As many in our industry are already aware, National Work Clothing Ltd. is well-known for its custom workwear manufacturing. What most people don't know is that NWC got its start back in 1981, as a rainwear manufacturer called R.T. Sainthill & Son, out of North Sydney, NS. That year my father, Lolek Morawiecki, was offered the job of Research & Development/General Manager of Sainthill’s, and relocated to the East Coast from Norton Safety Products (now North) in Rexdale, Ontario. Sainthill’s supplied clients such as Ontario Hydro, City Of Toronto, QIT (QUEBEC IRON & TITAINIUM) and QNS&L ( QUEBEC NORTH SHORE & LABRADOR) with large amounts of industrial rainwear.
My father bought out and took over the company in 1987 and changed its name to Great Bras d’Or Rainwear. Not long afterwards, my mother Jeannette joined the company as production manager The company continued to manufacture quality products such as rain jackets, rain pants, long coats, aprons and sleeves. The first work clothing to come off their production line was a labcoat-style product designed for use in fish plants of the east. The company quickly saw the potential of this type of product. So, in 1993 the company expanded - purchasing a work clothing manufacturing plant in northern New Brunswick and moving production to a newly purchased plant in Sydney Mines, NS. The new company was incorporated and renamed National Work Clothing Ltd.
NWC continued to manufacture rainwear and work clothing successfully until the early 1990s, when cheap rainwear began flooding the market from the Far East. By the late 1990s, by which point my wife Lisa and I had joined the company, sales had dropped considerably - to the point that it was no longer feasible for the company to tie up its working capital by purchasing large amounts of PVC-on-polyester material in three colours, which were slow to move. Despite much protest from loyal distributors and end-users of rainwear products, pressure from market forces meant that a "no choice" decision was made to dissolve the rainwear line. NWC then regrouped and focused its efforts on research and development of new and improved workwear products.
In late 2009, I sat down with my wife and my parents, and began discussing the logistics of taking over NWC Ltd. One thing we knew for certain was that NWC produced durable, good-quality, comfortable, Canadian-made workwear. In considering how we could revitalize the company and take it into the twenty-first century, we spent time identifying existing challenges in our production, and finding solutions to these. Two of our biggest challenges were:
1. Workforce and Plant Location: Although the core full-time NWC employees working out of the Sydney Mines plant were loyal, labour market conditions in the region meant that it proved extremely difficult to find and train new employees. Without a large, trained production staff, we couldn't take on large orders. We needed to tap into a market with a more qualified manufacturing workforce. Also, a more central location in Canada would allow us to save on freight costs of fabrics coming in and product going out. These savings would allow us to raise our profit margins and still maintain competitively-priced products.
Our solution was to move the plant to its current location in Elmira, ON. Being just twenty minutes north of Guelph, it is also in proximity to Kitchener-Waterloo. These three cities have a large, ready-made workforce trained for manufacturing industries. Moving to Ontario also brought NWC closer to its suppliers, which saves considerable freight expenditure.
2. Research & Development: Although NWC has always been known to possess a versatile production floor, in the 1990s we found ourselves going head-to-head with producers in the Far East, which meant tying up our production floor with low-profit-margin products. A fresh approach and new direction was needed in terms of research into and development of new product offerings.
Our solution has been to focus on smaller, more custom lines of work clothing. Because of the smaller scale of this production, the Far East is much less likely to do this type of business. This ensures our product continues to be made in Canada, by a Canadian manufacturer.
To develop these new product lines, NWC went out into the workforce to see what workers wanted in work clothing, and developed innovative lines with products that are safe, comfortable, and easily personalized. These lines include "Women At Work Wear" (a line of work clothing designed by women, for women), "DuraDuck" (heavy-duty cotton duck workwear developed for the hardest labourers) and "Lanyard Slot" (clothing and rainwewar manufactured with a 3” slot in the upper back of the product which allows the worker to wear a safety harness under the workwear and pass the lanyard through, it makes for a safer, more comfortable garment.)
Now, due to customer demand, NWC is proud to relaunch its rainwear line, now known as "DuraGear". Three of NWC’s former customers, who had bought our rainwear in the past and later switched to imported product from the Far East, recently told us their concerns about the imported goods’ quality, delivery, customization, and pricing. Production in the Far East is not what it was a decade ago; a Chinese middle class is now growing rapidly. Higher labour costs in China are pushing production costs up, and rainwear which was once inexpensive to import is no longer that cheap. We at NWC felt that the time was right to relaunch our rainwear back onto the Canadian market. Ours is a proven, quality product that is made to last - but we knew that in order to be competitive in today’s market, we would have to find an edge or niche. We sat down with our supplier and did just that! Now, we are pleased to offer industrial-strength, fire-retardant, oil-, rot- and mildew-resistant DuraGear rainwear in custom colors and exact Pantones. Feedback from our customers has been incredibly encouraging! NWC plans to have eight regular colours in stock, with a 75-suit minimum order for custom Pantones. Until now this variety has been virtually unavailable on the market. Still in the concept stages, we are presently working on three large contracts which are being kept confidential until our customized product launch later this month.
NWC will continue to expand to what market will allow, and will continue to develop and produce safe, durable, Canadian made products to the specs of what people want in work wear.
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