The "satellite factory" model activates the clothing industry, and Shandong villages find a "digital outlet" in Alibaba International Station

As one of the leading enterprises in Jining, Shandong , the founder of Jining Amy Clothing Co. , Ltd. , Amy, has a hard time. The uncertainty brought by the epidemic has put some pressure on Amy. But this resilient Shandong foreign trade enterprise is reshaping their flexible supply chain.  

Amy's way of dealing with pressure is to take action. When the development of the local traditional clothing business in Jining was under pressure, she worked hard to open up a "satellite factory" model, through the cross-border e-commerce platform of Alibaba International Station, so that the countryside could seize the "digital outlet"; when the clothing industry gained a second spring, she did not stop there, but looked for the "second curve" to make the rural revitalization training more colorful. In Amy's view, this period is like a second start-up, live broadcasting, overseas new market expansion, and the development of training schools. New challenges come one after another, but this makes them more motivated.

(Photo: Workers at Amy Clothing are rushing to make clothes for overseas customers)

Amy is a tenacious person who likes changes, because only with changes can opportunities be created and advantages can be revealed.  

The “Satellite Factory” model builds a resilient new manufacturing industry

In 2003, Aimee started from a small factory in a rural area of ​​Jiaxiang County, Jining City . Relying on timely delivery and excellent quality, Jining Aimee Garment has gradually become a "transnational" enterprise. Now, the company has more than 1,000 employees , orders covering all over the world, and has become a processing factory for many major domestic and foreign brands, mainly producing down jackets, jackets, cotton clothes and other products.  

Having experienced the days of hunger and hunger and witnessed the difficulties of farmers' lives, founder Amy knows that relying on the weather for food is not feasible. After so many years of running a business, the thing she thinks about most is how to take autonomy into her own hands . " In the words of economists, this is called fighting uncertainty and building a resilient sustainable development model. "

The resilience of Amy Clothing comes from the "long-term + short-term" coordinated layout. The company has long-term stable international OEM customers, which is the basis for the operation of the production line; and the short-term comes from their flexible production to meet the ordering needs of various platforms.

Aimee Clothing is one of the earliest local companies to use Alibaba International Station and other platforms to expand overseas customers. On Alibaba International Station, Aimee Clothing has been able to gain global exposure and accumulate "online brand awareness". Aimee will try every means to combine its offline strength with supply chain integration capabilities, and through the three-party certification of Jinpinchengqi, the rights and product functions on international platforms such as 3D VR showroom, to enhance its visibility and credibility around the world.  

(Photo: Aimee Clothing uses the VR showroom of Alibaba International Station to showcase the factory's strength to overseas customers)

Orders are received online through Alibaba International Station and then distributed to factories of different sizes, forming a differentiated flexible customization industry belt. This new supply chain model not only ensures the product quality and delivery time of overseas customers, but also takes into account the customization needs of factories of different sizes.  

Even if it is a small order of a dozen pieces, as long as you guarantee the quality and delivery time to the customer and build trust , business opportunities will continue. Some live streaming influencers have small orders, mostly between 500 and 1,000 pieces, but the quality requirements are not low. You know, the factory production line can produce 10,000 pieces a day, so how to make money from these small orders requires new ideas.  

The solution of Amy Clothing is the "satellite factory" model. By effectively mobilizing the surplus labor in each village, Amy Clothing helps villagers build assembly lines in Jining and surrounding villages. Cutting and packaging are done in the headquarters factory, while some manufacturing work is transferred to the assembly lines in the villages.  

The assembly line in the village is not a small workshop model. The satellite factory has been benchmarked against international market requirements from the beginning and needs to have high technology content. Amy has put a lot of effort into upgrading the technology of the equipment. The template machine introduced from Shenzhen can do the work of three people in the past.  

Aimee Clothing has its own set of methods to ensure the stability of satellite factory output. First, the output allocated to each satellite factory has been carefully planned to ensure delivery. Secondly, a dedicated technical department must go to the factory to control quality. When placing orders in the early stage, technical backbones will teach the process to the satellite factory step by step to ensure that they learn it well.  

At the same time, a special outsourcing department is set up to support the daily operation of the satellite factory. The team is mainly composed of technicians, with 7 people in a group. Their daily work is to travel outside. To the west, the technicians will go to Heze Juancheng and other places, and to the east, they will go to Tai'an. They will visit one factory a day in far places and 2 to 3 factories a day in nearby places. In addition to ensuring the quality of delivery, they will also solve some practical problems for the satellite factory , such as helping to send a car, which makes the factory owners very happy to deal with the technicians.  

The cooperation between satellite factories and Amy has remained stable. The secret lies in the guaranteed customer unit price, continuous orders, and perfect technical support. Amy will also choose to invest in and control some of these factories.  

(Photo: Amy Clothing's "satellite factory " )

Now, the number of employees in the satellite factories of Amy Clothing has reached thousands, which is equivalent to the number of employees in the headquarters. In the eyes of the head of Amy, these small factories at the front end are countless small profit centers, and there is a large support department at the back to provide support to the front end in all aspects. This operation mode of small front end and large back end has achieved a win-win situation for the development of the company and the region.  

Chi Bo, the local director of Alibaba International Station, is a frequent visitor to the Amy Clothing Factory. Amy Clothing values ​​the value of cross-border e-commerce platforms because they not only bring global business opportunities to enterprises, but also provide market information, helping enterprises to effectively predict market trends and adjust production rhythm and product layout.  

Competition in the clothing industry is fierce, and the model of Amy Clothing has brought new vitality to this long-developed foreign trade field. This resilient supply chain model not only guarantees the product quality and delivery time of overseas customers, but also effectively meets the customization needs of customers with different business models. Clothing processing and customization has changed from the traditional scale of tens of thousands of pieces to distributed production with differentiated production of dozens of pieces, effectively meeting various flexible needs of the market.

From producing clothing to training talents, this is the long-termism of the enterprise  

In addition to technology upgrades and business model innovation, founder Amy is well aware of the importance of improving talent quality for the future development of the company . "I have a friend in the glove industry who has been engaged in cross-border e-commerce for 10 years without any improvement. He has been complaining to me that the reason is that he has no talent. It was not until the year before last that he recruited talent from Hangzhou and his business started to take off. Looking back, all his money in the previous 10 years was wasted."

  "Talent is the primary productive force, and we attach great importance to this." Amy does not want to just train garment makers on the production line, but hopes to bring out a group of compound talents who can help promote industrial upgrading, who have both professional capabilities and focus on cultivating culture and values.  

With the support of the local government, Amy Clothing joined hands with Shandong Jiudingshan Technical School to establish the Jiudingshan Rural Revitalization College in Jiaxiang County. After completion, the college will have two professional training classrooms for 500 people, 10 professional live broadcast and recording studios , and one 3D live broadcast studio, and can accommodate 500 people for food and accommodation at the same time.  

The Rural Revitalization College offers majors such as clothing, computer science, e-commerce, logistics management, nursing, and kindergarten education. It also plans to offer a drone major this year. The college has established in-depth cooperation with Alibaba International Station and other platforms to jointly train practical talents for cross-border e-commerce, and has introduced a number of well-known e-commerce marketing lecturers to teach.

(Photo: Aimee Clothing’s cross-border e-commerce talent training)

Amy encourages students to study multiple majors and become multi-talented people, because they understand success as the result of learning and applying the strategies of different fields.  

He used to work as the assistant to the general manager of Amy Clothing. After graduating from junior college, he participated in e-commerce training and worked in it for three years. Now he has started his own business. His live streaming e-commerce has 1.6 million fans and sales of over 100 million yuan.   

The training provided by the Rural Revitalization College is free of charge. The college's return comes from the trainees' first month's internship salary, and employers will also pay part of the college's human resources training costs. Close cooperation between schools and enterprises fully links training and career development.  

In order to better learn from experience and promote cooperation, Amy Clothing specially chose to locate its office on the floor above the local office of Alibaba International Station.

At present, Amy's Rural Revitalization College has established a deep cooperative relationship with Alibaba International Station. This allows Amy and its partners to not only attract talents, but also cultivate talents. The Rural Revitalization College now has a "three-step plan to incubate an e-commerce village":  

The first step is to select agricultural and sideline products suitable for e-commerce sales in the village, and through technical means such as optimizing product packaging specifications, brand implantation and outer packaging design , relying on the live broadcast room of Amy’s own anchor team with millions of fans, sell products with high added value, thereby boosting the villagers’ interest in and trust in e-commerce.  

In the second step, the village committee organized villagers to carry out e-commerce training, screened out suitable personnel and formed three e-commerce sales teams. Through the implementation of the Amy e-commerce incubation and running-along practical courses and the PK competition system, the live broadcast team was encouraged to grow rapidly and achieve sustained growth in sales.  

The third step is to select agricultural and sideline product projects suitable for the long-term development of the village based on the six principles of short, flat, fast, small, precise and special, and continue to incubate them.  

Now, Amy is looking forward to working with Alibaba International Station and other large companies to achieve new results in talent training. At present, she is planning to let the staff of Alibaba International Station and their employees in the same building work together, so that they can do more things and see a bigger world.

At present, small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises such as Aimee Clothing are finding a "digital export port" through Alibaba International Station with their unyielding resilience and spirit of exploration, and their goods are shipped to the world. Alibaba International Station has opened a "digital export port" at the doorstep of entrepreneurs and also in remote villages, and has become an important position for domestic small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises to export high-quality goods to the world.

Alibaba International Station

Shandong Village

Clothing Industry