Costume Jewelry Manufacturer

Background
 The firm is a manufacturer of costume jewelry. At certification, the firm had 14 employees and annual sales of approximately $2.5 million.

Competitors, mainly from the Orient, produce product at such low prices that the firm was being squeezed out of the market. In the first six months of 1998, the amount of jewelry produced by the firm was cut in half due to its customers buying imported product.

Assistance Provided
The recovery strategy pinpointed product design as the area most needing assistance. The firm lacked the skills to take a concept design and construct working models that would be used to build master molds. To correct this lack of capability, the project would require an external model/mold consultant to analyze current products and develop prototype products that were in line with the corporate strategy. The project was designed to be market driven, and to transfer this skill to the firm upon completion.

The four major components of this strategy were:
• Identify the specific requirements in order to determine the steps
needed to build the prototype models and molds.
• Prepare drawings for the master models' components to assure
uniform quality.
• Design and build the prototype models, and produce specifications
for master molds.
• Teach management the techniques of model/mold making.

Project Results
Management learned to produce product that is market driven and produced in a very timely manner. New and fresh product is arriving in the marketplace when the demand is highest. In many instances, the firm is able to beat the imports by weeks.

The sales manager presented a pilot program to principals of a large theme park conglomerate whereby, he proposed to place product in four of the theme parks. The conglomerate agreed to the pilot program with evaluation the program after one year. The results were sales of more than $80,000. Since then the theme park conglomerate has offered the firm access to 26 of their theme parks in the United States and three theme parks in Europe. This new relationship required additional workers to be hired by the firm and has management very optimistic for the future. A year after completion of the project net sales topped $4.2 million, up from a low of less than $1 million in 1998.