Ordinary consumers may not be familiar with the name “Esquel”, but the customers who mention it are all well-known clothing brands: Ralph Lauren, Nike, Tommy Hilfiger, Hugo Boss, Lacoste, Muji , Nautica…
Equel Group was founded in 1978 and is one of the world’s largest pure cotton shirt manufacturers. It produces more than 100 million pure cotton shirts for world-renowned brands every year. pieces, an average of 9 shirts are produced per second, and the woven fabric produced in one year can circle the earth three times; it cooperates with MIT, Tsinghua University and other schools to continuously carry out technological innovation, and has 166 patents so far; all cotton Yarn-dyed fabrics and cotton knitted fabrics were rated as “national inspection-free products”, and cotton-dyed fabrics were rated as China’s first “export inspection-free products”…
Having Esquel Group, which had many achievements, was not optimistic at first. But over the past 41 years, this company focusing on the textile business has grown rapidly. Its factories are located in China, Malaysia, Mauritius, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Among them, Guangdong Esquel, the world’s largest production base, has 30,000 people, accounting for 3/3 of the group’s total employees. 5. In 2018, Esquel Group’s turnover exceeded US$1.3 billion. The United States accounted for the highest proportion of ready-to-wear sales by region, accounting for 39% of the total, Europe accounted for 27%, and China accounted for 15%.
In the context of increasingly complex domestic and foreign market environments, Esquel Group is still moving forward steadily at its own pace. How was this “hidden champion” in the shirt industry created? of?
Operation “vertical integration”
When the clothing industry enters On the track of “fast fashion”, the industrial chain subcontracting model advocated by clothing brands represented by ZARA, H&M, and UNIQLO has become popular in the global clothing industry.
The so-called “let professional people do professional things”, in addition to establishing brand image and distribution channels, “fast fashion” brands such as ZARA will integrate clothing design, fabrics, All manufacturing and production links such as ready-made garments are outsourced to manufacturing companies in their respective fields.
The advantage of this model is that ZARA can focus on the sales stage and deliver the products to consumers within 3 to 4 weeks. However, due to the outsourcing of the production process, And costs must be strictly controlled, and product quality is difficult to control.
Different from this industry trend, Esquel has adhered to the “vertical integration” whole industry chain model from the beginning. In order to satisfy customers, Esquel regards product quality as the core competitiveness of the company.
The production from cotton to clothing requires thousands of processes. In order to control the quality of pure cotton products, Esquel Group has been laying out its supply chain layout along the entire shirt production.
Starting from garment manufacturing, Esquel gradually invested in the upstream to expand the entire industrial chain. In order to control the quality of garments, Esquel invested in fabric factories; in order to improve the quality of fabrics, Esquel invested in high-count yarn mills and printing and dyeing factories; in order to provide stable high-quality raw materials for yarn mills, Esquel turned its attention to to Xinjiang.
Xinjiang is the only high-quality long-staple cotton producing area in China. Long-staple cotton is the best source of raw materials for making pure cotton shirts. In order to ensure a stable supply of high-quality cotton, Esquel invests in cotton fields and establishes its own gins, cotton planting and cotton seed breeding bases. Currently, Esquel has a one-stop supply chain covering cotton planting, ginning, cotton spinning, weaving, dyeing and finishing, garment making and garment accessories in Guangdong, Xinjiang, Changzhou, Ningbo, Guilin and other places.
Under the vertically integrated system, Esquel’s production plan can be planned as a whole, product quality can be effectively controlled, and even new product development and design have become more efficient.
“Our brand customers have their unique ideas and designs. We can always make a lot of suggestions from a production perspective and give different modifications for customers to choose from.” Esquel staff said that once customers make a decision, Esquel, with its vertically integrated supply chain, can turn these designs into real samples in the shortest time, which many other suppliers cannot do.
Focus on technological competitiveness
Esquel Group has always Focusing on technological innovation and using special spinning technology, we have developed the world’s finest yarns, as well as a series of special spinning yarns blended with cotton, cashmere, silk and yak hair. Through scientific research and cooperation with local cotton farmers, Esquel Group is able to produce the world’s finest yarns of up to 700 inches.
It is understood that a 700-inch yarn is about as thin as a human hair. In order to be able to spin yarn, the company’s R&D team continued to overcome technical problems and set a record for the world’s finest yarn, which remains today.
Modern technological means make traditional manufacturing industries shine with the light of science and technology. It is understood that in the Guangdong Esquel textile production workshop, the automation rate of the tatting department of the garment factory has reached 65%, and the automation rate of the knitting department has reached 35%, reaching the highest level in the global industry. Various high-end automation equipment are widely used in the workshop; In Esquel’s R&D center, the R&D team has overcome 8 global technical difficulties; Esquel has an annual output of more than 20,000 tons of high-end pure cotton knitted fabrics and more than 110 million yards of cotton-dyed fabrics, of which functional fabrics account for 70% about.
Esquel adheres to the high-end positioning of its products, relies on its global layout and strong professional R&D team, and provides innovative solutions through advanced technology to meet current needs. Promote forward-looking research to meet future challenges��
Esquel has infused and applied innovative concepts and advanced technology into the product design, development and production process of the entire vertically integrated supply chain, and has achieved fruitful results. A person in charge of Guangdong Esquel said: “Esquel’s investment in scientific research funds for new product development every year accounts for 3% of the company’s annual sales revenue. In addition, there is also investment in hardware and talents. This has established a good foundation for Esquel. A technological innovation platform that is higher than the level of its peers and has established a high-quality talent team.”
A shirt produced by Esquel looks ordinary, but it contains countless Ingenious craftsmanship and high technology: the world’s finest yarn, patented cuff stitching technology, wrinkle-free seam technology, no-iron production technology, recyclable buttons…
Practice the concept of sustainable development
The textile industry has always been regarded as a high-emission industry. For such a high-emission production model, to achieve environmental protection and low carbon, it is usually necessary to invest a large amount of money to achieve environmental sustainability, which will inevitably lead to increased corporate costs and reduced profits. Therefore, many companies are wavering between efficiency and social responsibility.
But Esquel Group’s philosophy is different. Yang Minxian, Vice Chairman of Esquel Group, believes that environmental protection is both social responsibility and competitiveness.
At the “Ten Ru Dialogue” hosted by Esquel Group, Yang Minxian said that the global economy is ushering in a turning point, and China is the focus of this change. In the process of national sustainable development , enterprises are an indispensable piece of the puzzle in the entire solution, and Esquel Group will continue to explore sustainable development models.
The latest Guilin Shiru production base established by Esquel Group is the exploration of the future sustainable development model of Esquel Group, which is in a pollution-prone industry.
It is understood that Shiru is a green factory project with a total investment of 2 billion yuan, covering an area of approximately 53.3 hectares, and has been built into a specialty textile, garment making and research and development center. Shiru has introduced a full set of automatic intelligent manufacturing equipment imported from Germany and Switzerland to achieve a spinning production capacity of 40,000 spindles. The degree of automation in shirt production can reach more than 70%, and the annual output of Shiru garments can reach more than 3.5 million pieces. Esquel independently developed an intelligent order distribution management system, creating a new organizational management model for the realization of Industry 4.0 in the textile and apparel industry, and hopes to drive industrial upgrading and urban-rural linkage development through project operations.
In addition, Esquel has been committed to reducing water and energy consumption, investing US$150 million in the past 10 years, including a sewage treatment plant that can process 5,000 tons of sewage per day. factory. As a result, Esquel ranks second in China’s green supply chain, second only to Levi Strauss. “In the past 10 years or so, through our management, energy consumption has dropped by 45% and water consumption has dropped by 60% for each piece of clothing produced,” said the relevant person in charge of Esquel.
In fact, over the years, Esquel has made full use of the advantages of a vertically integrated supply chain to look for the possibility of green production in every link of the industrial chain.
Equeda Dyeing Factory has developed low-water dyeing technology, which can save 23% of water, 7% of electricity and 10% of chemical raw materials compared with traditional technology. Considering the serious pollution caused by traditional printing and dyeing, Esquel is also looking for a more natural way in Yunnan – extracting natural ingredients from plants for colored printing and dyeing.
In terms of energy, Esquel invested 1.5 million yuan to change all boilers burning heavy oil to burning natural gas, so that the emission reduction rate of sulfur dioxide and soot is close to 100%. In terms of sludge, Esquel invested 18 million yuan in sludge reduction and drying, reducing the daily sludge volume from 130 tons to 40 tons, and the sludge moisture content from 80% to 30%.
These large investments have paid off. Hong Kong Cathay Pacific decided to provide all first-class cotton pajamas by Esquel. A very important reason is that Esquel’s “environmentally sustainable” products will add points to Cathay Pacific’s brand image.
“The current consumption trend in the world is to promote organic and chemical-free ingredients.” The relevant person in charge of Esquel said that for companies that outsource production, they must achieve Zero emissions is difficult and requires monitoring many suppliers, but for a company like Esquel, it is easier because the entire supply chain is controlled by the company itself. </p
