Walmart Open Call for Made in USA Products

What:            Walmart Open Call for US Products
Where:          Bentonville, AR
When:            June 28, 2017
Who:              Companies that want to sell U.S. products to Walmart Read more

Walmart Outlines Goals for American Job Growth and Community Investment

34,000 jobs, training for over 225,000 associates and grants for innovation in textile manufacturing. Read more

Meet Company That Could Eventually Take Down Walmart

Retail analysts say the world’s biggest retailer has reason to fear a small grocery chain that’s based in Idaho and boasts a business model that allows it to undercut Walmart on prices.

Read more

The Walmart Effect: Store Closures Are Leaving Food Deserts in Their Wake

When and where Sam Walton’s Walmart opened, a slow hollowing out of the town square surely followed. When the Fairfield store opened in 1986, our town square was home to a clothing store, a small department store, a furniture store, a pharmacy, a jeweler, two hardware stores, and many others. As the county seat, Fairfield’s retailers not only supported its population of 10,000 but also residents of tiny neighboring towns, such as Salina and Libertyville, where only a few hundred people lived. Today, only one of those stores remains—a symptom of what’s come to be known as the Walmart effect. Read more

Walmart’s Customers Too Broke To Shop

Walmart is facing a “perfect storm” that’s hurting its sales growth, according to Moody’s. Read more

Walmart: It Came, It Conquered, Now It’s Packing Up and Leaving

The Town’n Country grocery in Oriental, North Carolina, a local fixture for 44 years, closed its doors in October after a Walmart store opened for business. Now, three months later — and less than two years after Walmart arrived — the retail giant is pulling up stakes, leaving the community with no grocery store and no pharmacy. Read more

Walmart to Shut Hundreds of Stores Across USA

Walmart Stores Inc. plans to shutter 269 stores, the most in at least two decades, as it abandons its experimental small-format Express outlets and looks to streamline the chain. Read more

Study Says: Walmart Imports From China Displaced 400,000 Jobs

Imports from China by Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer and biggest importer, eliminated or displaced over 400,000 jobs in the United States between 2001 and 2013, according to an estimate by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive research group that has long targeted Walmart’s policies.

Read more

FTC Closes Probe of Walmart Over Misleading Made in USA Labels

Wal-Mart is making a big deal out of the fact that much of its merchandise is “Made in the U.S.A.” The company is two years into a 10-year plan to spend some $250 billion more on products from U.S. factories and even hosts an annual summit on domestic manufacturing. Read more

Walmart’s Suppliers Are Finally Fighting Back

After years of meeting demands for ever cheaper prices, many Wal-Mart Stores Inc. suppliers are saying no to new margin-squeezing storage fees and a payment schedule that could delay for months how quickly some are paid. Read more

Reshoring Initiative and Walmart Helping Suppliers Reshore

The Reshoring Initiative recently announced a program in partnership with Walmart to help companies manufacture more consumer products in the United States.   Read more

7 Key Facts to Keep in Mind about Walmart’s U.S. Manufacturing Summit

 

It’s been two and a half years since Walmart announced its so-called “U.S. manufacturing initiative”, which means it’s time for another PR-heavy, Walmart manufacturing “summit,” this one in Bentonville, Arkansas on July 7th and 8th.  Undoubtedly, Walmart will use the summit to deliver feel-good talking points to the media, so this seems like a good time to review some facts about Walmart’s impact on the U.S. manufacturing sector, past, present and future. Read more

Walmart Suppliers Grapple With ‘Made in USA’ Labels

Detroit Quality Brushes is a company that does just what its name suggests: It makes high quality brushes in Detroit. Read more

Lots of Fuzzy Numbers Behind Walmart’s American Manufacturing Push

Walmart, the nation’s largest importer of foreign goods by volume, is currently hosting an open call for American-made product pitches at its Arkansas headquarters. This “American manufacturing summit” is part of the company’s commitment – made very publicly, with lots of fanfare, in 2013 – to buy $250 billion worth of American-made products by 2023. Read more

Walmart: Opening Our Doors – to Open Bigger Ones Across America

100 new hires. That’s how many Emilia PC expects to add by the end of this year, all resulting from one step the beauty product manufacturer took roughly 12 months ago: attending Walmart’s Open Call for products that support American jobs.

Read more

Does Walmart’s Patriotic PR Have Legs?

Walmart made a little bit of news on Tuesday. Right after the world’s largest retailer committed to fast-tracking the hiring of more military veterans, it announced plans to source an additional $50 billion worth of American-made goods over the next decade. Read more

Walmart Works To Correct ‘Made In USA’ Label Problem

Whoops.

The Truth in Advertising group has found more than 100 items sold on Walmart.com that were incorrectly identified as “Made in the U.S.A.” The news comes just more than a week before the retailer’s Manufacturing Summit and Made in the U.S. Open Call in Bentonville. Read more

Walmart Website Riddled with Deceptive Made in USA Labeling

Walmart is going all out for America, pledging to buy an additional $250 billion in American products. To that end, the world’s largest retailer will host a manufacturing summit next week where it will look for U.S.-made products to sell. The event starts three days after the Fourth of July and promises to be a star-spangled affair.

Read more

Kentwood Company Moving Toothbrush Production Back From China

KENTWOOD, Mich. (WZZM) – A toothbrush company that outsourced some of its manufacturing to China years ago is bringing work back to West Michigan. Read more

Why Walmart and Costco Shrimp Prices Are So Low

Some of the most popular American corporations are importing shrimp at super-cheap prices from Thailand, where migrant workers are in slavery, like in Nazi Germany, being tortured while they work for no pay 20 hours a day. How much shrimp is being imported that’s processed by slaves, including child slaves? Walmart and Costco are contributing to the chaos, buying and selling shrimp exported from Thailand every year, and it’s slave-labor shrimp at “rock bottom” cost. No wonder Walmart and Costco are such “successful” businesses. What else are they buying that’s made by slaves who are tortured mentally and physically while working 20-hour days for zero pay? Wine, maybe?

Read more

SoftWear Automation, Creating U.S. Jobs by Revolutionizing the Textile Industry

The SewBots have arrived and they are bringing manufacturing back to the United States. SoftWear Automation, in Atlanta Georgia, has developed robotic technology for the textile industry to automate sewing, significantly reducing manufacturing labor costs. The machines are surprisingly inexpensive and allow for greater precision, higher speed and much longer hours than the traditional seamstress can manage by hand.

SoftWear technology will bring manufacturing to America We first became aware of SoftWear thanks to Valerie Uhlir. Valerie serves as our Chief Marketing Officers, in addition to leading a boutique marketing agency based in Atlanta where she has worked with a large number of high-growth global brands over the past few years. She served as SoftWear’s head of marketing and PR from 2014 through the end of 2015, helping the company perfect their messaging leading to the wave of coverage including features by The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, The Economist, and many others. Given the company is based in the USA and could have such a large impact on American manufacturing, we’re happy to cover them.

“Not only will this technology help manufacturers bring operations back to the United States with the reduction of labor costs, it will create higher paying technical jobs for American workers.”, said Valerie. Traditionally, manufacturing jobs are some of the least desirable roles that many individuals do not desire due to the repetition, poor work environments (hot warehouse, anyone?) and low wages. High turnover and an aging workforce have made it difficult for manufacturers to keep jobs here. Additionally, other nations do not have minimum wage restrictions and are willing to use underage labor due to less stringent regulations. All of these factors have created a void of manufacturing in the United States, SoftWear Automation would like to change that.

This month alone, the company is delivering several LOWRY systems to manufactures in the southeast United States.  The future of sewn product manufacturing has officially arrived.

The U.S. has lost thousands of jobs in the past 10 years due to offshoring. In 1960, 95% of clothing sold in the USA was made here. Today, 98% of clothing purchased in the U.S. was made abroad. By implementing this technology, American manufacturing plants have several advantages:

  1. Lower costs on both labor as well as shipping costs, dramatically dropping the costs of creating sewn products
  2. Increase precision of products with ThreadCount™ technology
  3. Speed up production and deliver products to consumers faster
  4. Reduce waste
  5. Customization will become commonplace and inexpensive
  6. Localize manufacturing

Tailored clothing and details customized to an individual have long been expensive due to the additional time and costs to create customization. SoftWear technology eliminates that additional cost. Add this to online ordering and it is a recipe for low cost customization. For example, the software could make your jeans slightly smaller in the waist than the last pair of jeans in the same amount of time it would have made them anyway.

SoftWear Robots automate sewing | Manufacturing | Made In USA | Jobs

“Robotics are already taking over multiple industries, creating safer work environments and helping with some tough, dirty jobs. Textiles have been challenging to automate due to the pliable nature of fabric. SoftWear has created hardware that detects bunching and can fix creases before fabric is sewn, changing the game in fabric automation., said Valerie.

Walmart believes in bringing manufacturing back to the United States, but they also know that keeping prices low will be a challenge for their brands. Walmart invested a two million dollar grant to SoftWear Automation, through ATDC, to help bridge the gap and provide this technology to brands that want to bring their manufacturing home.

Sound exciting? We left out just one thing: this technology is for ALL SEWN products. Shoes, curtains, jackets, pants, carpet, towels, ties, hats, backpacks, blankets, bedding, car upholstery, handbags, hair ties, baby toys…

Watch the SoftWear LOWRY system work its magic here:

Connect with the friendly team @SoftWearInc on twitter to stay updated on how they continually disrupt the manufacturing industry.

What sewn products are you most excited to have Made In America?

Why ‘Made in the USA’ is hard for Walmart to achieve

made in america - walmart

An “Assembled in the USA” stamp is seen at the side of a box containing a 32-inch television set in the warehouse of Element Electronics, in Winnsboro, South Carolina. Element’s 315,000-square-foot plant in South Carolina has six assembly lines making 32- and 40-inch TVs that are now available in all of Walmart’s more than 4,000 U.S. Stores. REUTERS/Chris Keane

 

Walmart has pledged to buy an additional $250 billion in US-made products. But finding quality, low-cost US made goods is proving a challenge. How Walmart is acting as a catalyst for ‘Made in the USA’ manufacturing.

Read more

PR Ploy Or Not, Walmart’s ‘Made In America’ Push Means Something

Last week, Walmart expanded on the $50 billion Buy American pledge it made last January with a full-fledged Made-in-America summit.

Read more

Made in USA: We Are The 3%

This past week I’ve been in a bit of a funk. My funky mood began on the day Wal-Mart made its big announcement – they plan to invest $50 Billion over the next 10 years in products made in the USA. Why, you ask would such seemingly good news put me in such a funk? Because I think Wal-Mart’s big announcement is another case of red, white, and blue washing.

Read more

Walmart to Boost Sourcing of US Made Products: Hiring 100k Veterans

Picture

Walmart announced bold commitments to increase domestic sourcing of the products it sells and help veterans find jobs when they come off active duty. Speaking at the National Retail Federation’s annual BIG Show, Walmart U.S. President and CEO Bill Simon also announced the company is helping part-time associates who want to be full time, make that transition.  Read more

Walmart to Boost US-Made Products

Walmart to Boost US-Made Products

Walmart today announced bold commitments to increase domestic sourcing of the products it sells and help veterans find jobs when they come off active duty. Speaking at the National Retail Federation’s annual BIG Show, Walmart U.S. President and CEO Bill Simon also announced the company is helping part-time associates who want to be full time, make that transition.

Read more

Bangladesh Factory in Fire: WalMart & Disney Among Clients

Picture

Firefighters hose down a blaze at a 10-story clothing factory on Nov. 26 in the Dhaka suburb of Uttara, Bangladesh. The fire broke out as people mourned more than 110 factory workers killed in a fire two days earlier at the Tazreen Fashion plant. | Photo Credit: AFP/Getty Images

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Amid the ash, broken glass and melted sewing machines at what is left of the Tazreen Fashions Ltd. factory, there are piles of blue, red and off-white children’s shorts bearing Wal-Mart’s Faded Glory brand. Shorts from hip-hop star Sean Combs’ ENYCE label lay on the floor and are stacked in cartons.

An Associated Press reporter searching the factory Wednesday found these and other clothes, including sweaters from the French company Teddy Smith, among the equipment charred in the fire that killed 112 workers Saturday. He also found entries in account books indicating that the factory took orders to produce clothes for Disney, Sears , nd other Western brands.

Garments and documents left behind in the factory show it was used by a host of major American and European retailers, though at least one of them — Wal-Mart — had been aware of safety problems. Wal-Mart blames a supplier for using Tazreen Fashions without its knowledge.

The fire has elevated awareness of something labor groups, retailers and governments have known for years: Bangladesh’s fast-growing garment industry — second only to China’s in exports — is rife with dangerous workplaces. More than 300 workers there have died in fires since 2006.

Police on Wednesday arrested three factory officials suspected of locking in the workers who died in Saturday’s fire, the deadliest in the South Asian country’s less than 35-year history of exporting clothing.

Local police chief Habibur Rahman said the three will be questioned amid reports that many workers trying to escape the blaze had been locked inside. He said the owner of the factory was not among those arrested.

The three officials were arrested Wednesday at their homes in Savar, the Dhaka suburb where the factory is also located. Rahman did not identify the officials or give their job status.

Workers who survived the fire say exit doors were locked, and a fire official has said that far fewer people would have died if there had been just one emergency exit. Of the dead, 53 bodies were burned so badly they could not be identified; they were buried anonymously.

The fire started on the ground floor, where a factory worker named Nasima said stacks of yarn and clothes blocked part of the stairway.

Nasima, who uses only one name, said that when workers tried to flee, managers told them to go back to their work stations, but they were ignored.

Dense smoke filled the stairway, making it hard to see, and when the lights went out the workers were left in total darkness. Another surviving worker, Mohammad Rajiv, said some people used their cellphones to light their way.

“Everyone was screaming for help,” Nasima said. “Total chaos, panic and screaming. Everyone was trying to escape and come out. I was pulling the shirt of a man. I fainted and when I woke up I found myself lying on the road outside the factory.

“I don’t know how I survived.”

Rajiv said the factory conducted a fire drill just three days before the fire broke out, but no one used the fire extinguishers. “Only a selected group of workers are trained to use the extinguishers. Others have no idea how to use them,” he said.

Now windows at the eight-story factory are broken, sewing machines melted or burned to ash. Much of the clothing on the lower floors was incinerated. Nightgowns, children’s shorts, pants, jackets and sweat shirts were strewn about, piled up in some places, boxed in others.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Interior Minister Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir have said arson is suspected. Police say they have not ruled out sabotage.

Wal-Mart had received an audit deeming the factory “high risk” last year, said it had decided to stop doing business with Tazreen, but that a supplier subcontracted work to the factory anyway. Wal-Mart said it stopped working with that supplier on Monday.

Calls made to The Walt Disney Company and to Sears Holdings were not immediately returned.

Local TV reports said about 3,000 garment workers held protests over the fire Wednesday, blocking roads and throwing stones at some factories and vehicles. It was the third straight day of demonstrations, and as they did previously, factories in the area closed to avoid violence.

Police used batons to disperse the protesters, but no injuries were immediately reported.

According to local television, most factories in the area closed after opening briefly because of the protests — a common tactic to avoid violence.
—–
Associated Press writer Farid Hossain in Dhaka, Bangladesh, contributed to this report.


SOURCE: USA Today