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Manufacturer of Costume Jewelry
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.
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