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Leading textile companies in the USA
Active Apparel Group: The Company is a manufacturer, designer, and seller of active wear, swimwear, and sportswear for men and women. The company has its manufacturing units mainly in the United States and in some other foreign countries. The company distributes its products in almost 20,000 retail locations through various departmental stores, mass merchandisers, and sporting goods stores. The products of the company are sold under brand name Everlast, Converse and Converse All Star, and MTV products.
Antigua Enterprises Inc: The Company and its subsidiaries produce and distribute various screen-printed and embroidered apparel products in Canada, the United States and Europe.
B.B. Walker Company: The Company is a designer, manufacturer, seller, and distributor of men's and women's complete range of western, work/outdoor boots and shoes. Sales of the company, including other footwear brands, is operated from its two retail shoe outlets, with Bender Shoe Company being the only wholly-owned subsidiary of the company. Some of the other places where the manufacturing facilities of the company are situated are Asheboro, North Carolina and Somerset, Pennsylvania.
Boss Holdings, Inc: The Company is a manufacturer, distributor and seller of protective work wear including gloves, boots and rainwear, pet products and balloons. Mass merchandisers, convenience, grocery and hardware stores as well as the automotive, agricultural, and lumber industries constitute to form the purchasers of the products manufactured by the company. The company was having $.5 million expenses in the year 2000.
Initiatives or developments that have reshaped the textile industry are:
Innumerable competitive challenges re posed by various state-of-the-art fiber, textile, and apparel industries in the US. To tackle the challenges, around 30,000 textile companies are implementing some quality management initiatives to improve quality of products and customer satisfaction. The companies are using advanced quality methods and implementing them on different levels.
Looking at the employment level, the industry accounts about 7 percent of all manufacturing jobs in the United States, where 1.2 million people are employed directly and more than 2.4 million are supported with other jobs.
The industry has invested more than $2 billion annually in new technologies and equipment in the last 10 years, which has resulted in remarkable productivity increase. Between 1975 and 199, there is an increase of more than 500% in productivity in weaving per loom hour. This is in contrast with a more than 100% increase in the overall U.S. manufacturing productivity.
Challenges faced by the industry:
Global competition is very intense in textile industry. The United States, being the world's seventh-largest exporter of textiles with an astoundingly rapid growth of imports, especially in apparel, is facing major trade deficit. The textile trade deficit increased 10.4% in 1999 totaling 1.2% of the total trade deficit. The market is becoming more complex as short life cycles are becoming more common and demand for rapid response and just in time delivery is increasing.
To handle the competition, the industry should look out for more superior quality, innovative products and must give rapid response to customer needs to secure market and to grow.
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