Vita's Tip In 10: How we open and process our fabrics

Hello, hello friend, and welcome to a brand-new episode of Vita’s Tip in 10!

In last week's episode, I shared with you a revelation about a certain process I established in my business, and how I realized I need to be inspecting the processes that I expect to take place. The example that I shared was how we open and process fabrics in the most efficient and organized way possible.

After recording it, I thought to myself “why not share that very exact and anal process of opening fabrics”. So here you go…

So when the fabrics come in, they get placed on the shipping and receiving floor. They are not leaned against the wall. They are not placed anywhere else in the workroom. They are laid out on the floor, which is an immediate visual telltale sign that we received a new shipment, and we need to open it.

Our standard is to open the fabrics within two to three days of receipt. Our first step is to strip the bolts of any outer packaging. In the past, I would cut off the top and leave the top of the bolt of fabric exposed while keeping the rest of it in the outer packaging. Since then, I've decided that that outer packaging is dirty and unattractive, and in a way, contributes to the overall messy look and feel that is inherent to the shipping and receiving room to begin with because it houses so many different things.

So, true to my OCD tendencies, I decided to eliminate all outer packaging, and then store the bolt upright. After looking for and pulling any identifying paperwork we need, like labels or packaging slips, the outer packaging is cut off and discarded.

If we don't find any labels on the outer packaging, we look for it inside the fabric roll. The point being, that we expect to find paperwork somewhere either inside the fabric fold or on the outside packaging that indicates what style and pattern and color this fabric is. We take that out, and if it's a small label, then we attach it to an 8.5” x 11” piece of paper.

This is usually not a fresh piece of paper, but something that has been printed on the other side that we are recycling for this very purpose. If it is already an 8.5” x 11” packing slip or list, then we unfold it and keep that as our record of which fabric it is. The reason that we tape the smaller label onto an 8.5” x 11” piece of paper is we then keep all these 8.5” x 11” pieces of paper in the customer folder, and having the documentation be the same size allows that folder to be neat and organized. If we were to just stick that one smaller label into a customer folder, it has a higher likelihood of getting lost or misplaced if we are looking for that label and have to refer back to it.

Like is said: OCD tendencies. And it has saved me a lot of headaches.

Now we need to label the actual bolt of fabrics. Now, you may saying, “Vita, you're not making any sense. You just told us that you stripped it off its labels, and now you are saying that you need to add the labels?”

I understand your confusion. The reason that we strip the bolts of fabric of vendor labels is because every vendor has a slightly different label, and it's also attached in a different place. It's either inside the bolt, or outside the bolt, or inside the packaging, or on the outside of the fabric. It is just all over the place.

And what I want to do is label all the fabrics in the exact same way while they are being stored in our shipping and receiving room waiting to be fabricated. So the vendor labels, like I said, are taped onto that piece of paper, and that paper is put into a folder. Now it's time to uniformly label the fabric, and here's how we do it.

We again use a recycled 8.5” x 11” piece of paper, and we cut it or rip it into four pieces. So think of folding it in half, then folding it in half again, and you have four rectangles. We then label that piece of recycled paper with the name of the project. Which is 99% of the time it is the last name of the customer.

So on that piece of paper, in a black marker, we would write Smith, or Jones, or Clark…you get the idea. And then we take a rubber band and put it around the top of the bolt. So everything is done, or should be done, in the exact same way, as the process calls for. So when you look at rows of fabric waiting to be fabricated, they all have a rubber band that holds up that rectangular piece of white paper with the black writing indicating the last name of the customer. Not the room, not what we're fabricating, not first name, not name of fabric, or any combination of the above - that information is already captured elsewhere, so there is no reason to duplicate it on this label.

The reason for this labeling process with a piece of paper is so when our window treatment specialist goes in to grab the fabric and give it to a fabricator, she knows exactly where Miss Smith’s fabric is. Since she already knows that she's doing a production order for the dining room, or a roman shade, or drapery panels, or ripplefold drapes, all she really needs is to be able to quickly identify the specific bolt for customer Smith.

So once the fabric bolt has been rubber-banded with that piece of paper, it gets placed in a row of fabrics, and we try to keep all the fabrics in approximate alphabetical order. All the A's are together on one side, all the K's are together sort of in the middle, all the w's are together on the other end. Our installer instituted this part of the process and I’m really grateful for that.

Okay, so remember how I told you that this process started faltering? What I found was that instead of that 8.5”x11” sheet of paper, some of the fabric bolts had a strip of masking tape, and the masking tape was coming apart and the last name written on it was very hard to read. And some fabrics didn't get the masking tape or the label, but somewhere on the packaging the customer’s name was written vertically, so you would have to tilt your head over to read it. Then there were some fabrics that didn't get any kind of identification at all, they were just stacked against the wall exactly how they had been received.

I'm a real stickler about my process, and I want to see every single fabric marked with only the last name, and no other information to reduce redundancies, and I want all those identification labels done in a nice, identical, and uniform way.

Now, you may not like my idea of using the recycled paper because maybe you think it could get ripped up and lost. Or you might be thinking this wouldn’t work for you, because your bolts of fabric are really wide because you do these big Florida homes with lots of windows, or big Colorado homes with lots of panoramic views, and there is no rubber band that is going to span that diameter.

And that’s OK! Because the point I’m making here, my friend, is not that you would want to use my method for labeling. The point is the idea that every fabric gets marked in the same way. Whether you choose to use an adhesive label, or leave the outer packaging on and write in the same spot on every bolt, or use masking tape. It should be whatever you decide works best for you. Just as long as you keep using that method for all the fabrics and the information is written uniformly - either all horizontally or all vertically, not a mix.

The uniformity and the process of doing things is what makes the brain feel more restful, not so bogged down with the noise and the detail and the messiness of something that is already messy by nature. So if you look at the place where you keep your fabrics, and there's all different colors, textures, and sizes, you can help add some consistency, at least with labeling.

That's really what I am advocating for here. It's what I found works well for us, and the logic and the strategy behind some of the intricacies of the system that I have created. And I think it's a really smart and efficient way of opening and processing our fabrics.

Now, I have one other bonus tip that I want to share with you. Once we have all those labels we detached and pasted onto the pieces of paper, we take that stack - it’s hardly ever one or two, because that's how many fabrics we get - and we take it over to the desk and the computer that is right there in the shipping and receiving room. Those fabrics are immediately entered into our project management system so that we never have to wonder or go searching to see if a fabric has arrived.

I have shared that we use Airtable, which is the widely popular and freely available software. I've also shared with you that over the last five years, I have customized our Airtable specifically for the window treatment business, and it is the cornerstone of how we keep ourselves organized. We use Airtable to track when the fabric arrived, which project it is for, what customer it is, so that it is available and visible for everyone on the team, as well as our clients who are interior designers.

So there you have it, my friend! Hopefully, it either validated what you're doing, or it gave you some tips on how to adjust your process to work better for you, or it taught you a completely new process of how an organized and experienced and scalable business does it every single day.

That’s it for today, my friend! And if you are looking for more tips just like this, if you’re looking to streamline your processes; if you’re looking for ways to enhance your productivity and workflows, if you’re looking for ways to start using a digital project management tool, if you are looking for ALL the systems to run your business like a well-oiled machine – you have two ways of working with me personally.

One is through LuAnn University, my Systems Driven Operations class. And the second is a two-day in-person intensive where I hand over all my systems for you to use and put to work immediately in your business. I want you to check out both tools because they are different and equally applicable depending on where you are in your business and how fast you want to achieve your goal. And in the meantime, I will be working on my next episode of Vita’s Tip in 10. See you next Thursday!