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Upskilling Staff and Optimizing Sewing Manufacturing Processes

How Ronkita Design helped Paskho with their mission to provide new job opportunities in marginalized communities.

Summary

Founded by Patrick Robinson, an acclaimed designer and industry veteran who has worked with global fashion brands, Paskho is on a mission to bring sewing manufacturing jobs with a living wage to underserved communities in the United States with their Community-Made initiative.

After establishing the first manufacturing space they began to identify issues with the garments being produced. Many of the staff are highly experienced stitchers but they were having challenges creating some of the pieces.

Paskho's mission resonated with us and aligned with our own objectives to expand opportunities for sewing education and local manufacturing. With our combination of teaching and production experience, and leading edge capabilities for remote sewing instruction, we revamped their approach to training and producing their products.

PASKHO Gee's Bend, Part 1

Challenge

Producing a wide variety of high-quality apparel products requires a small staff to have considerable experience and skills.

They need to know how to operate a number of different machines, how to work with an extensive array of fabrics and notions, and the techniques to construct the unique pieces. Paskho had assembled a highly capable group of stitchers and they successfully produced many pieces, but gaps were identified that hampered their efficiency and ability to scale.

Insight

As we got to know Patrick and his team, learned more about their products, and engaged with the sewing staff we identified a few key findings.

The staff were already well-versed on common approaches to sewing apparel, and some had previously worked in fashion manufacturing, but they struggled with some products and encountered barriers to increasing output.

The products aren't overly complex but to efficiently produce them required a fresh look at the entire workflow.

Approach

We spent time with the stitchers remotely and in-person at the facility to learn about their capabilities, how they intake projects and how they operate as a team.

We also performed an evaluation of the entire process to manufacture the different pieces.

In close collaboration with the Paskho team we formulated plans to address challenges at each stage of the process.

Solution

To help ensure they can efficiently intake and consistently produce products at the highest quality, each garment is evaluated and a package of training guides is developed.

Based on the product these guides can include order of sew instructions, video tutorials and instructor-led sessions to review in detail specific attributes and techniques to construct the product. This prepares the sewing staff with the necessary skills and the guides are used as reference during production as well as for future cross training and onboarding.

Evaluation also takes into consideration the facility, tools and equipment to ensure the stitchers have what they need and are well organized. We created team structures and roles, and even modified the arrangement of machines in the facility, all with the end result of maximizing efficiency and increasing their output.

We remotely guide manufacturing at the facility and maintain a close relationship with the stitchers to continuously help them improve and produce outstanding products.

We are proud to work with Patrick and the amazing Paskho team, and support their efforts to bring opportunities and local manufacturing to communities in the United States.

Learn more about Paskho and their Community-Made initiative:

Introducing Paskho Community-Made
PASKHO South Dakota, Part 1

Commercial Sewing Staff Training Services

Sewing training programs to develop and support commercial sewing staff.

Commercial Sewing Training