In 1993, the company implemented Japanese-style production techniques in its sewing plants, breaking apart routinized assembly and giving individual workers more responsibility.

A worker in the sewing plant may leave at the end of the day to attend a worship dance in the tribal longhouse.

Last year, they applied separately for jobs at a sewing plant.

By closing two domestic sewing plants, moving much production overseas, increasing reliance on subcontractors and cutting inventory through more precise shipping systems, it has trimmed expenses.

Later the idea spread to the sewing plants of the Southeast.

Cotler bought a sewing plant that had closed the previous Christmas season, putting about 120 people out of work; Cotler rehired many of them.

By 1990 the company owned and operated 13 sewing plants outside of Alexander City and employed 15,000 workers.

Levi Strauss & Company said today that it will close one of three sewing plants in San Antonio in April and lay off 1,100 workers.

Most would deliver cut goods to sewing plants many times a week; however, when cutting is done hundreds of miles from the sewing plants, weekly deliveries are the norm.

As work progresses through a typical sewing plant, it is also common for a special order to disrupt the flow.