Harold Hill describes his company, Glen Raven Technical Fabrics, as a 130+ year old start up. But as Karen Thuermer reports, Glen Raven’s cutting edge manufacturing logistic skills contribute to the company’s abi ity to continuously reinvent itself.By Karen E. Thuermer, AJOTHarold W. Hill, Jr., president of Glen Raven Technical Fabrics, LLC, describes his company as a 130+ year old start up. But for a company that has been around for a long time, it implements modern manufacturing and logistics practices. That’s because corporate representatives recognize that to stay ahead of the competition, Glen Raven must continuously reinvent itself by introducing value added, unique branded products and by creating logistics and transportation systems for efficiency savings. Those practices are no different far afield in locations like China than they are in the United States. To meet these goals, executives there have found they must divest and acquire business and seek opportunities around the globe. Right now, the company has its eye on Brazil. “We are aggressively exploring locations to expand in Brazil,” Hill says. While the company’s primary footprint is the North American market (it is headquartered in Glen Raven, NC), locations around the globe play an important role in its entire profile. That includes Asia, especially China. Innovation Key Since 80 percent of the fabric made by Glen Raven is outsourced, the company has launched a global vision that emphasizes an intensified focus on innovation in close partnership with customers, trade partners and associations. “In today’s global economy, innovation is not only the most important thing; it is the only thing that will assure our success and the continued success of our customer and trade partners,” says Allen E. Gant, Jr., president and CEO of Glen Raven. Today Glen Raven’s best known product, Sunbrella®, is celebrating its 50th anniversary. Sunbrella® is used as an awning fabric and for boating and automobile convertible tops and outdoor furniture. Glen Raven is also a major supplier to the military for uniforms, boots, outerwear, ballistic vests, and camouflage netting. China’s Internal Market Recognizing the enormous market that China offers, that country plays a big role for Glen Raven, a global leader in innovations for performance fabrics and supply chain management. While a China location offers low cost labor and opportunities to outsource weaving for re-export, executives in 2005 decided to open operations there to be closer to its casual manufacturing customers who are moving there and to be a more local source for all Pacific Rim and Asian manufacturing. Up until then, the company had been shipping fabric to China and seeing it come back as umbrellas and awnings. But by placing a factory in China, delivery time to manufacturers in China would be reduced by about six weeks, corporate representatives explain. “As more production is done in China, casual furniture and other manufacturers will look for local sources and we want to be there to provide that local service,” Harry Gobble, former president and general manager of Tri Vantage, the distribution services subsidiary of Glen Raven, Inc., said to Furniture Today magazine. At the time, Steve Ellington, president of Glen Raven Custom Fabrics, revealed the company’s strategy was to have manufacturing in each hemisphere. “We had a presence in North America and South America and in France, which supports the European market,” he says. Executives believed it was time to service its growing outdoor furniture manufacturer/customer base in Asia. “Given China’s expanding market however, we found that China also offered its own substantial internal market that would give Glen Raven the opportunity to develop and grow,” says Hill. Consequently, in 2006 the company opened a wholly owned foreign enterprise in Suzhou in eastern China near Shanghai. Today the Suzhou company, dubbed Glen Raven Asia