THE Mpisi garment factory is located halfway between Johannesburg and Durban, in Harrismith, Free State, South Africa. The factory is three hours away from Durban by car, where a great variety of textiles can be sourced, while the mother company of the clothing manufacturer is an expert in logistics.

What’s more, all new garment makers are entitled to preferential labour policies.

Yet the real secret of a successful clothing factory is in the production management flow optimisation — in other words, the “know- how”.

“Polo shirts seem easy to make but one of our neighbouring factories tried for five months in vain,” says MrHai, the technical director, who has more than 10 years of experience in the clothing industry before he was recruited by Mpisi. “But all our staff learned in one month and now we are able to do Polo shirts.”

The tricky part of Polo shirt production is how to make the placket neat and flat. Therefore, the exact cut is the most important step. At Mpisi, the design is computer generated to avoid any mistakes.

The Mpisi clothing factory employs more than 100 people with 200 sewing machines. Workers and machines are divided into teams for different orders. In week, the factory could deliver more than 10,000 items of clothing.

As the South African economy shifts from the reliance on mining, it is beginning to develop its own manufacturing industry, while the exportation of clothing and textiles is no longer profitable for Chinese producers. The container cargo for these products dropped to less than 8,000 in 2015, according to RenZhi Huang, founder and CEO of the Mpisi Group.

“Mpisi is a supplier to clients who have already established mar- keting channels in this country. So, we are helping them achieve their ‘Made in South Africa’ targets,” Huang said.

(The story was originally published on Business Day on February 29th, 2016.)