Ha-Meem Group of Companies
With more than 28-years of garment manufacturing experience, the US $ 300 million Ha-Meem Group, found its niche in producing fashion denim garments, supplying to global brands such as GAP, NEXT, MANGO, Calvin Klein and many more. Speaking on behalf of Ha-Meem Group, Md. Delwar Hossain, Deputy Managing Director, says that by investing in an integrated state-of-the-art infrastructure and design studio, the Group has been able to adopt innovative ways to service the global client and become market leaders in the garment manufacturing industry.
Though the company manufactures a variety of garments, 80 per cent of its capacities are dedicated to making bottoms such as cargos, jeans, chinos and dress pants. However, their fascination for denims is easily detectible in the vertically integrated setup for denims from fabric to stitching to washing. “Denim is our specialty, and unlike many other players in the market we design and develop high-fashion denims for most of our buyers,” says Hossain.
Under the dynamic leadership of AK Azad, Chairman & MD, Ha-Meem Group of Companies, the organization has positioned itself as ‘value-adders’ going much beyond the realms of a simple cut and sew unit for which Bangladesh is known for. The R&D and design team besides forecasting fashion trends also develops entire collections to be showcased to the buyers, making Ha-Meem, a turnkey organization giving end-to-end service to its clients. “We are determined to be different,” says Hossain.
The strong in-house design team comprises of 18 designers from India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and is constantly working towards creating designs keeping the international market and demands in mind by attending to the smallest of details such as colours, cuts and fabrics. This ability sets them apart from their counterparts and they prefer not to work on tech packs but instead develop samples after taking precise instructions from the buyers and after approval go ahead with the order. “We don’t believe in taking conventional paths, we take pride in doing high-end work,” affirms Hossain.
What also makes Ha-Meem Group stand apart is a sound infrastructural setup, bringing in the latest machines and technologies so that quality and productivity is never compromised upon. The company is currently producing 1.5 million metre of denim per month with plans to increase this production to 3.5 million in the next six months as they are setting up their third unit for rope dye. They are also planning to invest in spinning to complete the supply chain. In garmenting, the company is currently handling 5 million pieces per month. The integrated operations of the group have helped to bring down the lead times drastically from the Bangladesh average of 120 days to a mere 60 days. “This is a great achievement for us as we are able to meet our orders in half the time,” adds Hossain proudly.
[bleft]“Because we have a warehousing facility and a denim mill readily available, we can stock goods and fabric for up to two years in various sizes and colours so, once we get a replenishment order we are able to react quickly.” – Md. Delwar Hossain Deputy Managing Director[/bleft]
Specializing in fashion denim the company also has a well equipped washing setup that includes all types of dry and wet machines like laser, Ozone, jet dyeing, over dyeing to name a few in trend concepts. “Over dyeing is a big trend this year and having this capability has increased our business. By adding a few additional sub-machines we are doing 60-70,000 pieces of over dyeing per day,” says Hossain.
The Ha-Meem Group belongs to the school of thought that strongly concurs with the idea of planning ahead and this philosophy is visible in the initiatives taken by the group. Realizing that it could be an advantage to maintain an EDI fitted warehouse to service buyers on a replenishment model, the group has gone in for this business model. “Once you are able to dispatch an order in half the time, buyers need assistance in replenishing too, which would vary in sizes, colour, washes and quantity. Because we have a warehousing facility and a denim mill readily available, we can stock goods and fabric for up to two years in various sizes and colours. Once we get a replenishment order we are able to react quickly as we most probably would be picking up some garments from the stocks kept or stitching some from the stored fabric to meet the order; replenishment is faster and more efficiently done,” says Hossain.
[bleft]The strong in-house design team of the Ha-Meem Group comprises of 18 designers from India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and is constantly working towards creating designs keeping the international market and demands in mind by attending to the smallest of details such as colours, cuts and fabrics. The integrated operations of the group have helped to bring down the lead times drastically from the Bangladesh average of 120 days to a mere 60 days.[/bleft]
In fact the group readily provides warehousing facility on and off-shore, both. “We have a warehouse facility in Dallas, USA because of which we can supply to the buyer directly as landed duty paid (LDP) supply. This helps us in giving door-step service even overseas to our customers. The trucks come and collect the goods from our warehouse in USA, and then they pay us through cheques within two weeks. Keeping the base in USA and Bangladesh is a huge value-add for our customers” he adds.
Even the logistics in Bangladesh is well under control of the company where the group owns 80 covered trucks which help them meet the delivery requirements on time, no matter what situation or season. “Even if there is a curfew, we do not deter from meeting the delivery commitments,” says Hossain confidently.
Apart from making their own denim fabric small things such as labels, polybags, cartons, and all types of tagging is also produced in-house making them self-sufficient manufacturers and also helping them in shortening the lead time and increasing capability as a one-stop-solution for denim. Implementation of ERP systems and lean concepts has helped the company save on wastages and reduce cost of production, making them not only ‘quick’ on deliveries but price-effective too.
Moving ahead the company aims at graduating from 200 production lines to 300 by 2015, thereby increasing its production capacities to 7 million pieces of garments per month. The company is also exploring options for a joint venture for making formal suits. In the meanwhile a factory for manufacturing lingerie is already underway and is projected to commence production in 2013-14. “We are actively working on setting up a lingerie project to manufacture ladies’ bra and ladies’ panty. We plan to bring in experts from Belgium, Sri Lanka, and Turkey, as lingerie making is highly technical and requires learned hands to handle the project. Latest machinery too will be brought in to help make high-quality lingerie for bigger brands,” concludes Hossain.
