How We Do It

Design At JBS Textile Group A/S we have considerable product know-how. To put it simply, we are material specialists who have been working with design, materials, techniques and product development since 1939. There is a clear line between design and production in our company. Our design department is made up of trained designers and engineers, who work closely with the purchasing and production department.

This means that we consider all the high quality requirements both we and the customers have for the product from the earliest stages of the design process. It also assures us that the result we hope to realise is actually possible. We are also innovative. Through our sourcing department, we are continuously finding new suppliers around the world able to do new and different things. This continually provides new opportunities for product development.

Sourcing We deal with specialist suppliers all over the world on a daily basis. Our Sourcing department focuses on finding the right partners, and therefore each one is very carefully selected. JBS Textile Group A/S is also a member of  BSCI, (Business Social Compliance Initiative), which is an independent organisation for European companies wanting to ensure responsible working conditions throughout the supply chain. And this obligates us, and is part of our code of conduct. Our suppliers are located in classic textile countries such as Portugal, Turkey, Poland, Italy, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Bangladesh, India, China and Vietnam. In most countries, we have long-standing relationships with our suppliers. In China, we also have our own sourcing office. We collect everything at our warehouse in Herning, and from here we dispatch more than 100,000 units every day.

sewingmachine-rodPRODUCTION We have been a production company since 1939, and we still are today. Until 2008, we had our own production at our head office in Herning. Today we produce a large proportion of our goods at our own factory, VIP, in Lithuania. The factory was bought in 2001, after we moved more and more production from Denmark to VIP in Lithuania. Many of the Danish employees who were involved in production in Denmark still have a role at JBS and help to ensure that our high production standards are maintained in Lithuania.

Having our own production facilities enables us to ensure high quality and flexibility as well as to keep all our production know-how in-house. Having our own production facilities also gives us a competitive edge when purchasing. It gives us superior knowledge of requirements regarding production, time consumption, materials and so on. It enables us to ask the right questions and therefore get the right product at the right price.

Facts about our own production:

  • Start contract production at VIP in Lithuania in 1996
  • Take over VIP in Lithuania in 2001
  • We have approx. 165 employees at the factory in Lithuania
  • Last big machine (cutting machine) is moved from the factory in Herning in 2008
  • Several million units made from own production every year

IT & LOGISTICS In all modesty, we are very skilled at handling product flow. When you buy products from us, we take care of the entire process from start to finish. We handle documentary credits from Bangladesh or a bank guarantee for China. We get the goods shipped home, registered in our systems and ready in stock in Herning. We use electronic data exchange to enable integration with the customer’s IT system, making the job much easier for the customer.

We offer an EDI connection for our larger customers. For smaller customers, for example, we can issue invoices on XML or other systems that are automatically read into the customer’s system. Being able to manage IT-related aspects as well as the physical, logistics aspect of actually handling the product offers great flexibility – and makes perfect sense to us, as well as to our customers.

 

SALES & DISTRIBUTION We have a close cooperation with our customers, and ensure they have the right goods for the relevant distribution channel. We are inspired by the input we get from our customers, enabling us to develop products that specifically match our customers’ shops. Our different brands are sold via different sales channels: speciality stores, men’s clothing stores, women’s clothing stores, chain stores, supermarkets and hypermarkets, DIY stores, department stores and online shops. We have the entire portfolio. Some items are sold as contract manufacturing, but for most brands, we have a large programme that we stock and can deliver to our retailers on a day-to-day basis.

MARKETING & CONCEPT It is crucial for our customers to sell products: lots of them. So it is our job to think about how we can continue to get our products off the shelves. We think of everything: packaging, POS material and display solutions, just as we have always worked with branding, motivating the staff and consumer activities. Executing the marketing needs depends entirely on the brand, and varies greatly from brand to brand.

Despite the fact that we mainly produce men’s underwear, we have always used women in our campaigns. Our marketing campaigns have often attracted extraordinary attention.  Daring to rise to new challenges is in our DNA.

FINANCING JBS Textile Group A/S is strongly funded. Among other things, this is reflected in the fact that we are both AAA-rated and AEO certified. AEO stands for Authorised Economic Operator, and in addition to a solid economy, it also requires a large number of structured routines regarding handling, customs and customs warehouses, all of which must be documented to the Customs and Tax Administration. We are open to various forms of economic agreements with our customers, depending on what makes best sense for the individual customer in terms of our business relations. One such example is a proprietary inventory system, which we practice with some customers. We have integrated EDI solutions for large customers in relation to trade.