About 20 years ago, Frank Teixeira all but dismissed the future of manufacturing in Fall River. The rise of cheap labor overseas and the shifting tastes of American consumers threatened the very fabric of the industry, including the garment manufacturer started by Teixeira’s father. Although that company, Whittenton Garment Co., did close, in its place the younger Teixeira built Accurate Services Inc. in the same location, drawing on the same employees and utilizing the same expertise.
And, much to his surprise, Teixeira has found himself once more in the manufacturing business. The company’s lifeblood is stitching together small cloth items that hold premature infants in intensive care units. On the side, Accurate Services inspects, alters and warehouses hundreds of clothing pieces for retailers, and it acts as a distributor of business-management software geared at the apparel industry.
“I’d love to tell you it was a grand plan but it wasn’t,” Teixeira said.
The winding path that led to the business started in 1954 when his father, Francisco Teixeira, purchased a bankrupt Taunton garment manufacturer. The elder Teixeira turned the business around and, by the 1960s, Whittenton’s more than 300 employees produced hundreds of uniforms a day along with professional-career clothing.
The younger Teixeira joined his father straight out of college in 1966 and bought out his father’s business partner. The father-son team consolidated their four plants – one in Taunton and three in Fall River – in the late 1970s at one location at the Laurel Lake Mills building on Broadway.
Built as a cotton mill, the imposing stone structure provided plenty of room for the business. But it did not provide escape from the impending shift in manufacturing overseas and the changes in the apparel market. In the 1980s, the younger Teixeira saw cheap labor overseas as threat. The movement away from nurse uniforms to cheaper and easier-to-manufacture scrubs also ate into the business.
So Teixeira started sniffing around for new opportunities. He already had an extensive warehouse and soon started courting customers that needed somewhere to keep their goods between arrival in the United States and their stores. The company started relying on those services more and more.
In 1999, Teixeira’s daughter, Suzanne Teixeira, joined the company. The former UPS information technology manager spearheaded the company’s foray into offering software services and took on management of the warehousing and distribution operations.
On a recent visit, hundreds of sport-coat jackets hung neatly from rows and rows of metal rods. Packaged women’s clothing lined plastic shoveling. A system of overhead metal rods allows workers to hang the items or boxes of items and push them around the floor, down a level and straight into waiting trucks.
But this is not as simple as moving boxes. When products arrive employees inspect them for quality, add tags for specific brands and repair broken buttons, zippers, etc. When they package them for stores, they must follow specific packing instructions down to the way employees tape the boxes. Incorrectly packaged boxes translate to fines or, worse, a loss of a contract.
“You’ve got to pay attention to the details,” Suzanne Teixeira said.
She is also president of a sister company, BackAtcha Apparel, which she, her father and some Accurate Services colleagues formed to purchase a British company that developed reflective clothing material. BackAtcha adds the material to fashionable clothing appropriate for a roadside mechanic and a trip to the local coffee shop.
“It’s so difficult to be in the apparel industry in the United States today and this gives us a technological edge,” Teixeira said.
Accurate Services taps technology to design patterns for new items and offers its design services to clothing designers.
But more than technology, the Teixeiras attribute their success to a hardworking, dedicated team of 40 employees. Many have been with the company for more than three decades.
“The people involved are great people,” Frank Teixeira said. “It’s a great place to get up and go to work.” •
COMPANY PROFILE
ACCURATE SERVICES INC.
OWNERS: Frank Teixeira and Suzanne Teixeira
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Manufacturer of infant products, warehouse and distribution service
LOCATION: 951 Broadway, Fall River
EMPLOYEES: 40
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 1989
ANNUAL SALES: WND
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