 77 |
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