A Stitch in Time: Classic Caps and Embroidery Brings New Practices to Nearly a Century of Tradition

Classic Caps and Embroidery is one of the few remaining headwear (i.e. baseball caps, visors and bucket caps) manufacturing operations in the United States. Starting with one sewing machine in 1928, founder Jacob Pasternak opened Dallas Cap & Emblem in a one-room office in downtown Dallas. Rosalie Pasternak was the second daughter of Jacob and began working part-time in her father’s factory at age 16, joining him full time after college in 1950.

Upon Jacob’s passing in 1963, Rosalie inherited the business. After her passing in 2015, her daughter Valerie R. Granat inherited the business, thus making it a third-generation family-owned business. It operated as Dallas Cap & Emblem Company until 1985, re-opening as the Classic Caps and Embroidery we know today because it better represented what products they provided. Classic Caps ships out over a million custom finished goods a year.

The Situation

Running many sewing, embroidery, and screen-printing machines, Classic Caps meets the needs of its local, national, and global clients alike. They provide all kinds of cut and sewn headwear which can be screen printed or embroidered along with any type of clothing with detailed colorful embroidery or screen printing up to 12 colors. Valerie and her husband David along with the assistance of TMAC decided that for the business to continue to be profitable, they needed to move into a “right sized” 20,000 square foot facility. They sold their 46,000 square foot Dallas building and purchased an existing vacant textile facility in Garland, Texas. TMAC has built a long-lasting relationship with Classic Caps over the years. TMAC first began working with Classic Caps as they moved into their old Dallas location from another close-by location in 1999. A few years later the TMAC team worked with them on the layout and expansion of the screen-printing processing area along with other improvement projects. Because of this long-time close relationship, Valerie called on TMAC again to assist with their move to Garland, Texas.

The Solution

Through the project management of Frank Groenteman, Senior Business Advisor, and assistance of Eduardo Martinez, Lean Consultant and Shingo Facilitator, TMAC helped justify the new building, design the entire facility including production spaces, receiving and shipping, storage racking, owner’s lounge, parking spaces and more. They helped sequence the move into their new Garland facility. It was a challenging project of taking a 46 thousand square foot facility and moving it into a building less than 20 thousand square feet. First, Frank, Eduardo and the Classic Caps’ owners determined what processes and related equipment was going to move along with the relative space requirements. Once TMAC provided preliminary layouts to determine if the potential Garland building would be acceptable for Classic’s future business needs, the owners purchased the building. Frank and Eduardo, using AutoCAD and MS Excel, provided several variations of layouts and documentation of all the utilities requirements. Once a building layout was agreed to, Frank work closely with the owners and contractors to move the equipment into place and properly hook up all the equipment. There were a variety of machines, different processes, and utilities to be managed including electrical, water, drainage, compressed air, HVAC, lighting, ventilation, etc. Frank and Eduardo used their Lean knowledge and techniques to optimize the production flows through out the embroidery room, sewing room and screen-printing operations. The entire factory is now functioning much more efficiently than the old building. light bulb Replacing out dated lighting with LED technology was a consistent action to reduce energy costs by all the facilities.

The Result

This successful move and facility layout saved approximately 35 jobs, created 10 new jobs and had an investment of over $2.5 million in building, moving and installations. Classic Caps can now continue to grow by being able to meet their customers’ needs in a 10% more efficient factory. Their reasonable prices, high quality and quick delivery allows them to be extremely competitive to any national or international company. Since moving in their business, the revenue has grown by approximately 15% because of their marketing efforts and their new ability to fill their customers’ needs.

35

Jobs saved

10

Jobs created

$2.5

Million investment

10%

Increase in building efficiency

15%

Increase in revenue

Classic Caps

Can now continue to grow

Next Steps

TMAC was instrumental in assisting us in this move to Garland. The staff ALWAYS had our best interest at heart. I am sure that without Frank and his team, we would not have been able to pull this move off in as an effective manner as we did. They were all imperative to our successful transition.”

- Valerie R. Granat

Owner