Hartmann Luggage

I has been 18 years since I last step foot inside the manufacturing facility in Lebanon, Tennessee. But, I believe I could still draw the layout of the building as it existed in 1989!

I found out today that Hartmann is closing down the production floor. No more Outline Line, Box Shop, Components, AB Line, 08, 03, 04, Linings, Leather Cutting...

Article from the Tennessan:

Hartmann Inc. is closing its luggage factory in Lebanon after 51 years, saying the plant is too expensive to keep open.

The company, which was acquired earlier this year by a New York-based private equity firm, said on Friday it would dismiss 90 people — more than half its local work force — and shutter the facility in late November.

Hartmann said it would outsource the work to companies in the Caribbean, Central America and China.

Hartmann's other local operations, including its corporate offices, customer service and the company's outlet store, will remain open. Those divisions employ about 75 people, said Ronald Roberts, an outside spokesman who represents the firm.

No Hartmann officials were available Friday to discuss the decision, Roberts said. A receptionist at Clarion Capital Partners LLC, the New York firm that bought Hartmann from Louisville, Ky.-based Brown-Forman Corp. in April, said the company's top executives were on vacation.

The closing will halt a production operation in Lebanon that has been turning out high-end luggage since Hartmann moved from Milwaukee in 1956.

The facility had remained open even after Hartmann began acquiring most of its raw materials from overseas, stitching together bags for sale domestically.

Outsourcing to foreign firms is not unusual in the luggage industry, and Hartmann has been making some of its products abroad for several years, Roberts said.

Hartmann, in business since 1877, has positioned itself as a premium brand. For example, a 50-inch garment bag, with Jacquard fabric and leather trim, sells on the company's Web site for $1,095.

But Susan Cavender, manager of Nashville Trunk & Bag Co., said the number of defective products from the manufacturer has increased in recent years.

Since the company began outsourcing the work to overseas manufacturers several years ago, the number of bags with broken handles and missing wheels has soared, she said.

"I have a lot of folks who are dyed-in-the-wool Hartmann customers, and they're saying, 'I would never buy another piece of Hartmann luggage,' " she said.

Roberts, the company spokesman, denied that the quality of the company's luggage has declined in recent years, and others in the industry said Hartmann remains a premium brand.
"We really haven't had a problem or anything," said Steven Van Kuren, manager of Mori Luggage and Gifts in Cool Springs.

Felicia Libbin, a spokeswoman for the National Luggage Dealers Association, said luggage makers have to keep a close watch on overseas manufacturers if they want to maintain quality after outsourcing.

"The best companies have offices overseas and designers overseas," she said.
Hartmann has no offices overseas, but it has worked with the same production facilities for years and is confident they understand the company's high standards, Roberts said.

Hartmann's decision to close its Lebanon plant was made by company officials this summer as it became increasingly apparent that the firm needed to shift operations abroad to compete with other brands that had already done so, Roberts said.

Another factor was the fact that most of the zippers, nylon and other materials that the company needs to produce its bags were already being made overseas.

One of the company's last major domestic suppliers, Quaker Fabric Corp. of Fall River, Mass., which had supplied the fabric for the company's well-known Walnut Tweed line, shut down and declared bankruptcy over the summer.

Workers at the factory will receive severance pay based on their years of service. Roberts declined to provide details of the package and said he did not know how much money the company would save by moving production abroad.

The loss of 90 jobs will be a blow to the economy in Wilson County, said G.C. Hixson, director of the Joint Economic & Community Development Board.

He hoped at least some of the workers in the Hartmann plant could find work at Tacle Seating U.S.A.'s new facility in Mt. Juliet, which supplies seats to Nissan North America's plant in Smyrna.


Wow, only 90 production employees? I remember a time when there was over 450.

Somehow that sounds all too familiar!!!