Custom Sportswear Manufacturing: Built to Scale From Your Tech Pack

What a Tech Pack Actually Needs to Include

The single document that determines whether your quote, your sample, and your bulk order all match

A tech pack is the technical translation of your design idea into something a pattern maker, a cutter, and a sewing line can execute identically every single time. Vague tech packs are the number one cause of sampling delays — not because factories are slow, but because every missing spec becomes a question that has to travel back to you before work can continue. A complete tech pack for a sportswear style includes:

• Flat sketch or CAD drawing — front and back, with callouts pointing to seams, panels, and trim locations.
• Points of measure (POM) spec sheet — a numbered list of exact measurements (chest width, body length, sleeve length, waistband width, inseam) for your base size, in centimeters and inches.
• Bill of materials (BOM) — fabric composition and GSM (fabric weight), thread type, zipper or drawcord specs, label and hangtag placement.
• Colorway and Pantone references — exact TPX or TCX codes for every color in the design, not just "navy" or "teal."
• Artwork files — vector (.AI or .EPS) for sublimation and screen print, with placement measured from a fixed reference point (e.g., 4cm below the collar seam).
• Grading rule — how each measurement should scale up and down across your size run (see Stage 04).

Fabric and Trim Sourcing

Performance sportswear lives or dies on fabric choice — here's what the common options actually do

Sportswear fabric decisions come down to three questions: how much stretch does the movement require, how much moisture does the activity produce, and what does the decoration method (sublimation, embroidery, screen print) need from the base cloth. Below are the fabric families used across most team and private-label sportswear programs.

Trims matter almost as much as the base fabric: flatlock seam tape for chafe reduction, reflective piping for low-light visibility, laser-cut (rather than sewn) hems for a bonded, seamless finish on compression pieces. If your tech pack doesn't specify a trim, the factory will default to its standard option — worth confirming during quoting rather than discovering at the sample stage.

Fabric selection happens before a single pattern piece is cut — it's the decision every other stage builds on.

Sampling and Fit Approval

The stage where your tech pack meets physical reality — and where revisions are cheapest to make

Sampling exists to catch problems while they're still inexpensive to fix. There are typically two sample types in a standard sportswear program:

Fit review happens against the exact POM spec — every measurement is checked, not eyeballed.

Most programs need two to three rounds before a fit is locked. Each round should produce a specific, written list of changes — "reduce chest width by 1cm at the base size" is actionable; "make it fit better" is not. Once you approve the PP sample, that physical garment (or its verified digital twin) becomes the reference standard the entire bulk order is measured against.

Grading and Pattern Making

Turning one approved size into an accurate size run

Grading is the process of scaling your approved base-size pattern up and down across your full size range (XS–XXL, or a numeric run) using a consistent set of measurement increments — the grading rule. A well-built grading rule keeps proportions consistent: a 3XL jersey shouldn't just be a scaled-up Medium, it needs adjusted sleeve pitch, collar width, and body taper to fit correctly at that size. Sloppy grading is the reason some brands get complaints about specific sizes fitting oddly even when the sample size fits perfectly — the base pattern was fine, but the scaling logic wasn't checked against real body proportions at the extremes of the range.

Cutting and Sewing at Bulk Scale

What actually happens once the fabric arrives on the production floor

Bulk fabric arrives on rolls and is first inspected against the approved swatch for shade consistency — dye lots can vary slightly between batches, and a factory catching that before cutting avoids a two-tone garment later. Layers of fabric (a "lay") are stacked and cut in bulk using either a straight-knife cutter for simple shapes or a computer-controlled cutter for complex, multi-panel designs, following the marker — the digital layout that arranges every pattern piece to minimize fabric waste.

The marker layout determines both cutting accuracy and fabric yield across the whole production run.

Sewing sportswear relies on specific machine types for specific jobs: flatlock machines create the low-profile, chafe-resistant seams used in compression wear and running apparel; four-needle coverstitch machines finish hems and set sleeves with the stretch-recovery needed for athletic movement; and bonded or laser-cut seaming skips stitching altogether on select compression styles for a fully smooth interior. Each panel — front, back, sleeves, side panels, waistband — is sewn by a dedicated operator or work cell, which is why consistent panel-cutting accuracy at the previous step matters so much: a cutting error doesn't get "fixed" at the sewing station, it gets sewn in.

Decoration: Sublimation, Screen Print, and Embroidery

Matching the decoration method to the design — and understanding what each one actually allows

Sublimation has become the default for team sportswear specifically because it prints before the garment is cut — the design is transferred onto flat fabric, then that fabric is cut and sewn, so the print sits inside the weave rather than on top of it. That's why sublimated jerseys don't crack, peel, or fade the way a printed cotton tee eventually does.

Quality Control Before a Single Unit Ships

The inspection standard that determines whether a batch passes or fails

Most sportswear manufacturing programs use AQL (Acceptable Quality Limit) inspection — a statistical sampling method where inspectors pull a defined number of units from the batch based on total order size, rather than checking every single piece. AQL 2.5 is the common standard for apparel: it defines the maximum number of defective units allowed in the sample pull before the entire batch is flagged for rework or rejection.

• Measurement check — a sample of finished garments is measured against the approved spec sheet, with defined tolerance (usually ±1cm on major measurements).
• Colorfastness — checked against rubbing (dry and wet crocking) and washing, typically rated on a 1–5 grey-scale standard, with 4+ considered passing for activewear.
• Seam and stitch integrity — pull-tested at stress points (crotch seams, underarm seams, shoulder seams) to confirm they hold under athletic movement, not just static wear.
• Print/embroidery adhesion — sublimated prints are checked for bleed and registration accuracy; embroidery is checked for thread tension and puckering.
• Labeling accuracy — size labels, care labels, and country-of-origin labels are verified against the order, garment by garment on a sample basis.

AQL inspection happens before packing — a failed batch gets reworked before it ever reaches a shipping carton.

Packing, Shipping, and Scaling Future Reorders

What happens after QC passes — and why your second order is faster than your first

Passed units are folded and individually poly-bagged with hangtags and barcode labels attached per your specification, then packed into export cartons organized by size run and colorway for easy retail sorting on arrival. Standard shipping terms are FOB (you arrange freight from the factory's port) or DDP (the factory handles freight and duties to your door) — DDP costs more per unit but removes the logistics coordination from your side, which matters more for first-time importers than for teams with an existing freight forwarder.

This is the actual advantage of getting the tech pack right the first time: everything downstream of approval becomes reusable. A reorder — even a different colorway on the same pattern — moves almost straight to fabric sourcing and cutting, cutting weeks off the timeline compared to a brand-new style. Most manufacturing relationships get meaningfully faster and cheaper per unit from the second order onward simply because so much of the technical groundwork never needs to be redone.