Recommendations to improve materials inspection process and returning excess fabrics into offset stock and stock balancing at mascot international viet nam

MINISTRY OF TRANSPORTATION MINISTRY OF EDUCATION & TRAINING VIETNAM MARITIME UNIVERSITY STUDENT NAME: TRAN THI THUY DUONG DISSERTATION GLOBAL STUDIES AND MARITIME AFFAIRS RECOMMENDATI

MINISTRY OF TRANSPORTATION MINISTRY OF EDUCATION & TRAINING

VIETNAM MARITIME UNIVERSITY

STUDENT NAME: TRAN THI THUY DUONG

DISSERTATION GLOBAL STUDIES AND MARITIME AFFAIRS

RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVEMATERIALS INSPECTION PROCESSAND RETURNING EXCESS FABRICS INTO OFFSET STOCK AND STOCK

BALANCING AT MASCOT INTERNATIONAL VIETNAM

HAI PHONG – 2015

MINISTRY OF TRANSPORTATION MINISTRY OF EDUCATION & TRAINING

VIETNAM MARITIME UNIVERSITY

STUDENT NAME: TRAN THI THUY DUONG

CLASS: GMA 02 DISSERTATION GLOBAL STUDIES AND MARITIME AFFAIRS

RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE MATERIALS INSPECTION PROCESSAND RETURNING EXCESS FABRICS INTO OFFSET STOCK AND STOCK

BALANCING AT MASCOT INTERNATIONAL VIETNAM

Supervisor: Vu Thi Thu Hang Division: Global Studies and Maritime Affairs

HAI PHONG – 2015

PREFACE

In the integrated environment, there are numerous companies decided to invest and create their branches oversea Nevertheless, this is a big challenge for the parent companies to control all of their subcontractors because of time, distance and scale This is also a problem of Mascot International A/S which is the Danish family-owned company When managers have tried to improve Mascot’s branch in Vietnam they realized several difficulties within fabrics flowthat required to be handled This research will concentrate on analyze the drawbacks existing in inspection process and returning excess fabrics into offset stock and stock balancing which are two major steps of fabrics flow As expected result, this researchwill help managers have full vision including aspects that they have not noticed yet

Furthermore, recommendations also will be conducted in this research

I declare that this report is my own unaided work It has not been submitted before

If violated, I am solely responsible for and bear the punishments of the Institution and University

Student Name and Signature

Tran ThiThuy Duong

i Tran ThiThuy Duong-GMA 02 Page ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor Ms Vu Thi Thu Hang and Mr Vu Le Huy for the continuous support of my graduated dissertation.They helped me to have the most suitable outline and corrected errors for my assignment Admittedly, their guidance is very important to do this dissertation

It would be big mistake if not to mention that Mr Lars SpangKjeldsen–a director of IT and Logistics of Mascot International A/S gave me the first idea for this dissertation’s topic and supported me all the time regardless of distance He also read and gave me several precious comments on it I could not image how I could do this task without his support I am very appreciated about that

In addition, I also received help from all managers at Mascot International Vietnam during the internship time at related departments in this company I did not only have great opportunities to listen but also participated into the real job for intensive understanding

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v

LIST OF TABLES vi

LIST OF FIGURES vii

INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Supply chain management 3

1.1.1 Supply chain 4

1.1.2 Conflict in traditional system 5

1.2 Inventory management 7

1.2.1 Type of inventory according to flow of materials 8

1.2.2 Function of inventories 8

1.3 MRP (Materials requirement planning) 9

1.3.1 Definition 10

1.3.2 Process 10

1.3.3 Advantages and disadvantages 12

1.4 Inspection 12

CHAPTER 2: Material inspection process and returning excess fabrics into offset and stock balancing at Mascot International Vietnam 14

2.1 Mascot introduction 14

2.1.1 Mascot International A/S 14

2.1.2 Mascot Vietnam 17

2.2 Introduction of materials inspection process and returning excess fabrics into offset stock and stock balancing at Mascot International Vietnam 21

2.2.1 Introduction of fabrics flow at Mascot International Vietnam 21

2.2.2 Inspection process at Mascot International Vietnam 25

2.2.3 Return excess fabrics into offset stock and stock balancing process at Mascot International Vietnam 28

i Tran ThiThuy Duong-GMA 02 Page iv

2.3 Evaluation and justification 32

2.3.1 Evaluation of Materials Inspection process at Mascot International Vietnam .32

2.3.2 Evaluation of returning excess fabrics to offset stock and stock balancing process at Mascot International Vietnam 36

CHAPTER 3: RECOMMENDATIONS ON MATERIALS INSPECTION PROCESS AND RETURNING EXCESS FABRICS INTO OFFSET STOCK AND STOCK BALANCING 38

3.1 Recommendations on material inspection process at Mascot International Vietnam 38

3.1.1 Human recruitment and training 38

3.1.2 Automated process 39

3.2 Recommendation on returning excess fabrics to offset stock and stock balancing step at Mascot International Vietnam 39

3.2.1 Human reassigning 39

3.2.2 Creating new transaction on SAP system 40

CONCLUSION 42

Bibliography 43

i Tran ThiThuy Duong-GMA 02 Page vi

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1.1: Fabrics inspection standard 13

Table 2.1: Consumption of fabrics in week 38 (on September) 23

Table 2.2: fabrics types with popular defects 28

Table 2.3: cutting’s list 29

Table 2.4: An example of SAP system relating to balancing 32

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.1: Ultimate supply chain 5

Figure 1.2: conflict objectives 7

Figure 1.3: Simplify bill of materials 11

Figure 2.1: Mascot’s shareholders 14

Figure 2.2: Production 15

Figure 2.3: Mascot slogan 16

Figure 2.4: Mascot INT Vietnam’s Infrastructure 18 Figure 2.5: SA 8000 certificate 19

Figure 2.6: Mascot International Vietnam structure 20

Figure 2.7: Fabrics flow 21

Figure 2.8: Light table 26

Figure 2.9: Return excess fabrics to offset stock process 28

Figure 2.10: Inspection’s errors from 2013 to 2015 33

Figure 2.11: Quantity of error at light table according to experience from 2013 to 2015 35

INTRODUCTION

1 Necessity

Mascot International Vietnam is an indispensable part belonging to Mascot International A/S or Mascot Denmark However it is not an easy task to control this branch because ofits own large scale, time difference and long distance between Mascot Denmark and Mascot Vietnam Managers in Mascot Denmark have tried for many years to find justification for current problem which is high lead time of fabrics flow andsolutions for it in order to improve Mascot Vietnam’s productivity but the results were not as good as expectation “I have tried for several years coming up with a solution, but have never succeeded 100% I don’t know if it is lack of time from my side when I’m in Vietnam, misunderstandings or others, but I hope when you allocate your time that we can get better outcome”,said Director of

IT & Logistics in Mascot International A/S

Nevertheless, this topic has ever written by anyone yet It is likely that by concentrating into two major steps of fabrics flowoccurring the most serious problems will make this assignment become more useful for company

2 Research scope

- Space of research

This research has been done after being trained and observed in all related departments such as supply chain, LAB, production and so on in Mascot Vietnam

- Time for research

Most of the information and figures are collected in 2015 It is obvious that, company always updates to adopt the newest trend so it is necessary for this research to use the newest process procedures of this year However, in order to make this research become persuasive there are some figures came from 2 years ago also used

3 Research objects

There are two objects that this research aims to describe, analyse and give recommendations: materials inspection process and returning excess fabrics to offset and stock balancing

These two stages belong to fabrics flow which is considered as supply chain

of Mascot Vietnam and plays a very important role in company’s development Fabrics flow includes 12 steps but there are only 4 steps occurring problems Meanwhile 2 stages are related to customs which is objective factor that out of Mascot’s control The only 2 phrases that Mascot can change to improve will be mention on this research

Figure 0.1: Percentage of errors in inspection step from 2013 to 2015

<Source: Created by researcher from Mascot’s information>

According to the statistics has collected from company’s resource since

2013, it is obvious that percentage of errors in inspection step has increased significantly with the passing of time This is the reason why researcher chose this step to analysis

In addition, this research also works on the other object which plays a crucial role in fabrics flow If there are so many mistakes in this step the whole fabric flow will be affected seriously So it is necessary to pay attention on this step either

4 Research finding

This research does not only mention again in detail about two major stages in fabrics flow but also reveals both advantages and disadvantages of them Furthermore, researcher analyzed all the collected information to figure out justifications for those drawbacks By this way, research will come up with some recommendations that may be valuable to company

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW1.1 Supply chain management

Supply chain is a very complex process so managing it is a very difficult task but crucial in all industrial fields That is the reason why there are so many researchers worked on supply chain management and gave numerous definitions about it In “Purchasing and Supply chain management” Monczka, Trent and Handfield believed that “whole primary objective is to integrate and manage the sourcing, flow and control of materials using a total systems perspective across multiple functions and multiple tiers of suppliers” (1998) On the other hand, with the similar idea but Jones and Riley gave the simpler definition: “Supply chain management deals with the total flow of materials from suppliers through end

users” (1985)

In our contemporary life, companies believe that the supply chain activities should be managed according to flow of materials, flow of the information and fund transfers According to the new trend, in order to implement supply chain management based on flow of materials it is important to manage the recovery, recycling and reuse of materials This is the major method of SCM On the other hand, “To manage a supply chain, one must not only understand the network of suppliers and customers along the chain but must also try to efficiently plan material and information flows along each chain to maximize cost efficiency, effectiveness, delivery, and flexibility”(J.R Tony Arnold, Stephen N Chapman and Lloyd M Clive)

However according to this research, supply chain management should be classified into 3 categories: management philosophy, implementation of a management philosophy and a set of management processes(John T Mentzer, William DeWitt, James S Keebler, Soonhong Min, Nancy W Nix, Carlo D Smith, and Zach G Zacharia, 2001) First of all, Supply chain management is considered

as a “management philosophy” It is likely that supply chain management as a management philosophy has the following features: The supply chain under the view of philosophy should be a single entity instead of the set of many separated parts with dissimilar functions (Ellram, Lisa M and Martha C Cooper, 1990) In addition, it also needs to have a strategy to cooperate and “synchronize” not only

departments within company but also among different ones Moreover, concentrating on customization is necessary to satisfy customers

Secondary, supply chain management is a “set of activities to implement a management philosophy” There are some activities that companies should apply in order to establish management practices allowing them to behave consistently with the philosophy It should be first noted that, companies should expand their integrated behavior to cooperate customers and suppliers “This set of activities is a coordinated effort called supply chain management between the supply chain partners, such as suppliers, carriers, and manufacturers, to dynamically respond to the needs of the end customer” (Greene, 1991) The other activity related to integrate behavior is “mutually sharing information” Supply chain members must share the information, especially in planning and monitoring processes If the information is updated and shared in time among companies in the chain supply chain management will be very efficient (Cooper, Martha C., Douglas M Lambert, and Janus D Pagh, 1997) Furthermore, “mutually sharing risks and rewards” is also a requirement of managing supply chain and plays an important role in the long-term cooperation among the supply chain members(Cooper, Martha C and Lisa M Ellram, 1993)

Instead of focusing on the activities that build up the supply chain, there are some people paying attention on management processes

1.1.1 Supply chain

This is the network of several activities from the beginning until delivering

to customers This process is involved and contributed by many companies or organizations such as suppliers, manufacturers and distributors with a particular product Supply chain is different concept with logistics because meanwhile logistics is nearly considered as a distribution process within the firm, supply chain

is bigger one with many participated companies(Supply Chain, n.d.)

For instance, in order to produce trousers it is needed many companies to supply materials for factories to produce it After fulfilling the final products, there are some shipping companies that also involve in delivering to distribution centers

or retailers before selling them to customers That is the simplest and basic process

of supply chain

There are 3 major types of supply chain which are “direct supply chain,

“extended supply chain” and “ultimate supply chain” with increasingly complicated scale The direct supply chain is the simplest process of supply chain with containing only supplier, organization and customer Meanwhile the “extended supply chain” is bigger with more involved firms such as supplier’s supplier and customer’s customer Finally, the “ultimate supply chain” is full and the most similar process to the real one containing ultimate supplier, supplier, organization, financial provider, third party logistics supplier (3PL), market research firm customer and ultimate customer(John T Mentzer, William DeWitt, James S Keebler, Soonhong Min, Nancy W Nix, Carlo D Smith, and Zach G Zacharia, 2001)

Figure 1.1: Ultimate supply chain <source: Journal of business logistics, vol.22,

No.2, 2011>

1.1.2 Conflict in traditional system

It is no denial that supply chain is a network, a system including many companies and organizations with dissimilar functions That is the major reason why there could be many conflicts occurring in this chain

In fact, three major components of supply chain such as supply, production and distribution used to have separated functions and work with dissimilar company’s departments However, those three components are always related each other so by working in separate ways will create disputes among them because they just made the best decision for themselves not for the whole supply chain It is obvious that the more quantity of the cargoes transported the lower shipping costs are Nevertheless, this situation may increase inventory- carrying costs So overall, company still gets lost and maybe even more than expectation It is crucial to find appropriated solution for this problem Companies should pay attention on at least 4

major goals such as providing the best customer services, lower production costs, lower inventory investment and lower distribution costs

Nonetheless, those goals also create conflicts among the marketing, production and finance department because each of them has its own objectives First of all, marketing department always aims to maintain and increase income so customers’ service is the most important thing that they want to care about There are several activities helping them to achieve their purpose such as maintaining high level of inventory to implement just-in-time delivery; produce non-inventoried quickly; investing money to build an advance distribution center for easy delivery in the short time

On the other hand, financial department always expect to minimize the investment as well as the costs as much as possible They can implement their job

by cooperating with planning and related departments to reduce inventory level as much as possible; decrease the number of plants and warehouses; produce large quantity that use long production runs and just produce according to customers’ orders

Meanwhile, the others cares more about the operating costs so they will try

to produce few products with long time of production process and specialized equipment so that reducing the cost of making product In addition, high level of raw materials and work-in-process inventory is always maintained to avoid being disrupted by shortages

Figure 1.2: conflict objectives <Source: “Introduction to materials

management”>

There is a solution addressing this problem is to create and improve the cooperation among functions of supply, production and distribution instead of controlling them separately(J.R Tony Arnold, Stephen N Chapman and Lloyd M Clive)

1.2 Inventory management

Inventory plays an important role in companies According to statistics, inventory may present from 20 up to 60 percent of total asset It is obvious that it just can be converted into cash when inventories are used It is expensive to maintain high inventory level but may cause some problems when inventory level is always low That is the reason why managing inventory is crucial Inventory management is a difficult task when responsible people have to control materials flow from the beginning until the end In fact, inventory is the rest of materials used and also the needed ones for production so it is necessary to manage them together.In order to get the best result, inventory needs to be manage in every single planning level and consider from three sources such as production planning, master production scheduling and materials requirement planning Meanwhile materials requirements planning supports company buy revealing the needed materials or

component parts for production, master planning deal with the end items and production planning with overall inventory(J.R Tony Arnold, Stephen N Chapman

and Lloyd M Clive)

1.2.1 Type of inventory according to flow of materials

One of the ways to classify inventory is basing on flow of materials running through manufacturing organization Nevertheless, it is necessary to care about production environment because, for example, fabric is the finished products of a company but at the same time fabric is a work-in-process products of the others

There are five major types of inventory such as inventory for raw materials, work-in-process, finished goods, distribution center and “maintenance, repair and operational supplies (MROs)” In the first type of inventory, the components or materials that are purchased will not entered into any production process Meanwhile, the second one stores all the inputs of production process For example, fabrics and accessories which will be used to produce clothes On the other hand, finished goods inventory is used for completed products before launching or selling

to customers and not yet located in the distribution centers Another type of inventory is distribution inventory where the final products are stored and wait for selling to the market The last one has responsibility for storing the items contributing in production without being a part of completed products, for instance,

“hand tools, spare parts, lubricants, and cleaning supplies.” (J.R Tony Arnold, Stephen N Chapman and Lloyd M Clive)

1.2.2 Function of inventories

It is obvious that supply and demand are never exactly similar to each other That is the major justification for inventory’s existence There are several functions that inventories could support for companies It should be first noted that inventories can be used for storing the products for future plans For instance, company producing work wear products need to prepare or produce winter products for upcoming cold season because the customers’ demands will appear so every preparation is indispensable On the other hand, customers’ demands are unpredictable and fluctuated In some case demands may increase much more than expectation while lead time is suddenly longer causing out of stock Inventory is solution for this unforeseen problem In addition, to take advantage of economy of scale in the other processes such as purchasing inputs, production and

transportation, company needs to produce in big quantity of products which is even greater than temporary demands, sometimes In this situation, inventory is unavoidable Moreover, when products are waiting before being sold to customers, inventory also appears Last but not least, in the ever-changing world price of some products may fluctuate day by day or within the short period of time so if customers believe that the price will increase in the future they will buy and store it to save money In this case, inventory is also necessary There is no doubt that although companies must pay huge amount of money for inventory there are so many reasons for its maintenance (J.R Tony Arnold, Stephen N Chapman and Lloyd M Clive)

1.2.3 Goal of inventory management

There are some objectives that company needs to achieve for getting profits such as improve customer service, reducing factories’ operational costs and inventory investment as much as possible buy managing inventory efficiently

In term of customer service, inventory is a tool to support for this task because it helps to reduce problem related to demands fluctuation In fact, customers’ desires always change so in order to satisfy customers and avoid running out of stock inventory needs to be managed

On the other hand, inventories also support for operation of companies by several ways such as avoiding interruption of production process in case of raw materials shortage (J.R Tony Arnold, Stephen N Chapman and Lloyd M Clive)

1.3 MRP (Materials requirement planning)

There are two types of demand which are independent and dependent demands For instance, ten T-shirts ordering from customer is an independent demand because it does not depend on anything Nevertheless, in order to make those 10 T-shirts manufacturer must order fabrics and accessories which are independent ones It is obvious that quantity of fabrics and accessories totally depends on number of T-shirts In fact that companies always need to forecast the number of independent demands to arrange production but depended one cannot be forecasted but calculated MRP is a very efficient tool to do this task (J.R Tony Arnold, Stephen N Chapman and Lloyd M Clive)

On the other hand, MRP also can adapt and reorganize with the changings in customers’ orders such as delete or add, delay and so on to keep following the previous plans and avoid unexpected problems This is very important function of MRP(J.R Tony Arnold, Stephen N Chapman and Lloyd M Clive)

1.3.2 Process

In general, the process of MRP is started with taking all the information from bill of materials, master schedule and inventory records After that, MRP will determine the total needed materials for production MRP also automatically look at the inventory and calculate the net materials (Material Requirements Planning (MRP), n.d.)

The inputs for MRP system to do this process are from three major resources such as “bill of materials”, “a master schedule”, and “an inventory records file” In fact when chef makes a dish he must need different ingredients to cook That is bill

of material Bill of materials illustrating all the needed components for making the final products Each component is identified by a unique number and can appear on several bill of materials (J.R Tony Arnold, Stephen N Chapman and Lloyd M Clive)

Figure 1.3: Simplify bill of materials

<Source: (J.R Tony Arnold, Stephen N Chapman and Lloyd M Clive)>

“MRP uses the bill of materials to determine the quantity of each component that is needed to produce a certain number of finished products From this quantity, the system subtracts the quantity of that item already in inventory to determine order requirements.”(Material Requirements Planning (MRP), n.d.)

Master production schedule (MPS) is also an input of MRP “The material requirements planning system plans the schedule for these components based on the needs of the MPS Thus the MPS drives the material requirements plan”(Material Requirements Planning (MRP), n.d.)

When customers’ demands are recorded and company’s forecasting is made MPS will be formed It will arrange and balance between the production plan and available resources for producing MPS is also concerned with quantity and quality

of final products and deadline for production(J.R Tony Arnold, Stephen N Chapman and Lloyd M Clive)

In general, this process follows a backward trend from the plan for completed products to needed materials or components This is not a simple process but very complex one because there would be some changes from customers about product design or quantity For instance, in Mascot production must produce some special products following customers’ demands In addition, production schedule also may changes by some justification such as delaying in the other previous stages

Changing in the customers’ orders leading to changing of product design, quantity or schedule will create complex issues which require a powerful computer system (Material Requirements Planning (MRP), n.d.)

1.3.3 Advantages and disadvantages

- Advantages:

MRP plays an important role in companies because of several strong points MRP with the function as counting the necessary components for final products with the suitable order time could help to “minimize inventory levels”, set up production time, plan for the needed component in the future and so on That is the major reason why there are so many people and departments involved in using this system First of all, production planners to balance workloads across departments and make schedule for production.“Plant foremen, also must use MRP output in order to implement his job as “issuing work orders and maintaining production schedules” “Other users include customer service representatives, who need to be able to provide projected delivery dates, purchasing managers, and inventory managers.”(Material Requirements Planning (MRP), n.d.)

- Disadvantage:

It could be big mistake if not to mention that in order to get needed outputs MRP must have correct inputs That is the major reason why inventory records and bills of materials have to be updated and address correctly unless there will be some consequences occurring such as shortage or excessing of quantity in orders It would lead to delaying in schedule of production and delivery On the other hand, if companies want to use MRP they will need to invest huge amount of money and time for it

In order to take advantage of MRP and have useful information, company needs to have an accurate master production schedule, good lead-time estimates and current inventory records (Material Requirements Planning (MRP), n.d.)

1.4 Inspection

Inspection is one of the most important stage to ensure the quantity of fabrics There is a standard created only for fabrics inspecting and under ASTM D5430 – 07(2011) It is Four-Point system This system includes all the methods applying for visually inspecting and grading There are some principles in order to count the number of failures on fabrics

Grate Defects’ length

http://www.quality-Any defect of a continuous nature shall be assigned four points for each yard

in which it occurs.” Although there are serious defects they are just counted no more than four points For instance, the hole on fabric is grated 4 points no matter how big it is In addition, some failures such as side center side shading, roll to roll shading, narrow or irregular width and so on will be counted four points in every yard within the roll

The highest grade for each yard will be four

The first quality of fabrics shipment should not have any roll containing over four defects per one hundred linear yards

The second quality of fabrics is the rolls which have higher number of defects compared to the standard inspection

Otherwise fabrics roll will be rejected For example, rolls having defects repeating through more than ten continuous yards no matter how many faults occurring on the fabrics In addition, if there is even a big defect being equal approximately 4 point defect (FABRIC INSPECTION STANDARD ( 4-Point System ), n.d.)

CHAPTER 2: Materials inspection process and returning excess fabrics into offset and stock balancing at Mascot

International Vietnam 2.1 Mascot introduction

2.1.1 Mascot International A/S

This is a Danish family- owned company with the second generation at the helm being specialized in producing work wear Company has founded in 1982 and after 10 years of development, Mascot became a number one producer work wear in Denmark and one of the biggest one in Europe.Moreover, Mascot doesn't only produce work wears but companyalsoinvolves in sourcing, distributing and even marketing for themselves.This is really profitable company in the world

2.1.1.2 Net work

Figure 2.2: Production <source from Mascot International Vietnam’s studio>

The headquarters are located in Denmark There are factories in Vietnam and Laos and numerous distributors throughout the world Mascot International Vietnam has been playing a crucial role as the partner and branch of Mascot International A/S Mascot targeted markets are some big countries such as European nations, USA, Australia and so on(Pedersen, n.d.)

2.1.1.3 Production

In fact, approximately half of Mascot employees were outsourced from outside Europe In Mascot Vietnam, there are approximately 1400 employees producing products Huge number of workers allowed Mascot to take many actions for satisfying customers

- Customization: Mascot has a wide range in many sizes but they know that there may be individual demands that are not covered within the standard range That is the major justification why Mascot’s customers could be satisfied by customized products For instance, if a customer love having an extra pocket for being more convenient in their jobs Mascot will do that for them

- Numerous color combinations, sizes and lengths: Strength of a wide range that can dress from head to toes and from inner layer to out Mascot offers a

variety of function and features with over 600 different products in up to 13 dissimilar colors and 63 sizes per product for everyone no matter what their jobs are or what their requirement are and so on

2.1.1.5 Slogan

Figure 2.3: Mascot slogan <source from company document>

Actually this is not only the slogan of Mascot but is the purpose and value that company always wants to achieve The meaning of this slogan could be understood simply that all fabrics and accessories need to be tested in advance before producing to assure the quality of products Mascot set up 2 principles in order to implement this slogan “first, to do things carefully and correctly based on a proven understanding and second, to have a strong focus on how the solution is relevant and easy to apply to the target group”

In fact “tested to work” is not just a theory but company also has been trying

to apply it in all stages of production, service and appearance Company always gives the strict requirement to all suppliers and partners In addition, all the fabrics are tested in the laboratory and in the real world before getting in the production

“Tested to work” does not just aim to talk about the durability of products but also guarantee that Mascot products never contain any harmful or suspected harmful chemicals and dyes

2.1.2 Mascot Vietnam

- Location:

MASCOT built and opened its first factory in 2008, approximately 50 km far from Hanoi which is the capital of Vietnam.This is very convenient location for company because it is located in the middle of the high way between HaiPhong city which is one of the biggest port city in the north of Vietnam and Hanoi where the International airport is In fact, most of the transportation way used by MASCOT is ship Nonetheless, air transport is also used in urgent situations

- Facility and scale

MASCOT owns 20 thousand square meters factory in Vietnam(Khang, 2012) There are three building at Tan Truong industrial zone which are administration office, production factory and bonded warehouse In addition, two additional sewing factories, which lay a few miles from the factory are also under MASCOT’s operation

Overall, facilities include management, raw material storage, sewing and quilting Company also invested huge amount of money to install many state-of-the-art equipment and European management system

In order to ensure high quality of materials especially fabrics and being proactive in term of operating, MASCOT has invested in approximately 7 thousand square meter bonded warehouse and became the first foreign company having bonded warehouse in Vietnam BWH plays a crucial role as the center of MASCOT’s global raw material logistics and transit from suppliers to the others sewingsubcontractors such as Laos(Khang, 2012)