Bureau Veritas launches Mill Improvement Program for Apparel and Textile Market

Hong Kong – November 4, 2010: The textile and apparel market is an increasingly competitive industry where reducing production costs, improving product quality, reducing time to market and maximizing productivity are the keys to survival. Having good process and production controls and recognizing in-house test facilities at the mill level can go a long to addressing many of these concerns. With tens of thousands of mills worldwide, Bureau Veritas' newly launched Mill Improvement Program helps manage and mitigate risks for apparel buyers, sellers, manufacturers/factories and mills at the earliest stage; helping to prevent poor quality, unsafe or non-compliant fabrics being shipped. Critically, their solution also enables mills with testing facilities to perform their own in-house performance testing instead of outsourcing to a third party. The working conditions element also helps protect against the constant media speculation associated with social compliance.

Bureau Veritas will also be launching an environmental improvement module in 2011 covering waste, water and energy usage and reduction, a core element of the sustainability agenda, helping mills comply with retailer and brand CSR requirements as well as local regulations.

Brian Whitters, Global Supply Chain Risk Management Product Line Leader at Bureau Veritas Consumer Products Services states, "In today's cost, quality and safety conscious market, our clients are seeing increasing demand to partner their supply chain and demonstrate they are sourcing responsibly. Our Mill Improvement Program helps facilitate a partnership within the supply chain promoting the value of continual improvement and trust. Our laboratory endorsement & assessment program module helps build the capability within a mill's laboratory allowing them to perform their own in-house performance testing. Our quality improvement / process control module developed specifically for mills covering spinning, weaving, knitting, dyeing and printing will help protect poor quality or unsafe fabrics being shipped whilst the social improvement / working conditions module helps improve social conditions within the mills. We are also soon to launch our environmental improvement in line with the trend towards environmental sustainability."

The Mill Improvement Program is available in all major production centers worldwide including China and India and will be continually enhanced further in the forthcoming months aligned to market needs.