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YPIE Blog – week two, day two – Panaz
Now in its fifth year, the Young Professional Industry Experience is our unique three week intensive programme where a group of young people are given the opportunity to visit 20 industry leading companies and understand all areas of the furniture industry, including materials, designing, manufacturing, pricing, marketing, sales, and customer service.
Young Professional Industry Experience participant Felicity Squires of Axminster Tools & Machinery writes about the group’s visit to Panaz.
Today we visited Panaz, an innovative textile manufacturer and supplier. On arrival ead of creative resources and branding at Panaz, gave an overview of the history of the company and its journey to where it is today, highlighting that the company’s focus is on flame retardant materials, which evolved into its other unique selling points, such as water resistant that made them antimicrobial fabrics.
Sarah works in design and she gave us an insight to how they establish new trends, textures and patterns. She also explained the process of design development from concept to finished product.
The majority of Panaz’s custom is hospitality, health care and other commercial B2B. Overtime Panaz has also seen a huge increase in custom bespoke design.
During our tour we saw the warehouse and digital printers in action and the process of transferring the design to the material by heat.
Currently, Panaz sends out roughly 24,000 samples a month which is costly, however still worthwhile. The company is looking at digitalising samples that in turn could reduce the number of physical samples they produce which could result in reduced costs. Despite this they still see a benefit for the customer to feel and see a real sample.
Potential future challenges for Panaz is the ability to be flexible and continue to be customer focused. To add value and innovation as well as sustainability in its materials.
Following our visit to Panaz we went to weister to see looms operating. We were greeted by Duncan who took us around the factory. It was really interesting how materials are woven to create patterns. The intricasy of the machines and the fact that the process has not changed in years was astounding.