Industrial Cluster: The Clothing Manufacturing In This Small Town In Southwest Shandong Has "Worn" To A New World

Arthur and SKECH are world-famous footwear brands, and Wenshang is a small county located in the southwest of Shandong.

"Since 2021, foreign-funded enterprises have successively invested and built factories in Wenchang, and built the largest R&D and intelligent manufacturing sales base of Arthur brand shoes in China and the largest R&D and production base of SKECH in northern China. At present, the annual output of the two brands in Wenchang has exceeded 6.2 million pairs." Wang Huazheng, director of the textile and clothing industry special class of Wenchang County, said.

As a famous leisure clothing manufacturing city in China, Wenshang County's clothing production accounts for 1.3% of the total national clothing production, and more than 400 million pieces of clothing are offline every year. From a suit to a pair of shoes, Wenchang has continuously extended its industrial chain.

In the workshop of Edex Shoes (Jining) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Edex Shoes"), various raw materials were processed into more than 100 kinds of parts after more than 200 processes, and then they were combined in an orderly manner under the cooperation of human and computer. A pair of fashionable shoes went through the production line.

How to keep more than 2000 workers busy in the 17000 square meter factory? Chi Changquan, the deputy general manager of the company, told the secret: as a labor-intensive enterprise, they used TPM and ERP system for enterprise management. More than 100 parts needed for a pair of shoes were produced simultaneously, and then assembled in a unified way. "Every process cannot be slow or fast, and only by working together can we improve the overall efficiency and quality," said Chi Changquan.

Big brands have high requirements for product quality, and Wenchang's "password" is a solid manufacturing strength. At present, the products of 695 local textile and clothing enterprises involve more than 300 categories in 16 series, including cotton padded clothes, down jackets, casual clothes, etc., and have become a processing base for more than 80 well-known brands at home and abroad, including Uniqlo and Anta.

In the afternoon of March 26, a pair of new sports and leisure shoes were constantly coming off the production line in the SKECH brand shoes production workshop of Shandong Guanshi Shoes Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Guanshi Shoes"). "This shoe is self-developed and designed by us, focusing on comfort and practicality," said Hu Zhiqiang, chief executive of Crowne Plaza Shoes.

"We are not only involved in the production process, but also have realized the transformation from OEM processing to ODM taking into account design and processing, changing the mechanical labor output to active and flexible intellectual output." Hu Zhiqiang introduced that more than 200 of their products come from independent research and development every year, which gives them priority to obtain more orders from brand names.

At the front end of the "Buzz Buzz" production line, a high-precision laser scanner is hovering above the workbench. As the design shape is projected onto the cowhide fabric with a holographic image, the laser cutter head moves accurately along the projection contour, cutting out parts of different sizes. "We use the internationally leading visual system and laser scanning technology to achieve intelligent management, and the utilization rate of fabrics is 20% higher than that of traditional manual cutting," said Hu Zhiqiang.

"As the average age of workers and the cost of employment continue to grow, Wenshang's manufacturing advantage needs to be stabilized and improved by intelligence and digitalization." Wang Huazheng introduced that the Internet and big data have enabled local textile and clothing enterprises to quickly adapt to the development needs of the current clothing industry in small quantities and fast fashion. Wenshang County's "textile and clothing (leisure clothing) industrial brain" was selected into the list of "industrial brain" in Shandong Province in 2024.

It is reported that by the end of 2024, there will be more than 60000 workers in the textile and clothing industry in Wenshang County. The local textile and clothing industry has formed a relatively complete industrial chain covering raw materials, spinning, weaving, research and development, logistics, etc. At present, more than 30 domestic well-known brand enterprises, such as Huacheng Group, Hongtian Group and Oriental International, have been attracted to invest and build factories.

(Source: Wang Haoqi, reporter of Dazhong News, Dazhong Daily, and Zhang Ming, correspondent)