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What does quality mean to us?
We simply cannot “do without it”.

There are no two ways about it: quality is our core value, just as it has been from the very beginning: We have never aimed at a maximum degree of mass production. Quality has been a particularly vital part of our company’s DNA from the outset.
Anyone trying to define our brand quality as a pricing factor should remember the following: Decades of experience with hundreds of examples show the enormous difficulty of copying the look of a brand (like ours), while it appears absolutely impossible to match the quality.

Quality & Steiff Schulte: a good fit.

What does quality mean to us? It means everything. Where does it become tangible? First and foremost, of course, in the products that are, after all, known for this around the world: fabrics of tangibly, palpably, and visibly high quality, with charisma and long service lives.

All of this is based on production quality. We use reliable machinery and our equally comprehensive and tried-and-tested QMS (quality management system) with material and manufacturing controls alike on all steps of production, from the first thread to delivery.

Speaking of delivery: Our service, including documentation and information, constant availability of a contact for our customers, and after-sales service that does not stop at handover of the goods, contributes to rounding off the quality experience offered by Steiff Schulte. Quality is an all-encompassing factor for us and producing excellent products before carelessly “throwing them on the market” is not what quality means to us.

How we ensure quality:

First of all: We are, of course, ISO 9001 certified, and have been since 2011. Everything about our company and our goals can, therefore, be found in the corresponding quality management manual, including the legal requirements we are subject to, the standards we set for ourselves, and the specifications of our customers … up to and including our special relationship with Margarete Steiff GmbH in Giengen.

This is exactly what every single one of our employees practices on a daily basis. Of course, all of this is trackable and verifiable since quality control happens after every production step. Take a tour of the production with us and experience it for yourself!

Inbound goods inspection

Let us start our tour in our inbound goods inspection, where yarns delivered from around the world are inspected for colour and texture. The greater part of this yarn will be taken to the yarn store from here since we work in a foresighted manner, making sure to store enough to handle our long and complex supply chains.

Warping

The yarns currently required, on the other hand, are brought to sectional warping, where a weaving beam weighing up to approx. 400 kg is put together from many small yarn bobbins, to be later tied into a loom. Up to 6,000 threads running side by side, each of them 1,700 m long … of course, this work requires the utmost precision.

Weaving mill

A specialist worker will tie these up to 6,000 threads to the loom’s beam with extreme dexterity. We have reached the actual weaving mill already now. It usually is very noisy here. Our looms can handle up to 200 different weaving variations in production based on the double pile principle that is often used to produce, among other things, velvet.

Pre-treatment

We are now left with a raw pile fabric that must be pre-treated by washing, bleaching and/or steaming, depending on shade and article.

Dyeing

The dyeing works is standing ready thereafter to dye the raw woven furs in different “batch sizes” on a number of reel dyeing machines. What colour? Take your pick: We have about 6,000 colour recipes at our fingertips and keep on adding new ones all the time. A small sample reel helps us reduce development time here. Speaking of saving: Our innovative reel control system enormously reduces both water and energy consumption …

Finishing

The dyed fabric now reaches the finishing department with a number of individual pile-raising machine types that “open” the dyed fabrics with many small or tiny needles. This is how the famous cuddly feeling comes to be. The surface is then levelled and shaved smooth with rotating knives and cleaned. The stenter frame is used for preservation and drying. Swirl, crumple, and ratiné machines are one-of-a-kind machines developed in-house to achieve individual surface effects based on our special mohair and alpaca expertise. Finally, ironing machines add shine and softness to the woven furs.

Goods inspection

The final goods inspection verifies colour, feel, and surface design after many intermediate inspections. What does it feel like? What does it look like? Is everything as it should be? Finally, the goods move on to the – also ISO-certified – shipping department, carried on rolls, frames, or panels, just as the customer requires, the transport route dictates, or sensitivity of the fabric desires.

Combining all of the above steps makes us what our industry calls a fully integrated textile company – unadulterated, in a manner of speaking.