035. Manufactured x GIZ FABRIC: Anne Patricia Sutanto on Pan Brothers Tbk & Apparel Production in Indonesia

Pan Brothers is a apparel manufacturing company based in Indonesia, and their story is pretty remarkable. When Anne started working for the company back in 1997 they had 2000 workers. Fast forward to the present and Pan Brothers employs over 35,000 workers. [...]
30 Mar 2021
00:28:46
Manufactured
Manufactured
035. Manufactured x GIZ FABRIC: Anne Patricia Sutanto on Pan Brothers Tbk & Apparel Production in Indonesia
/

This is part one of our conversation with Anne Patricia Sutanto, Vice President of PT Pan Brothers Tbk. Pan Brothers is a manufacturing company based in Indonesia, and their story is pretty remarkable. When Anne started working for the company back in 1997 they had 2000 workers. Fast forward to the present and Pan Brothers employs over 35,000 workers. The primarily do cut and sew, though they also have fabric mills and beyond… even direct-to-consumer retail. But we’ll let Anne tell you more about that.

We start this episode by getting into Anne’s journey to Pan Brothers. How did she end leading an apparel manufacturing company? She also goes into a bit more detail about Pan Brothers: what kind of products do they make? Which production processes are they doing? How do they approach the direct to consumer part of their business? We close the episode with Anne’s thoughts on Indonesia: what does she perceive to be its strengths relative to other garment production countries?

We finish with a pretty big question: Pan Brothers has climbed the value chain, so to speak, and has been very proactive in terms of moving into more technical products that leverage Indonesia’s skilled workforce. But is this what’s positioned Pan Brothers to pick and choose its customers?

Want to dig deeper ?

The FABRIC project is commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and supports the Asian textile industry in its transformation towards fair production for people and the environment.

We also want to highlight that GIZ Fabric has a great online seminar series called “Getting Through the Crisis Together: Asian Dialogues on Sustainability in the Textile and Garment Industry.” Anne was a speaker on the ninth seminar within this series. All the seminars are free and available online, and we highly recommend checking them out.

Find out more about Pan Brothers Tbk.

Anne Patricia Sutanto on how to communicate with thousands of workers.

Anne Patricia Sutanto on securing Covid vaccines for her team.

Jessie Li

Photo provided by Pan Brothers Tbk

Recent Episodes

92. How it’s made: On Cotton with Rajeev Baruah

92. How it’s made: On Cotton with Rajeev Baruah

25 Jul 2023

On this episode we’re taking a look at cotton value chains in the Indian context with Rajeev Baruah, who has worked in cotton for decades. Though his background is originally in agriculture and tea, his cotton journey started with a spinning facility back in the 90s on a mission to work with organic cotton farmers – something that, at the time, was unheard of. In the years since, he’s gone on to work in a number of different roles with different stakeholders across the value chain. Rajeev gives Kim an in-depth look at the steps that go into growing, harvesting, ginning, and spinning cotton, who the commercial actors are, and what their incentives might be within the Indian context.

read more
91. How it’s made: On Garment Finishing with Rita Castro & Dionísia Portela

91. How it’s made: On Garment Finishing with Rita Castro & Dionísia Portela

11 Jul 2023

On this episode we’re exploring one of the final stages of production in apparel manufacturing with Rita Castro & Dionísia Portela from Confetil, a Portuguese garment manufacturer that has been supplying brands all over the world since 1960. Dionísia is Sustainability Manager and Rita is Sales and Commercial Manager for four of Confetil’s customers. They tell us more about the processes that give our clothes the final look and feel that brands aim for, from solid T-shirts to those with graphic patterns or vintage looks, different types of dyes and dyeing processes, and the sustainability of these finishing processes.

read more
90. How it’s made: On Silk with Hilmond Hui

90. How it’s made: On Silk with Hilmond Hui

27 Jun 2023

To understand the process, benefits and barriers within regenerative sericulture, we go back to Kim’s conversation from November 2021 with Hilmond Hui, Vice President of international clothing enterprise PFG and its subset Bombyx. Hilmond tells us more about Bombyx, which was formed in 2018 with a focus on regenerative silk production and transforming the way silk is produced, traded and consumed. Their Nanchong Ka Fung (NCKF) facility is located in the northeast of China’s Sichuan province, and they’re on a mission to do everything from dirt to fabric and beyond.

read more