World class manufacturing was an eye-opener and a lesson

This is my last contribution to this series of events. I have thoroughly enjoyed stepping back into the days when travelling to find new designs was real travel.

My final contribution is to say that with all that happened there were a lot of positives also achieved. 

I managed to visit some international manufacturing facilities that really showed the technologies in the first world countries.

In Stuttgart Germany, I visited the company Sioux, manufacturers of high-quality men’s and women’s footwear. Seeing the working environment and systems in place was an eye-opening experience that I reported back on to our own manufacturing team and also used in my time as factory manager at Jordan shoes. When the staff are happy, attaining your production output totals become easy.

In Zurich, Switzerland, I visited the facility of the world-famous Bally manufacturing plant. WOW! Seeing this huge project was exceptional. This was an entire town that produced everything required to manufacture these world class products. Glue, cottons, outsoles...just about everything was produced within this community. They had fridges stacked with refreshments on the shop floor for the workers to enjoy whilst having a smoke break. There were even beers in stock. The canteen was the size of a rugby field and even the MD enjoyed his lunch break there. 

In Herzogenaurach, Germany, I was invited to visit the manufacturing plant of Adidas sports products. This was at the invitation of one of the vice presidents of Adidas, Mr Otmar Kaiser.  Again WOW! I was taken through their highly secretive design centre which also made me feel very honoured. This came on the back of me creating a copy of one of their products (Torsion) for a tender to manufacture a recreational shoe for the armed forces of the Republic of South Africa. Every person in the army, navy, air force, police and correctional services was issued with at least one pair of those. I was assisted in this by Miles O’ Brien, sales director Sportshoe, and ‘Vimmy’ Vymetal of the SABS. A few million pairs were produced, and I am not sure if it is still in production or whether it has been moved as imports by the government.

So, I'm signing off with a motto that I believed in: "NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE!"

I left school at the age of 14 and started at Barker Shoes in the clicking department cleaning the floors. At the age of 25 I was chief designer at Bagshaw in Port Elizabeth. It was an amazing journey for me, and it happened during the boom time of footwear manufacturing in our beloved country. 

I hope that readers have enjoyed reading about the trips – I’ve enjoyed reliving them.