Sattler USA: Outdoor Performance Fabrics-Focused

Sattler Corp.是一家致力于加强其遮阳篷，海洋和休闲家具行业职位的家族企业。

By Jim Kaufmann, Contributing Editor

the term family business is often embellished or misused in today’s business climate. However, when one refers to the Sattler Group, a global manufacturer of technical and performance textiles, the term family business is definitely spot on. Sattler, originally founded in 1875 as a trading company, has evolved greatly over its 145-year-history and yet remains the epitome of a family owned business. Headquartered in Austria, Sattler is now led by the fifth generation of the founding family and a family mentality is pervasive throughout the various branches of its organization.

“Sattler is family run and family oriented from the top down,” said Uli Tombuelt, CEO of Sattler Corp., who joined the company in 2019. “It’s really important to the ownership that this remain a family business and a good place to work,” he said. “A lot of our employees throughout the organization are second, third or higher generation. Thirty to 40 years working here is common for many employees. You hear family business a lot at many places, but we actually in fact live it here and remain true to the Sattler family’s heritage.”

公司遗产

Sattler Corp., (Sattler-USA) — the U.S. division of the Sattler Group — is located in the original Hudson Cotton Mills building in Hudson, N.C. In 1968, the Shuford family purchased Hudson Cotton Mills Corp. and renamed it Shuford Mills. Given the lengthy and strong relationship already established between Hudson Cotton Mills, which was founded in 1904 and the town of Hudson, the Shuford family decided to maintain and invest further in the Hudson manufacturing location. Through the late 1990s, Shuford transitioned its focus towards man-made fiber fabrics and away from cottons for outdoor uses. This led the company to specialize in solution-dyed acrylics for awnings, marine and casual furniture applications, and the Outdura® brand was born. Shuford’s strategic change in product focus and the growing success of the Outdura brand as a line of performance fabrics helped to ensure the continued operation of the Hudson location throughout the textile industry’s more turbulent years.

Fast forward to the late 2000s when the Shuford family began fielding and evaluating opportunities specific to the future of the Outdura brand and its Hudson manufacturing facility. The Shuford family was introduced to members of the Sattler Group with its family business mentality. A synergy was found, and in 2010, Sattler purchased the Shuford Mills operations and its Outdura brand.

根据Tombuelt,这是一个完美的匹配。机器人h organizations “cared strongly about family, resulting in one of the stipulations of the sale stating that the Hudson plant would continue to operate in its current location so that employee lives would not be interrupted and the town of Hudson would not be negatively impacted,” Tombuelt said. “Since the acquisition, Sattler has kept that promise by establishing Hudson as the group’s U.S. headquarters, making numerous investments in the facility while expanding the Outdura brand and creating other product offerings.

“这座建筑已有116岁的历史，并在国家历史悠久的地方注册。”“鉴于该公司与哈德森镇的悠久关系，我们已经能够获得所需的额外空间。现在，我们在哈德逊的校园里有170,000平方英尺的空间，可以进一步增长并满足未来的需求。

Solution-Dyed Outdura®

the Outdura brand now constitutes a family of upholstery fabrics made from 100-percent solution-dyed acrylic — all of which are “Made in the USA.” This is significant to Tombuelt because: “roughly 80 percent of our outdoor customers still manufacture in the United States.” The acrylic fiber used for Sattler-USA’s Outdura fabric is sourced exclusively from Europe. The fiber is then spun into yarn and woven into Outdura fabrics at Sattler-USA’s Hudson facility.

Solution-dyed acrylic fabrics were originally developed as a replacement for cotton awning fabrics because of their higher levels of functionality and durability. According to Tombuelt, Outdura’s applications have expanded to include marine and casual furniture applications as well because of their similar performance and quality requirements. Solution-dyed acrylics are well suited for each of these markets because of their design capabilities, variety of colors, consistency, clean look and inherent performance characteristics.

“ Outdura已成为一个著名的品牌，在美国具有无与伦比的品质，我们的面料符合Oeko-Tex®标准100要求，” Tombuelt说。“我们是ISO 9001-2015和ISO 14001认证，我们的质量系统允许可追溯性和可靠性。我们的客户喜欢这样的事实，他们今天可以购买一卷特定的布料SKU [库存保留单位]，从现在开始，六个月或更长时间，它看起来和感觉也一样。一致性在那里。我们在批次之间的质量和颜色的一致性非常高。

“我们相信在这些市场中有生长的空间，”墓碑补充说。“因此，我们希望通过我们的产品，质量和客户响应能力来关注和加强我们的品牌以及Sattler-Usa的立场。而且，尽管我们没有任何即时计划在美国开设其他地点，但我们确实计划实施额外的增强服务，以增加整个行业的业务。”

though a few select distributors are employed in strategic markets, Sattler also sells directly to its customers because, according to Tombuelt, “going through too many distributors can be a disadvantage.” He feels that selling direct to customers provides Sattler the opportunity to provide customers better overall service by eliminating any added layers of communication.

“The outdoor furniture industry is well connected and like a big family,” Tombuelt said. “We all know each other pretty well. Events tend to take on a family reunion-like atmosphere. When you go to a show, you see lots of familiar faces. We use these opportunities to build stronger customer relationships that improve communication channels at all levels. We want that direct, immediate feedback because of its accuracy and timeliness. Even if we don’t like what we hear, it helps us to improve our business and create even more relevant product offerings.”

剪切程序提供灵活性

原始设备制造商，垫子制造商，内饰和帆布商店以及工作工人被视为萨特勒 - 美国的主要目标 - 据《古库尔特》称，有很多机会。“我们确实认为，我们的未来成功与未充分重视的细分市场直接相关，我们正在改善我们的业务模式，使Sattler-Usa更加可行，并为他们带来增值。”结果，Sattler-Usa正在增加其客户服务的重点，并改善其“削减计划”产品，这些产品也位于哈德森地点。

使用剪切程序，客户几乎可以直接从Sattler的大约450个SKU中购买任何织物。这使大小的小客户都可以获取样品和/或购买金额从1码到直接从制造商的整卷织物不等。“这是我们业务未来的关键部分，”墓地说。“我们可以根据需要向客户发送5或10码的特定应用程序，当然，明天我们也可以发送卡车。”

In addition, Sattler-USA recently became a brand partner on Material Bank — an online marketplace for the architecture and design industry. Material Bank recently completed uploading all of Sattler’s cut program SKUs to its website. “So, a designer can now go to Material Bank’s website, search for Sattler fabrics, select one or more and get a sample delivered in 24 hours,” Tombuelt noted.

It’s rare and refreshing to find this type and level of service directly from a manufacturer, but as Tombuelt indicated: “We do believe that responsiveness is certainly one element that separates Sattler-USA from other companies. In addition to the current SKUs in our cut program, if a project requires a specific design, an order of 60 yards, our standard roll length, we can make that happen in a short period of time!”

内部设计功能提供新的设计选项

Having an inside design team, as well as more than 140 colors and styles of yarn to choose from with more options arriving all the time, is beneficial to Sattler-USA and its customers. In addition, close partnerships with yarn suppliers allows Sattler-USA to not only react quickly to market trends, but also create new trends themselves.

“我们所有的设计都是内部完成的，”墓地说。“我们每年都有一线线，但通常，设计或产品线上的三到四年生命周期很普遍，大概是六到七年的。我们的客户真的不想年复一年地看到相同的设计。因此，我们最大的优势之一是，借助我们的现代设备和集成的设计团队，我们可以快速反应，并将定制或新设计变成面料。对我们来说，这是相当简单且容易完成的。目前，我们的产品中约有90％来自库存，其余是定制订单，但是我们开始看到较短的产品设计生命周期模仿了时尚行业循环趋势，我们也将为此做好准备。”

墓碑认为该行业的变化是渐进的，但承认客户期望越来越多的绩效。他说：“以户外家具市场为例。”“最初为室外市场创建的设计，历史上以溶液染色的丙烯酸为主导，现在已用于内部市场。而且有一种趋势是在外面创建第二个起居室，希望所有季节都可以使用空间 - 因此有很多运动。传统上，专注于“内部世界”的公司正在进入“外界”，反之亦然。新制造商也正在进入该行业。萨特勒（Sattler）将这些趋势视为机会，但我们的客户最终将决定我们的未来方向。”

Increased Performance Expectations

New technologies based on polyester and olefins are beginning to push into the space as performance expectations continue to increase. “There is a natural push for performance stories throughout this industry,” commented Tombuelt, “And Sattler is in a strong position to provide the story lines.” In addition to the inherent desirable properties of the solution-dyed acrylic, Sattler-USA has formed a partnership with Crypton LLC, a company with manufacturing in Kings Mountain, N.C., to apply technical backings and enhancements to the fabrics. Treatments include odor and stain release properties, water repellency and if necessary, flame retardancy. Crypton’s proprietary chemistries also can meet the International Maritime Organization’s requirements with a focus on performance and sustainability without compromising the look, touch and physical performance of the base fabric.

Sattler-USA offers several product lines and technologies in addition to the Outdura brand. The Sattler 745 Evolution product line — a flame retardant, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) coated fabric — specifically designed for North American commercial grade awnings, canopies and passageway markets, was introduced at the IFAI Expo 2019. According to Tombuelt: “The fabric is produced in Austria in our state-of-the-art facilities and will be distributed exclusively by three distribution partners — Keystone, Bainbridge and Veteran. We plan to build on the success of this novel product and introduce more PVC coated products here in the United States.”

Outdura喝彩3行仍然是一个强大的品牌for Sattler. A new line to be introduced soon, Modern Textures, incorporates, for example, a domestically produced bouclé yarn to create a unique look and texture. “We’re always looking for new lines, new designs and looking forward,” Tombuelt stated. “As a whole, the industry is pretty strong and we need to continue taking advantage of fiber, yarn and manufacturing developments to create differentiated and diverse lines going forward so we don’t get caught always producing the same fabric designs or just solids with some structure. This approach will help us to continue improving our responsiveness and customer service, while focusing on strengthening our positions in the awning, marine and casual furnishings markets.”

tombuelt assures Sattler will improve its responsiveness to strengthen its position while remaining true to its well-established and genuine family business values.

May/June 2020