Description of sustainability activity

The Apparel Avenue Company is considered a medium-sized factory in the apparel industry in Thailand, with two manufacturing sites and over 600 employees. The company exports 100% of its products, nearly 75% to the US, 10% to Japan, 10% to the EU and the remaining 5% to ASEAN countries. After achieving ISO 9002 and ISO 14001, the company undertook a further effort to comply with the social accountability standard (SA8000) in order to maintain its export market in the long run. Achieving SA8000 certification meant Apparel Avenue had to reduce the overtime of its workers, and the company's SA8000 team agreed that an appropriate methodology was through increasing productivity. This would improve the working environment, with the company saving overtime costs and the employees making more money with fewer working hours. The improvements involved changing the working steps or sequences, designing new tools to improve the employees' working practices, redesigning the workstations and paying the workers by item instead of by hour to prevent them losing salary. The procedures were implemented relatively quickly, as the employees also realised how they could benefit.