How Long Do Bulk Corporate Uniforms Take to Make?
By The Velocity Wear Team
Bulk corporate uniforms take 10 to 15 working days to produce, counted from the moment artwork is approved, with delivery transit added afterwards. The stages before approval — proofing, sizing and sign-off — are not inside that window, and they are where almost every late order actually loses its time.
What does the 10 to 15 day clock actually cover?
It covers the physical work: preparing screens or stitch files, cutting and making the garments, decorating them, then finishing, checking and packing. Working days means working days, so a fortnight of production spans closer to three weeks on a calendar once weekends are counted, and any public holiday in the window pushes it further.
The range exists because decoration varies. A single-position stitched mark moves faster through the schedule than a multi-colour print in three positions with private label finishing. Ask which end of the range your specification sits at when the quote is issued, rather than assuming the middle.
What starts the countdown?
Artwork approval, and nothing before it. Not the enquiry, not the quote, not the deposit. Until the proof is signed off, nothing is being cut or decorated, which is why a buyer who takes eight days to circulate a proof internally has added eight days to their own delivery date without anyone else changing anything.
Where do orders usually lose days?
Four places, in roughly descending order of frequency. Sizes arrive incomplete, so the order cannot be confirmed. Artwork comes in a format that needs rebuilding before it can be proofed. The proof sits in an inbox waiting for someone senior. Or a change lands after approval, which resets the production clock for that design because the setup is already made.
- Collect sizes with one form and one closing date before you request the proof.
- Send vector artwork, or the highest resolution file you hold, rather than a screenshot.
- Name one approver in advance and tell them the date their answer is needed.
- Lock the design before approval, because changes afterwards restart that run.
How far ahead should you book a launch date?
Take your launch date and count backwards: delivery transit first, then 15 working days of production, then a week for proofing and approval, then however long size collection realistically takes in your organisation. For most buyers that lands between five and seven weeks. Booking on the production figure alone is the standard mistake.
If the date is fixed and tight, a £150 sample taken early is the best insurance available, and the fee is credited against the bulk order anyway. It removes the fit and colour questions that would otherwise surface during the approval round. What a sample settles is covered in sampling uniforms before a bulk order, and the broader manufacturing picture is in apparel production lead times explained. Specifications and tiers are listed on the uniforms range and the pricing page.
Working days are worth spelling out for anyone who has not bought production before, because the conversion catches people every time. Ten to fifteen working days spans two to three calendar weeks once weekends come out, and a public holiday inside the window adds another. A buyer who converts the figure into calendar weeks at the start of the process ends up with a realistic date. One who counts fifteen squares on a wall calendar is going to be roughly a week disappointed.
There is also the question of what you tell your own team. Announce a date once goods have dispatched rather than when the order is placed, because the only date you fully control is the one you have not promised yet. Managers who publish an arrival date at the enquiry stage spend the following month fielding questions about it, and any slippage anywhere in the chain becomes theirs to explain. Quiet progress and one confident announcement beats a running commentary on a date that was always an estimate.
