Ningbo Beilun Inspection and Quarantine Bureau helps clothing companies sign Olympic orders

As the London Olympics approaches, the Olympic economy continues to heat up. From January to April this year, Ningbo exported a total of 8,176 batches of goods to the UK, with a value of US$194 million, up 5.9% and 5.6% year-on-year respectively. The exports of sportswear, lighting equipment, small household appliances and other commodities increased significantly. As Olympic products have a wide international influence, Ningbo Beilun Inspection and Quarantine Bureau has increased its supervision and support for the manufacturers of such products, acting as both a "referee" and a "coach", strictly controlling product quality, guiding enterprises to overcome technical and standard difficulties, and helping enterprises expand their markets.

Ningbo Kahn Garment Co., Ltd. ("Kahn Company" for short) is one of the companies that successfully obtained the "ticket" to the London Olympics with the help of the Beilun Bureau.

Break down barriers and build confidence

Recently, after passing the inspection, more than 6,000 pieces of Olympic licensed knitted sportswear produced by Kahn Company with a value of 46,000 US dollars were successfully exported. These products will be used as the national team uniforms of the Czech Republic and Slovakia respectively and will appear in the arena of the London Olympics this summer.

When Kahn first received the inquiry for the Olympic order, it hesitated and did not dare to accept the order. The EU countries' high technical trade measures on textile and clothing products and the high quality requirements of Olympic licensed products made Kahn hesitate. After learning about the situation, Beilun Bureau solved the worries for the company as soon as possible.

The bureau sent the textile and clothing product standards and regulations of EU countries, as well as the cases reported in recent years, to enterprises to do a good job of publicity, answering questions and early warning. In particular, it analyzed the detection and limit indicators, labeling and use regulations of EU countries for banned azo dyes, formaldehyde content, nickel-cadmium content, flame retardant finishing agents, and harmful substances such as polychlorinated biphenyls and polybrominated biphenyls, and guided enterprises to pay attention to product appearance quality and wearing performance. At the same time, it paid attention to various safety, hygiene, environmental protection and anti-fraud aspects, strictly implemented the evaluation and review mechanism of suppliers, strictly controlled the raw materials, improved the relevant ledgers, and established a traceability system. It was precisely because of the full preparation that Kahn Company won the "olive branch" thrown by Alpine PRO, the only designated equipment provider for the London Olympic delegations of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Tailor-made to produce high quality

The special use of Olympic clothing represents the top level of sportswear in various countries. The team uniforms exported this time use the world's most advanced new environmentally friendly functional fabric coffee yarn. This is a fabric produced by importing recycled coffee grounds into fibers to make functional yarns. It has multiple functions such as odor control, quick drying and UV protection. Although the new fabric has obvious advantages in the special functions of sportswear, the particularity of its materials and processes has brought great uncertainty to other indicators such as clothing shrinkage rate and printing color fastness. In addition, since the company has never been exposed to this type of new fabric before, whether the toxic and hazardous substances contained in the product comply with the increasingly stringent REACH regulations of the European Union also makes the company "uncertain". And from the quality requirements of the buyers, the standards for its performance, function and environmental protection have reached an almost harsh level. There are more than 20 testing indicators such as pH, tear strength, stain resistance level, color difference level, air permeability and moisture permeability, washing and rubbing color fastness, etc., and many indicators must meet international standards.

To this end, the Beilun Bureau specially organized key personnel and testing experts to go deep into enterprises to help enterprises start from the key links of new fabric production and processing to the various additives added, and scientifically analyze the changes in various indicators such as hydrophilicity, dyeing rate and strength after fiber modification. "Three-stage" sampling and control are carried out before, during and after production, and the quality and technical requirements, anti-terrorism clauses, human rights laws, environmental protection and other standards that foreign customers need to meet when inspecting the factory are tailored to help enterprises improve their production processes in a targeted manner, skip the commanding heights of strict standards, and ensure product quality and safety.

Create a brand and create a new concept

Since the unit price of this batch of Olympic clothing is more than half higher than other clothing, Alpine has very strict requirements on clothing size and other quality. An ordinary sports T-shirt has nearly 20 different size requirements, and many tolerances are less than half a centimeter. In particular, the requirements for the position, size, color and "3D" effect of the printed patterns such as the five-ring logo and the country name on the clothing are very precise.

Quality is produced, not inspected. It is far from enough to rely on limited quality inspectors to grasp quality. Therefore, quality control must be implemented in the management system of the entire process from product design, raw materials entering the factory, to production and processing, and factory inspection. Beilun Bureau has always instilled the concept of "product is character, quality is brand" into enterprises, adhered to the principle of quality supervision and quality construction, upgraded the original work of quality assurance capacity verification and assistance for enterprises, and launched the "Olympic Package" of "three supervisions and three assistances". That is, on the original basis, focus on urging enterprises to strengthen the key control points of cutting and sewing processes, urge enterprises to improve supplier assessment and evaluation management, traceability warning and non-conforming product management systems, urge enterprises to strengthen the training and assessment of production inspection personnel and the precise calibration of instruments and equipment; help enterprises introduce refined quality management concepts, help open up Olympic green channels to speed up logistics clearance, and help enterprises take advantage of Olympic business opportunities to establish brands and then open up the post-Olympic market.

At present, the curtain of the London Olympic Games has not yet been raised, but the PK battle of Olympic economy of various countries has already started. Beilun Bureau has made full use of its own technical advantages to serve as a good "coach", carefully cultivating and encouraging more "Olympic enterprises" to run faster, jump higher and become stronger.