How US Textile Manufacturing Competes on Technology

What We Need to Grow, Episode 084: One of the Saving Graces. A Founder Talk conversation with Ken Edwards. Cleaned for readability; the words are the speakers' own.

A Conversation with Ken Edwards, President of Precision Placements

Caleb Pedosiuk: All right, Ken. Your talent recruiting, executive recruiting is probably as niche as it comes. You have a background in manufacturing, specifically in the textile industry, and so you're helping to find experienced talent within that. You've got a book you shared a little bit with me that helps to highlight a number of different stories to help people recognize that it's not always the strongest resume that makes the best fit. Please introduce yourself, textilejobs.com, and what you're working on.

Ken Edwards: Sure. I'm Ken Edwards. As Caleb mentioned, I run Precision Placements at textilejobs.com. We specialize in the textile and the apparel industry. A lot of people do not realize how intricate and really how widespread that industry is, because it not only covers the clothes you wear, it covers the upholstery of the chair you may be sitting in, and possibly what's on your wall, even the tire cord that goes into your car, or some carbon fibre that would be involved in your next air travel that you're going on. So it is very, very widespread.

We got started a little over 30 years ago. I kind of got my start as an industrial engineer in the textile and apparel industry, moved up to being a vice president of operations, and worked with a few search firms and decided I could do a little bit better with a strong understanding of the industry. So because of that, we progressed over 30 years' time from initially starting off just in manufacturing in the United States to really expanding more into sales and marketing with still a little bit of manufacturing, but also now, and really the last 5 years, being more heavily involved in senior-level searches using the experience that we've developed over years.

The textile and apparel industry is in and of itself a very international industry. So probably about 50% now of our positions that we work on are still with US-based companies, but the other 50% really is from all over the world. We've got searches going on in Latin America and Southeast Asia, and in the Near East as well. So all of those are really the scope of what we're doing.

Caleb: And typically, how does the spread work? Do you find that a certain percentage of the talent comes to you and the rest is outbound? Is the majority of it you actually reaching out to find these people and making contact with them?

Ken: Without a doubt, talent reaches out to us. Fortunately, our website textilejobs.com has been around since 1995, so because of that we still rank pretty highly in search engines. I was fortunate to get started on LinkedIn back in the late '90s, back whenever it was still in its infancy, so because of that I've established a fairly strong presence with a very, very good network. I've got a group dedicated to textile and apparel executives that has just under 17,000 people in it.

So all of those kind of work to help put our name out. The vast majority of the time whenever we're talking with people, they've at least heard of us in one way, shape, or form. Certainly one of my biggest objectives is to make more people aware of us, but for the most part we're fairly widespread and fortunately have the credibility and reputation to be able to attract candidates.

Caleb: How does it work across markets, where maybe manufacturing is happening in other areas where English is not the first language? Is English still considered the base standard at the management level in terms of actually doing global trade, or is it something where you're factoring in language fit as well?

Ken: Well, that's a good question. Unfortunately, embarrassed to admit, I'm not bilingual. I only speak English. So I do have some sourcers and contractors that speak Spanish, because a lot of what we've done has been in Latin America and South America and Mexico.

But what I have found, especially at the executive level, really all of the searches that I've worked on, the executives themselves can speak English and can communicate. Oftentimes if they're going into a culture where predominantly there is another language being spoken, the people we recruit will be bilingual. But unfortunately if a person cannot speak English, that being either a client or a candidate, then I'm not very successful in communicating with them.

Caleb: Fair enough. What is it like looking at the demographics of the talent pool? I know that in some instances, certainly the baby boomers just by way of the numbers, every industry that they touched since birth has completely transformed as they moved through that timeline. Have you found that manufacturing has trended in a certain direction and made it more challenging to find succession leadership?

Ken: Yes, especially, and with this I'll base it primarily in the United States. Back whenever I got my start after college, manufacturing in the United States overall was fairly robust, and actually manufacturing in the textile and apparel industry was robust. Since that period of time, NAFTA has come on and a number of different factors have come into play.

In fact, I was speaking with another textile recruiter just a few months ago, and we were lamenting the fact that there is a lack of talent from the manufacturing side coming up through the ranks in the United States. Because the overall demand for textile and apparel executives has waned, so too have people, not as many people are going into it as a profession, so consequently there are not as many middle managers. Like you said, in the baby boomer, the Gen X, there's not as many, and then whenever we start getting into the millennials, the numbers have dropped off considerably.

People are just not wanting to go into manufacturing, and if they do go into manufacturing, the probability of going into the textile and apparel industry is not as attractive to them.

Caleb: Interesting. What are you seeing with the rise of automation, with dark factories in China? You've got robotics, you've got AI, that's the invisible aspect of the outward machines.

Ken: Well, that's something actually that just excites me. It's always been my inclination to stay on top of the technology curve. As I mentioned, we had a website in '95, and we're using some of the more modern search techniques as we go through it. In the same way, I've really been excited with some of the automation that's come to the textile industry. There's a couple companies that we've worked with that are really, really trying to make inroads in automation.

You don't want to eliminate labour completely, and really you can't eliminate labour completely, but at least my philosophy, if we can make the labour more efficient, then it starts allowing US companies to be able to compete more with companies from Southeast Asia, which is probably where the biggest competition is. And also, hearing more and more recently, it's even gravitating toward Africa as a location where the industry is going.

We worked with a client a while back that actually came from the aerospace industry. They were backed by one of the leading aerospace companies in Europe, and their whole area was using technology to help with pattern making. Not to get too technical, but before a garment is sewn or designed, a pattern has to be made for the individual pieces coming together, and from a sizing standpoint that in itself is very challenging. This company itself is using some of the techniques of computer-aided design that's used in the aerospace industry to literally apply it to the apparel and clothes.

So technology, I think it may be one of the saving graces to keep the overall industry in the United States and help it grow. You think your shirt is a basic commodity almost that you're wearing, but there's a tremendous amount of technology that's going into the overall fibres, where the fibres can sense heat, they can sense electromagnetic things coming through. There's a branch that's called 4D textiles, where it's going beyond what you're actually wearing to work, especially in the athletic performance area, and also you being in Canada, with the cooling area and outdoor outerwear, things along those lines.

Caleb: Where you have like a battery in it that's actually heating, like some of the mountain equipment.

Ken: It can be a battery. It can be the type of thing where they literally have technology now where there's benefits if you've got an inner layer to be snug on your body, and there's also benefits to be loose. And there's technology going that literally changes the overall fibre as it goes, to be able to help things in that regard, to make it more efficient. So that if you're out hiking in the snow, it will keep you warm when you need to be, but at the same time keeping you from sweating too much, which in turn will make your thermal go down as well.

Caleb: Yeah. I'd done some training with some people that were doing disaster response sort of training, and there was some outdoors and some military guys. One of the things that was mentioned was merino wool, that whether it's in the summertime or in the winter. So almost all of, I try to just wear merino wool from your base layers up. There's a company called Duckworth out of the US, and they actually, I think their whole process is now on their land, everything from raising the actual sheep through to processing. I think they have some pretty traditional processes of how they do that. This isn't one of their items, but I have one of their hoodies that is just phenomenal.

You mentioned the climate here, but I find layering it up where I'll just put on multiple layers of wool, and I find it's incredibly comfortable. It just has a feel to it. I know some people talk about, I don't know enough about this, but almost the frequency of different fibres. They're each made of different, they have molecular structure. And so, whatever language you want to use for it, but almost like a different frequency to it. And that wool, merino wool specifically, is just, I found it really remarkable.

Ken: So I guess the bottom line is technology is constantly changing in the apparel and textile industry, and because of that we're seeing, at least in the United States and in North America, that the companies that are innovative and coming up with new approaches, both from a technology and also manufacturing standpoint, are able to survive in the United States. Whereas if you are dealing with a basic cotton t-shirt, then it's very, very difficult to compete at this point with Southeast Asia, and within the next few years it'll be difficult to compete with Africa manufacturing.

Caleb: At what stage would you say it's smart for manufacturing companies to be in touch with a team like yours? Is it in general to just say, hey, we'd like to establish those relationships potentially years in advance of when you need it and then just have a roster, so we're familiar with what you're looking for? Because when key talent might come available in the market might be at a different time than the window of when they actually need it. So if the talent that you need is available 2 years beforehand, it might be good to know about it.

Ken: Well, by all means, we love to foster relationships. I've got a number of professional friendships that I try to develop and keep going. Our overall approach, Caleb, is as we go into any searches, do it more as a consultant going in, rather than the pure headhunter just finding a warm body for the person coming in. And the best way to develop that consultative approach is to develop a friendship, to know the industry, to get to know the person.

As far as what stage, we've worked with companies that are literally at the startup stage, because they're needing to bring in either a strong salesperson or maybe a very, very strong technologist to help their technology grow. We've seen that really all along the lines, if they're looking to bring in quality people. At any stage of growth it's good to be able to have that relationship, because it's a lot less expensive to bring in the right plant manager, for instance, than it is to spend the money and then just get someone off the street.

Caleb: And then, technology is playing this increasingly important role. Often if you have the right technology, it brings a disproportionate amount of value to the equation if it's applied properly. I know it's case-specific, but you mentioned sales, you mentioned executives. Do you find that role of a CTO, a chief technology officer, is that one of the key roles that you're sort of on the lookout for?

Ken: We have placed people in the IT area before. Really, the CTO type of position would not be in our main forte. What would be involved is if you needed a technology person that's either devoted to the chemistry or the overall fibre technology, where they're very, very specific to the apparel or textile industry. That's where our big benefit could come through in working with clients. We're not an IT company, and consequently there would be other firms for a generic CTO to come in.

Caleb: Okay. Well, one of the questions I like to ask as a wrap-up is, what is it, if you had to pick one thing, would you say that you would need, say you need most to grow right now? I know for some it's like creating awareness about something, some are raising capital, some are expanding into other markets, some have a branch into a completely new aspect of technology. Where would you sort of put that?

Ken: My company, is that what you're saying? Yeah. I think I don't have a desire right now, and actually I've tried it in the past, to branch off into other areas. I think our business model is to stick in our niche, but as much as anything, it's to expand in our niche. As I've mentioned, there are so many new companies that are around now that were not around 5 years ago.

The companies that have been around for 30 years, generally they know about us, but the newer, the startup companies, especially as we're looking at such an international focus of what we're doing, I think letting more companies know about us, know of us, know our approach. Once again, our website, we've tried to spell out our approach, letting people know exactly how we go about the search and maybe how we're a little bit different. Because those companies that realize that, not only do we have a greater possibility of putting an agreement together with them, but also it gives them a better understanding of what we do, the way we do it, and in turn will make the search a lot more successful.

Caleb: Very cool. Well, Ken, thank you very much. That manuscript that you shared, first of all, who would that book be for? And then how can someone get their hands on it?

Ken: Okay. Well, first and foremost, the title is Staying Power, and it came about because I had a client one time ask me why is it they hire some people that last just a short period of time, whereas other times they have people that last a long period of time. It was a question that made me scratch my head for many years, and I started putting down what I had learned. I started off with a page, and it ended up growing.

Because what it does, I've gone on my career both as an industrial engineer, as vice president of operations, plus the 30 years of search experience that I've had, and I've tried to put everything together and try to identify the elements I think are important for a good search. For the apparel and textile industry, but also for other industries, really to help find the best person that will be productive, and productive for a long period of time.

The best way to, if you want a copy, it's no charge, free of charge. Go to my website, it's textilejobs.com. You'll see a link to Insights, and within the Insights menu you'll see a link to Staying Power. Just request a copy and I'll be happy to send you a PDF.

Caleb: Excellent. Well, Ken, thank you very much. And yeah, I appreciate you making that book available as well.

Ken: Well, thank you, Caleb. I appreciate it. You take care.