Upgrading a brand's capacity in leather goods production

Client: A retail operation showcasing authentic Kenyan craft

Services: Capacity assessment, Training, Design, Sourcing, Content-creation

Project

As part of a larger project, a client asked our help with increasing their quality of production and capacity to broaden their product line of leather goods. While the client had experience in leather craft, they wanted to deepen in-house specialization in leather, to expand internal production and their range of leather products.

Methodology

We pride ourselves in having experts on our team with a broad range of skills and talents, including materials and craft production. For this project, we were also able to pull from our experience in sourcing and capacity-building. Building and implementing the path to a successful outcome required us to have a thorough understanding of the level the client was currently producing at and where they wanted to go. Although leveraging internal resources is imperative for such a project, we also worked as an extension of the client by ensuring full-coverage support for the implementation.

Implementation

Step 1:

Needs Analysis - Gathered information to understand where the gaps were, between the actual situation and the goal, including evaluating products/goods to be produced and existing production methods.

Step 2:

Sourcing - During the sourcing and procurement phase, we worked in conjunction with our leather experts and directly with the client’s internal team to design for their specific needs in tools and other leatherworking infrastructure. We designed and had a leather-working table built on-site at the client’s facility, saving on shipping costs to a remote area.

Step 3:

Capacity building - Miles beyond a “warm hand-off” between us and the client, Crafting Kenya helped artisans ramp up skills with new tools and gave training on the specific needs of working with leather to produce valuable hand-crafted goods that will be sold to discerning customers coming from around the world.

Step 4:

Content-creation - We created training content in the form of manuals and videos, for the client’s teams’ ongoing self-study and capacity-building.