TALES OF A FOURTH GENERATION TEXTILE EXECUTIVE Part B: Where Did This Fabric Come From?

PART 2: SNS SOUTH, UNLOADING, UNPACKING, DOUBLE AND ROLLING, BAGGING, STOCKING THE SHELVES, PICKING & PACKING AND FINALLY SHIPPING TO YOUR STORE.

Is there anybody out there? Hi! It’s me, Scott. I’m back! From the multitude of comments, emails, phone calls, death threats (note sarcasm) that I have been receiving in response to my first blog installment of Tales of a 4^th Generation Textile Executive, it seems quite clear that legions of quilters around the world are waiting on the edge of their seats for my next installment (note sarcasm again). The irony of the whole thing is that my social media guru, Vanessa, keeps begging me to write the blog… as if anyone is going to read it. “Just trying to stay with the schedule Scott” she keeps saying. I get it Vanessa. The only thing more depressing than the number of people reading my blog is that I, being “Mr. Studioe” have like 60 friends on Facebook. Who knew that one day our self-worth would be measured by the number of Facebook friends we have? What is this world coming to?

Enough with the digression….sorry! To kick things off in Part 2 of “Where Did This Fabric Come from?” I am going to send a free fat quarter bundle of our beautiful basic Watermark line to the first person that makes a comment about this blog. I don’t even care what your comment is, just say something, anything…..pretty please.

Now that our greige goods have been shipped, dyed, printed, packed and shipped again, they have finally arrived at SNS South at 1631b Sandifer Boulevard in South Carolina (see that little red dot on the map below).

SNS South

Entrance to SNS South – Seneca, South Carolina

Two Large Main Buildings at SNS South

SNS South is comprised of two massive buildings as you can see from the photos above. Each of the buildings is further subdivided into about 4 large rooms with different customer’s fabrics and required machinery in each room. In addition, SNS has two other facilities. One is SNS West which is in Fontana, California. SNS West is where a lot of fleece is double and rolled for many U.S. fabric vendors. Double and rolling in California helps to save on the freight expense by not having to ship the fleece cross country. The other SNS facility is in Clifton, NJ. This facility is called, you guessed it, SNS North. In total, the SNS facilities comprise of over 1 million square feet in the whole country. If you have a shop in the U.S., it is highly likely that you have received fabric that was handled by one of the SNS facilities, as they have many fabric convertors as their customers.

SNS is not owned by any one fabric convertor, but rather, SNS is a contract warehouse. They charge a fee for doing whatever it takes to get fabric in, rolled or packaged, and then shipped out to customers worldwide. As mentioned in Part 1 of the blog, my family did own a converting plant or two at one point. However, we have learned that it is a lot easier to contract out the work than to have to deal with the problems and stresses of having a warehouse, especially one that is not nearby. SNS performs the service of cutting the fabric, rolling onto boards, applying labels, and packing on pallets. Everything they do is factored into a single price that is attached to the cost of a yard of fabric. Costs of their services usually ranges anywhere from 15-25 cents per yard depending on various factors like:

Width of fabric. i.e. 44/45” vs. 60”, 90” or 108”.
Weight of fabric i.e. fleece is more expensive than flannel or quilting cottons.
Size of the double and rolled pieces i.e. an 8 yard bolt would cost more than a 10 or 12 yard bolt.
Boxes used to ship out fabric i.e. recycled vs. brand new.
Who the ultimate customer is i.e. quilt stores vs. chains.
How good of a customer you are at SNS – meaning the amount of volume performed each year.

Take a look at this photo below of the loading docks and just picture 3 different trucks backed in there with their rear doors open so that the SNS employees can go inside the trucks and unload all the fabrics. Sometimes when the fabrics come in on the trucks they come in nice and neat on pallets which are easily removed with forklifts (see two forklifts below). Other times, the goods could come in loose in which case the workers have to unload the trucks by hand and load the fabric on to pallets (see photo below).

Docks where goods are removed from trucks

Large forklift moving pallets of fabric

Small forklift at SNS South

Loose rolls piled onto pallets

After the trucks are unloaded, the truckers leave the facility and are off to their next job. Now comes the most important part of the entire process…..the fabrics have to be double and rolled. Essentially what this means is that the fabrics are folded in half on the width (half of 44/45” inches) and are rolled on to 23” boards. For 108” wide goods, we us 27” boards. Most vendors in the fabric industry use machinery to double and roll the fabrics. Interestingly enough, two years ago when I went to India I learned that some of the goods there are double and rolled by hand. The workers just sit on the floor and patiently roll the fabric. I am sure it won’t be long before they get some double and rolling machines. It is much quicker when it’s automated. Next post, we will see the automation of doubling and rolling the fabric! Stay tuned!