TALES OF A FOURTH GENERATION TEXTILE EXECUTIVE

Where Did This Fabric Come From?

PART 3:  SNS SOUTH – DOUBLE AND ROLLING, BAGGING, STOCKING THE SHELVES, PICKING & PACKING AND FINALLY SHIPPING TO YOUR STORE.

Once received, the fabric is temporarily housed in the SNS warehouse, until they receive cutting instructions from us. Now the forklift drivers move the pallets of ROT (rolled on tube) fabric over to each of the different double and rollers a.k.a. cutters.  Below is a perfect picture of this.  As you can see on the lower left are the rolls of fabric waiting to be cut.  On the right side, you can see the young woman working the double and rolling machine.  If you look around her knee level (see arrow) you can see the roll of fabric.  That fabric is being held up by a rod that goes through the center of the tube that the fabric is rolled around.  The fabric is then weaved through the back of the machine and set up to be folded in half and then rolled on the cardboard bolt.  The next picture gives you a better idea of what the back of the machine looks like with the fabric going through.  The woman is moving the fabric through by using a foot pedal like in a car.

The picture below clearly shows the double part of double and rolling of the 44 inch fabric. But then if you look closely, you can see that the fabric has now been folded in half.  It’s very subtle, but voila! Did you catch that?  I hope you saw it.

While we are looking at this picture above, I wanted to point out to you how it works with the boards that the fabric is rolled on to.  If you look closely, there are two thin rods that go across.  The boards are secured on to the rods.  Thereafter, as the cutter presses his foot on the pedal to move the fabric through the machine, the rods with the board wind up and the fabric rolls right on perfectly.  If you look on the buggy where the cutter is leaning down, you can see all the other red fabric that he has already doubled and rolled.  There is a little meter telling the cutter how much fabric is on the board and he follows whatever the cutting instructions are.  It is one person’s job in our office to put together the cutting instructions for the plant based on how we have sold the fabric…usually 8, 10, 12 or 15 yard put ups.  The cutting instructions are very important to follow because if they are not followed accordingly, we end up with piece sizes that our customers didn’t order.  Don’t you hate when that happens?  I sure do!

 

THIS IS HOW THE BOARDS ARE BOUGHT BEFORE BEING ASSEMBLED -THIS WOMAN IS PUTTING A LABEL ON THE BOARD END

EACH END OF THE BOARD IS FOLDED IN AND THAT’S IT (NOTE BOARD IS 23”)

 I am exhausted…this is not easy work.  So now the fabric is double and rolled on boards and loaded on to buggies.  From there, the fabric waits on buggies until it is time for the fabric to be bagged.  This is a neat little process.  I think the photos will best tell the story.   Below there is a woman who is taking the fabric and putting it onto the conveyor belt to be poly bagged.  Before she puts it on to the conveyor belt she takes a high pressured hand blower and makes sure there is no dust or debris on the fabric.  Essentially what happens is that the fabric goes through a tube of plastic (like saran wrap) and then it gets melted by going through a hot machine and then it gets cooled off by going under a fan.  After that, the plastic is spliced and the fabric is perfectly sealed and will stay nice and clean.  It could probably survive a hurricane.  As you can see on the last picture, the gentleman takes the fabric and packs it back on to the buggie.

 

WOMAN SETTING FABRIC ONTO CONVENYOR BELT SO FABRIC CAN BE BAGGED

 

  

FABRIC GOING INTO THE POLYWRAP

 

FABRIC COVERED WITH POLYBAG HEADING INTO HEATING MACHINE

FABRIC COMING OUT OF HEATING MACHINE

 

POLYWRAP BEING COOLED

 

 

FABRIC BEING LOADED BACK ON TO BUGGY

 

AFTER BAGGING, FABRICS ARE PUT ON SHELVES LIKE THESE

When all the bagging is complete, all the bagged fabrics are loaded on to the shelves.  Now the fabrics are waiting to be picked and boxed to be shipped to your store.  What happens now is that we transmit the orders by computer to SNS South and they print the orders.  Then they take the orders and start pulling the fabrics that are requested on each order and once again they are loaded on to buggies.  The buggies are then moved over to shipping and a crew puts the fabric in the boxes and seals them up to be shipped out.  Each day, UPS, FEDEX and other carriers park their trucks at the docks and the team at SNS fills them up accordingly.  Once the trucks are filled, they are off and the cycle is almost complete.  Now, all that needs to happen:

• Fabric arrives at your store.
• You unpack boxes and take off the polywrap.
• You price the fabric.
• You put the fabric on the shelves…hopefully the Studioe goes in the best spot J.
• You sell the fabric to a customer.
• The customer goes home and makes something gorgeous.
• Now we can all sleep better!
• Then you come in the next to and make sure to set up another appointment with your Studioe rep so that you can get more of this well traveled and great selling fabric.

 

ORDERS WAITING TO BE PACKED

 

BOXES OF ORDERS WAITING TO BE SHIPPED

 

TRUCKS WAITING TO BE FILLED

JIMMY FEY….OUR SAVIOR AT SNS SOUTH