A San Francisco-based clothing manufacturing and distribution corporation announced this week that it will pare down its Utah work force by more than 80 percent in late September.
Officials for Fritzi California - which has had a manufacturing and distribution facility, as well as a factory outlet store, in Spanish Fork for more than 12 years - say the facility at 7650 S. Cal Pac Ave. will close its manufacturing operations entirely, effective Sept. 23.Robert J. Pittelli, a local Fritzi official, said the closing will lead to the termination of 130 workers, most of whom live in Spanish Fork.
"It's unfortunate, but the decision was made, basically, from economic pressures," said Pittelli, director of operations for Fritzi in Utah. "It's all about the turn time for manufacturing here. Our orders necessitate that the company should be able to make the garments and have them shipped out a lot more quickly."
The Spanish Fork plant currently relies on its supplies from the company's West Coast distributors, so garment manufacturing is simply taking too long, he said. Different stages of manufacturing, such as cutting fabric to patterns or sewing them, take place in separate facilities.
Because "it takes two days for the supplies to reach Spanish Fork, then a day or more in manufacturing, then two days shipping back to the coast," much of the company's goods spend time in transit rather than in stores or outlets, Pittelli said.
"It's just not an effective way to be running operations, at least not at this time," he said. "It just doesn't fit in with the company's plans right now."
Instead, the company will use its San Francisco plant as its sole manufacturing facility and use contracted help in production stages that are not yet economically feasible in those facilities, he said.
However, the Spanish Fork facility will remain open - with a work force of about 30 - as a distribution center, according to Pit-tel-li.
"Currently, this set of operations is actually serving more of the East Coast than it is the West Coast," he said. Fritzi's San Francisco facilities serve all the company's West Coast outlets, and the Spanish Fork facility will continue to distribute to points east.