Eton helps meet technology challenge at garment unit

Affordable, high quality fashion

A visit to a Macklife store reinforces the company’s commitment to making fashion affordable to its customers. Of course, having the right products on the shelf at the right time plays a big role in keeping costs low.

Because keeping prices low is central to its continued success, controlling production costs has always been an active pursuit at Macklife. In addition to reducing handling time and costs, the Eton conveyor delivers all the parts for a single pant or shirt in a specially designed carrier that presents them in the most ergonomic manner for each operation. Many operations can be performed without ever removing the pant or shirt from the clamp.  

“The opportunity to reduce product costs was one of the first things that attracted us to the system”, continues Nabhan. “With Eton, we have reduced the cost of manufacturing our jeans by 20%.”

As customer expectations for product quality continue to increase, the fast pace of production with Eton Systems helps Macklife find and resolve quality issues quickly and more effectively than ever before. In contrast to a progressive bundle system where large quantities sit in queues for the next operation, the Eton system automatically advances individual units to the next operation at the click of a button. This prevents stacks of defective items from being sewn before problems are detected. Computer controls on the system also make it simple to track problems back to their origin so corrective measures can be taken before major quality problems develop.

Macklife has clearly transformed their factory operations with the Eton system. Moreover, they have leveraged these newfound capabilities to significantly improve their ability to respond to retail demand and compete in the fast-changing fashion market.

“We are very pleased with the way this system has helped us improve our business”, concludes Nabhan. “In addition to getting us up and running on the system very quickly, they have helped us by sharing their deep knowledge of the apparel industry. The investment has quickly paid for itself and we are thinking about adding 30 more stations. Thanks to Eton Systems, we can produce more pieces in less time with the same team. Not only are our teams more productive, they are much happier working on the Eton system. Knowing that we have highly productive and responsive manufacturing capabilities gives us the confidence to focus on increasing sales in all of our retail stores. ”

Eton Systems