Case History 1

The corporate headquarters of a national construction company wanted to show their appreciation to a group of people who were instrumental in solving a very critical problem they had encountered on a property in California. It seems as though some cabling that had once been a part of our early national security system several decades ago was buried on this property. You can’t just dig up things like this; and after months of negotiations, the company was able to successfully remove the cable.

They had some pieces of the cable, so we suggested an embedment. This is a processes by which (just about) anything is embedded in Lucite. The message is either embedded with the object or is engraved on the outside.

We took a piece of the cable (still covered in dirt) back to the office and cleaned it up. Then we took it to an electrician friend of ours and had him cut it to the proper size and then expose the wires. We then splayed the wires to give it a whimsical look and took the piece to the embedment professional. We chose the size and shape we wanted, and in two days we had a prototype. We rushed the prototype to the client who was thrilled with the outcome and immediately placed the order.


Case History 2

A regular client of ours wanted to purchase “nice” jackets for their own field workers as well as for Holiday gifts for some of their subcontractors. The jacket had to be very good quality and they wanted something “a little different.”

We took them every catalog we had showing jackets of all kinds. After pouring over the catalogs, they found a very nice jacket made of brushed canvas with a leather collar. When I called to place the order, the jackets were out of stock and would not be available until the end of the year. That was unacceptable—they wanted that jacket BY December 22, and we wanted them to have it!!

We went to work faxing, calling, and searching the internet and finally got a lead to a company that might be able to custom manufacture a similar jacket. When we explained our dilemma to the manufacturer, they were confident that they could deliver as they had a basic jacket to which they could add the features our client desired. They sent us a sample of their jacket over night.

Our client was satisfied that they’d get what they wanted, so they placed their order. This was November 23 and the in-hands date was December 22 by 11:30 am. Impossible? NO!!

Now the real fun began! The company was located in Seattle, but the jacket would be manufactured in Canada. The fabric had to meet certain US Customs standards so the fabric had to come from only certain mills in the US. We needed fabric samples. They didn’t have any but located them in California. The samples were sent overnight to us on November 26. The samples arrived on Monday, November 29, and we immediately took them to the client to choose. We then passed on their selection to the factory. It would take 10 days for the fabric to arrive in factory.

Simultaneously, we were working on getting logo approval from the client and then sending the logo to Seattle for digitizing.

After the fabric selection, there were many other decisions to make—sleeve and pocket trim, lining color, flap or no flap over the zipper, one or two snaps. Every decision took several steps for approval.

When the sew-out of the logo arrived and we showed the client, they didn’t like the thread color. We took them samples of other thread colors and they settled on one they liked. We then notified the factory. This was the big go- ahead. The jackets had already been cut and were ready to embroider and sew together. It was December 15.

We were in constant contact with the factory—once, sometimes twice a day. It was really coming down to the wire. There was a possibility the jackets would be ready to ship on December 20, but it would more than likely be the 21st. On December 20, we were advised the jackets would ship on the 21st and arrive by noon. I decided to have the order shipped directly to my client—in case they were early, my client would have them by their 11:30 deadline. If they didn’t arrive in time, the client had “Plan B” and would be OK with that.

THE JACKETS ARRIVED AT 11:00!! THE CLIENT WAS VERY PLEASED WITH THE QUALITY AND LOOK OF THE JACKETS AND SO WERE WE.