Our offshore garment facilities in Vietnam and China are now back at full capacity without exception. There have been some winter orders affected with air freight no longer an option for us until restrictions ease. Until this time all garments made in our Vietnam Factory and Xiamen (China) Factory will be shipped by sea with allowance for a 25 - 30 days travel time from either port.
Our Weareco CEO is in close contact with both Weareco factories and on the ground Production Managers daily as we navigate through this global crisis in line with local regulations and health & safety requirements. Our main aim is and has always been the safety and wellbeing of the workers and our staff coupled with the ability to keep the business going through this period and beyond.
We are all on hand to provide you with the trusted production you require in time for Term 4 selling in October for B2S 2021. If there are any changes that occur that may impact on our ability to meet scheduled deliveries individual customers will be kept informed.
Weareco's Manufacturing Profile
Built on Australian-made foundations our Queensland family-owned business has been creating smart clothing for school since 1979. With head office remaining in Brisbane we operate our own full-service garment factories in Vietnam and China. Now producing over 300,000 garments per year we continually invest in our facilities, systems and technology to ensure we remain responsive to the needs of our customers – even when faced with unlikely challenges such as a global Pandemic. Each production origin provides unique specialties and benefits in terms of logistics, production planning and quality control.
Historical Timeline
1979 - 2011: School clothing apparel was manufactured in our Brisbane based garment factories.
2011 : Weareco's first offshore garment factory is established in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. Built on the same family-orientated values and operational model as our Queensland based factory. Guided by Brisbane based pattern makers and specifiers to offer the same pre-production service and ensure; a 'smart fit' every time, in house quality checks and regular site visits by our company CEO. This factory specialises in woven cut and sew quality garments with high volume capabilities to make Blazers, formal school wear and activewear apparel. Facilities are modern, fully air conditioned and the production floor is equipped with leading machinery specialising in embroidery, knit-wear and woven apparel.
2016:. A second offshore factory is established in Xiamen, China and modelled on the same footprint as our factory in Vietnam where we are in control of production operations with an ethically like-minded team to manage staff with the same ethos as our Australian factory. Weareco controls fabric choice and testing, and uses our own smart-fit patterns. We designed this facility to predominantly specialise in cut & sew sportswear but also has the capacity to produce woven garments. As a result of expanding our operations in 2019 we introduced new equipment to improve the make and evolve operations as a multi-sports cut & sew specialist.
Today this secondary factory facility provides our customers with production security in the unlikely event that our primary location is affected by flood, fire or global events such as COVID-19.
Ethical Standards
From our world to yours our clothes are made in a modern, safe, clean and fair way and Weareco is committed to ensuring our facilities in Vietnam and China are not party to any illegal or unethical manufacturing standards.
Because more than 70% of our manufacturing volume comes from company managed or dedicated facilities which are vertically integrated to include fabric sourcing and sewing, Weareco is able to maintain a high ethical standard in quality and fairness. Most importantly this monitoring and control ensures we provide a safe working environment and above minimum wage to all Weareco garment workers.
Supply Chain Social Compliance
Whilst it is difficult to trace all fibre and textile production Weareco knows all of its primary suppliers - these fabric suppliers are audited annually to International standards. This ensures that your school is being supplied quality garments which are holistically produced by companies which adhere to the best ethical standards for social responsibility. Issues such as child labour, discrimination and a safe working environment as well as fair rates of pay are of real importance to Weareco, so when a proportion of Weareco garments are unable to be produced in our own facilities, Weareco utalises ISO ethically certified factories . In the future Weareco is committed to improving our standards of traceability across our entire supply network and we are currently working towards establishing a self-managed Ethical Code of Practice to improve our third party supplier selection process.
Warehouse & Office Operations
Our warehouse and office is now open during COVID-19 restrictions and we are processing orders as per normal. We will endeavour to dispatch your holding stock orders as quickly as possible within 3 business days.