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Director of Production and Development Design 

Engineering & Production

Hands-on, versatile leader with design, pre-production, and production experience for comprehensive list of apparel categories, including Women’s, Loungewear, Lingerie, Swimwear, and Jeans. Establishes clear, effective procedures that drive revenue and brand awareness while producing high-quality results. Builds relationships with international factories, vendors, in-house teams, merchandisers, and clients to support cooperation, collaboration, and innovation. 

•	Hired as Production Manager and quickly increased leadership duties; officially promoted 1/2021. Lead all aspects of production, quality control, and technical components of design process.  
•	Develop yearly production calendar; collaborate with CEO, Operations, and Sales to establish budgets.
•	Review collection inspirations with Creative Director and Associate Designer, identifying production needs based on upcoming designs; negotiate final costing for bi-monthly seasons.
•	Ensure design standards are upheld by managing Technical Design team and attending prototype fittings. 
•	Identify, source, and manage contracts with vendors, expanding collections by working with vendor with diverse skills while ensuring all parties meet deadlines and deliver high-quality products. 
•	Build relationships with factory managers and travel to domestics & international sites as needed; assess compliance throughout manufacturing process.
•	Coordinate with Photo Design team regarding samples for photoshoots and web flat layouts.
•	Provide product insights and selling features with merchandisers/customers via weekly webinars, continually driving sales while gather Voice of Customer perspective. 
Select Achievements 
•	Established Production and Design departments, formalizing operations to improve quality, product diversity, and delivery. Created production calendar and processes from scratch.
•	Identified, hired, and onboarded three vendors with different skillsets to support category/product expansion goals; diversified production locations to include Mexico and Central America. Traveled ~30% each year, pre-pandemic. 
•	Implemented new categories, including Women’s, Boys, Baby, Knitwear, and Swimwear, to increase offerings.
•	Hired team of in-house graphic designers, technical designers, and designer associate to improve quality of print collections and support daily operations. 
•	Improved on-time deliveries from 50% to 100% after establishing production calendar and building relationships with vendors. Drove increase of wholesale buyers from 1K to 2.6K.
•	Led operations to accumulate inventory, thereby enabling opportunity for company to create website for B2C, retail purchases.
•	Served role in doubling sales in three years; ensured production stayed on schedule to meet sales demand.	 
•	Collaborated with Finance to establish cashflow budget and to define clear revenue goals. 


•	Hired to establish production operations, including factory selection, product development, pre-production, quality assurance, sourcing, and logistics, before initial launch. Reported to VP of Production. 
•	Traveled to China, Mexico, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka for 50%+ of tenure to manage factory setup; created operations, action calendar, and compliance/QA processes that accounted for specialized lingerie brand.  
•	Involved in product development and sourcing, identifying materials and manufacturing techniques. 
•	Communicated with e-commerce team to ensure content and photos were properly activated on website. 

Select Achievements
•	Served on leadership team to launch line on time; led production to keep up with high demand after inventory sold out within one month. Supported continued company growth, including $558M revenue generation in first full year of operations. 
•	Successfully identified optimal material and product techniques to support inclusive line with designs constructed for all sizes. 
•	Spearheaded production in preparation for NY Fashion Week’s first fully inclusive large-scale fashion show and brand’s first fashion show appearance. 



Sr. Production and Development Manager

•	Accepted responsibilities of SVP of Production & Sourcing after leadership eliminated SVP role. Led 13 employees who supervised Factories, Warehousing, Regional Production Operations, and Quality Control.  
•	Oversaw entire production process, including design review, cost assessment, pre-production, fabric inventory, sourcing, sample assessment, fitting process, factory coordination, and delivery logistics. 
•	Led import production, from pre-production through delivery; tracked progress and quality while working with factories in Mexico, Domestic, and China on status of development, fit, and pre-production samples. 
Select Achievements
•	Improved on-time delivery to 95% (from 30-40%). 
•	Successfully led large team after company acquisition and leadership changes. 
o	Worked closely with two Sales teams focused on different levels of retail clients and brands. 
o	Managed regional factories; established calendars and trained on compliance/QA. 
o	Managed entire team’s migration to new computer system, including all reporting material.

Production Manager, Denim and Sportswear Division – Domestic, Mexico, and Imports

• Work with design director to help manage pattern room to establish correct production pattern procedures. Follow up daily with pattern room to ensure correct pattern blocks are used and production patterns are done in a timely manner.
• Attend weekly fittings to ensure proper fits are maintained in production. Track and manage all production approval samples in fitting to ensure approved by design director.
 •Allocate new style requests to production patternmakers. Provide all necessary fabric, style information to patternmaker.
•Communicate with all new accounts to setup correct pre-production requirements such as correct fit blocks, sample requirements, proper sample labeling, etc. I have worked with 
and am very knowledgeable with all pre-production/production requirements for Bebe, The Avenue, Destination Maternity, Deb 
Shops, Dress Barn, Sears/Bongo, Wal-Mart, Rue 21, HSN, TJ MAXX, Costco, Ross Stores, Neiman Marcus, Nordstroms, Saks Fifth off, Kenneth Cole, JCP, and Torrid. 
• Production Sourcing – responsible for sourcing piece goods, trims, appropriate contractors for price driven product. 
 • Setup and created production procedures for domestic  production for new launch of premium contemporary division. 
• Sourced domestic premium contractors for sewing, laundry, and finishing. 
• Work with COO and sales on all new orders. Review piece goods availability, patterns, tech packs, trims and setup deliveries. Communicate with all pre-production/production depts. to ensure new deliveries are met. 
• Supervise premium production office, trim dept and Quality Control. Manage daily meetings with each dept to handle any production issues that may arise. 
•Coordinate production for premium imports. Communicate daily with 2-3 factories in Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Wuxi on all production issues that may arise. 
•Attend import production fittings. Communicate back to factories production corrections and fit notes. 
•Supervise and track approvals of all import fit samples, trim and wash approvals. 
• Manage weekly meetings with COO and pre-production/production team to update and report on all production related issues.  
• Maintain detailed time and action calendar for all departments.
• Work closely with CEO and sales on new season lines to ensure piece goods position on all new styles. 
• Purchase all piece goods for import and domestic production. 
• Maintain piece goods inventory for domestic and import production.  
• Create and update all Preliminary and Actualized Cost Sheets for premium division for import and domestic production. 
• Coordinate all new account setup requests. Manage the execution of all new potential account sample requests to ensure produced correctly and sent out on time. 
• Currently coordinating the launch of new Men’s division. Sampling pre-production samples for Nordstrom’s Rail division, Zumiez, Ross Stores.

Production Manager Import and Domestic Premium Brands

• Purchase piece goods for all domestic and import production. Allocate and distribute piece goods to full package contractors.
• Purchase trims for all domestic and import production. 
• Supervise trim puller to ensure trims distributed to each contractor on time for production. 
• Maintain trim and piece goods inventory. Report monthly to Production Manager.
• Work with design on all new trim developments.
• Coordinate all trim and piece goods needed for each line season. 
•Coordinate production for Women’s and Mens sportswear imports in China. Track and Maintain WIP reports and report production related issues to Production Manager. 
 • Attend weekly fittings and distribute notes and corrections to each import factory.
• Coordinate Import/Domestic production of sportswear top blanks for Men’s, Women’s and Kids. Manage production logistics for allocating embroidery, garment dye, screen print and finishing domestically.

Production Coordinator Assistant

• Track and coordinate pre-production including fabric delivery, patterns, marking and grading, trims, sew by samples, wash standards, and tech packs to ensure all are on schedule to maintain timely deliveries. 
• Issue cutting tickets, marking and grading requests, and sewing assignment sheets.  
• Manage weekly meetings with Operations manager and pre-production/production team to update and report on all production related issues.  
• Maintain detailed time and action calendar for all departments and update VP of production and sales on all issues.   
• Maintain WIP reports, piece goods inventory report for VP of production.
• Re-located to Yuma, AZ to manage pre-production ,cutting, piece goods, and trim dept offices for Exportex S.A de C.V (company owned), a vertical garment manufacturing facility. Cutting 400,000 units per week, sewing 140,000 units internally per week, wash and finish up to 500,000 units per week.
• Attend daily video conference meetings and report back to main Vernon, CA office of any production related issues directly to VP of Production.  
• Manage sample dept. to coordinate all pre-production and TOP sample requests and distribute direct to appropriate customers. 	
• Update and actualize cost sheets in computer system. Report any costing issues to VP of Production.

Production Coordinator –Assistant to VP of Production

Michelle Paz is a Director of Production and Development Design at DotDotSmile Collection Clothing in corona, CA.

Michelle Paz

Michelle Paz

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FIDM

Mount St. Mary's