06/09/2020 The 5 Most Damaging Tech Pack Mistakes — TECHPACKS.

CO

5 Most Damaging Tech Pack

Mistakes
T I M E TO R E A D : 8 M I N U T E S

I’ve seen lots of tech packs over

the years, some more detailed than
others. I often get clients who
already have tech packs - but
haven’t been getting great results
from them! Here are the details
that are missing, time and time
again.

A tech pack has to include ALL the

details that are relevant to your
product, not just most. Most isn’t
good enough! If you want to get
quality samples made and you
don’t want any surprises in
production... you’ll need your tech
pack to be thorough and accurate.

1. CONSTRUCTION

This is huge and something I see

often. You *have to* include
construction information in your
tech pack. Unless you’d prefer the
factory to guess how you want the
design constructed?

Every join in your product/design

has to be constructed somehow.

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What stitch is suitable and which

seam type would be the best?
You’ll need to specify! Stitch
widths, stitches per inch and seam
allowances are also important
here.

Go through your design and write

down the construction for each
join/seam in your design. Lay out
all the info in a clear and easy to
read table.

Don’t forget to add visuals.

Diagrams are the lifeblood of a
tech pack, they can’t get lost in
translation. Number or letter each
row in your construction table.
Then create a diagram with your
flat sketch in the center. Use
labeled arrows to show where each
number/letter designation is on
your sketch.

An example construction page

2. SPECS

This is the most important section

in the tech pack. The #1 reason
why people buy or don’t (ok, after
the styling) is the fit. The
measurements in the tech pack
have to be correct if you want your
product to fit, it’s basic stuff!

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Start by creating a table. 1st

column is for a number/letter
designation. 2nd column is for the
description of the measurement
(aka point of measurement or
POM). Next columns should be
headed with each of the sizes in
your size range.

Now you have a size chart you can

fill in. If you want to just work on
getting your fit sample right first...
you can fill in the measurements
for your sample size only and leave
the other sizes blank for now.

An example spec page

3. TOLERANCES

The size chart you’ve just created

brings me neatly into my next
point… Tolerances. The
manufacturing of clothing is done
by humans. Humans using manual
machinery. Until robots take over
the world, we have to accept a little
margin of error on our products.

Leaving this small margin of error

undefined = small margin
becoming an infinitely large
margin... depending on how badly
wrong the product turns out. Not a
situation you want to be in!

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So it's SUPER important that each

measurement in your specs (each
POM) has it’s own tolerance. So
the last column in your tech pack
should be called “tolerance”. For
each POM you would specify in
Inches or CM accepted tolerance.
Eg: 1/2” or 0.5cm.

The tolerance allowed depends on

the length of the measurement in
the spec. So a longer
measurement would have a bigger
tolerance. A shorter measurement
would have a smaller tolerance.

Don’t forget your tolerances

people! Your factory won’t be able
to produce a quality production run
if you don’t have these. See the
example spec page above for a
visual.

4. POINT OF
MEASUREMENT
DIAGRAMS

A visual representation of your

measurements is ideal. Again,
don’t let things get lost in
translation, draw it out so it can be
understood by anyone.

Start with your flat sketch. If you’re

using a vector drawing program
create a 2nd layer called POM.
Now add an arrow on top of the flat
sketch for each POM. Each arrow
should be labeled. Use the
number/letter designation from the
first column in your size chart.

It’s really important to keep the

drawing accurate and to scale.
What do I mean by ‘to scale’? If
someone who doesn’t speak
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English is looking at your digram...

can they look at the sketch and see
exactly what measurement goes
where? Can they *see* the
measurement without reading the
POM description?

Don’t fall into the trap of quickly

creating a diagram that isn’t
accurate. Imagine somebody in a
factory looking at your
measurement description & then
your digram. If they don’t match up,
you’ll be causing confusion,
wasting the factory's time and
delaying your order.

An example POM digram

5. TRACKING CHANGES &

SAMPLES

When receiving a sample back

from a factory you’re going to want
to check it against the tech pack.
Never just assume it’s been made
as specified in the tech pack, that’s
just lazy! You’ll need to check that
the measurements are all within
tolerance. Go through the other
pages in the tech pack and check
your samples against each one.

Now this is where a comments

form comes in. This can be added
to last page of your tech pack and
tracks the latest sample you’ve

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received from your factory. Each

new sample gets a new page in the
tech pack, keeping things
organized and crystal clear.

You are likely to want to track

changes, and develop your
sample/design too. It’s standard
industry practice to make tweaks to
the measurements, once you have
a first sample back. Once you’ve
established which measurements
are/are not within tolerance... you
can re-asses the specs. If you try
the sample on/test it in real life you
may want perfect a couple of
measurement here.

If you’re interested in learning

more, I’ve written in an depth post
on how to use a comments form
here.

An example comments form

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