TBT – This appeared almost exactly one year ago.

Marty Bailey (left) is the CMO of American Apparel. He’s the man behind the scenes there.  He is a big part of their success and also in how they treat their workers. (It is simple, he said once, “respect everyone.”)  I asked him about ten years ago about using Aerospace Quality Circle methods in textile manufacturing. He paused for a bit and said in his Kentucky quiet voice, “I didn’t know about that but…, ” I paraphrase poorly at this point, “but it is pretty simple really, you give people proper functioning machines, ALL the materials, and clear instructions on what is expected of them.”
I think this goes down as what I call, “simple but not necessarily easy” to do. Just because something isn’t all that complicated doesn’t mean one is on easy street trying to do it.  I try to follow Marty’s advice in our screenprinting work at Mirror Image and as simple as it is, it takes a great deal of work to maintain and often I fail.