Corporate & Business
A 6,000-person uniform rollout across 14 countries
A logistics company needed one uniform standard across 14 markets and three climates, delivered to local depots in a single window.
- 6,000
- Staff outfitted
- 14
- Countries, one standard
- 3 weeks
- Full rollout window
The constraint
Northwind had 14 country teams buying their own uniforms. Colours drifted, fabric quality varied by market, and nobody could say what the programme actually cost.
The brief was to standardise on one specification, ship to 14 destinations, and have every depot switch over inside the same three-week window — so no photograph would ever show two different uniforms.
How we approached it
Climate was the real problem. The same polo cannot serve Norway and Malaysia, so we built two weight tiers on an identical colour and cut standard:
- Temperate kit — Piqué Polo, Crewneck Sweatshirt, Quilted Liner Jacket
- Tropical kit — Performance Polo, Performance Tee
Both tiers were dyed from a single lab-dipped Pantone match in one dye lot per colour, which is what guarantees the shades agree across kits.
Execution
We size-surveyed all 6,000 staff before cutting, packed per depot rather than per country, and labelled each carton with the destination depot and size breakdown.
Results
All 14 markets received stock within the three-week window. Standardising the specification also made the programme legible for the first time — Northwind now has a per-head annual figure they can budget against.
Have a similar problem?
Send us your current setup and target numbers — we'll tell you what we'd change.