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Case StudyLondon 2012 Olympics Custom & Bespoke Uniform Design & Branding

Project Summary• The Brief - Visible, empowering, tailored, bright, ethically

sourced and environmentally friendly uniforms that were suitable for all duties and weather conditions to stringent brand guidelines.

• The Garments: Bespoke designed polo shirts, fleeces, waterproof jackets, trousers, a skirt, baseball caps, trilbies, back-packs and water bottles, all with intricate detailing.

• Design: Designed and developed in house.

• Special Supply Requirements: Delivery of wearer packs to various UK addresses within a tight time frame as well as continuous supply replenishment.

• Quantity Supplied: 8,000 bespoke uniforms to the London Ambassadors and an additional 5,000 to Ambassadors across 12 councils with varying logo application requirements.

• Timescale: 10-months.

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A First Place Partnership for Olympic Games Requirements: Bright and SustainableThe London 2012 Olympics was an event the country will proudly remember. With Team GB ranking third in the medal table and the country coming together to support athletes from all around the world, the 2012 Games will resonate for many years to come.

To help ensure the 2012 Games were the most successful to date, the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) managed every aspect of the event, including thousands of nationwide volunteers, known as Ambassadors. Managing these volunteers was a mammoth task and included the logistics of organising an extremely large group of people, as well as ensuring every Ambassador felt empowered and engaged by their roles within the London 2012 Olympic Games. In order to do this and to ensure visitors to the main venues across London could visibly identify volunteers, LOCOG wanted to create bespoke uniforms for the Ambassadors.

In order to carry out this task, LOCOG required a partner that had the capabilities to not only design and produce uniforms that would enforce empowerment amongst the volunteers, but also had the distribution facilities to deliver a large number of items to various addresses across the UK in a tight timeframe.

Due to the significance of the Olympic Games and the millions of visitors from both the UK and around the world that would be attending the event, it was crucial the volunteers were immediately recognisable. In order to ensure this criteria was met, LOCOG needed the garments to be bright and utilise the official colours of purple and pink.

Additionally, the uniforms needed to be suitable for all weathers so volunteers needn’t wear their personal coats or jumpers over the top, reducing their visibility to visitors.

As the capital put sustainability at the heart of its bid for the Games, one of the main criteria for these uniforms is that they followed the Games’ concept of ‘Towards a One Planet Olympics’ and therefore needed to be ethically sourced and environmentally friendly. What’s more, it was important that the uniforms embodied the Games’ ethos and legacy of inspiration and encouragement.

We were delighted and honoured to be involved in London 2012, and felt very proud to be part of something so significant to the country. Supplying large quantities of products in relatively short timescales is always challenging, however, we have experience in large projects and were confident of our abilities.Richard Lockett, Sales Manager, Arco

Greater London Authority and Ambassador T-shirts.

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Chosen PartnerDue to Arco’s high esteem amongst the safety industry and its reputation with supplying quality workwear and safety equipment, LOCOG decided to appoint the UK’s leading safety experts to supply over 14,000 uniforms. What’s more, due to Arco’s experience in designing and supplying bespoke uniforms in large quantities and to extremely tight deadlines, as well as its national distribution networks, LOCOG recognised Arco’s ability to meet deadlines both prior to and during the 2012 Games.

Ethical CredentialsAnother benefit LOCOG valued in working with Arco was the business’s strict processes concerning ethical sourcing and sustainable supply chain management. The uniforms were made in factories based in China, Laos and the UK and were all required to meet the strict ethical requirements of LOCOG and Arco.

To determine current labour standards Arco commissioned a third party independent social audit across eight sites and any non-conformities where highlighted. Arco’s UK based clothing product managers also visited the factories to personally quality check production and the project was continually supported by a team of 12 based at Arco’s China office in Xiamen who were on hand to provide a quick response to any issues.

As members of the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), Arco was able to demonstrate its determination to produce ethical products, by only using factories that had passed its own stringent requirements, adhering to the Games’ main concept.

Greater London Authority volunteer wearing their polo shirt with heat seal branding across the breast and sleeves.

Greater London Authority volunteers wearing heat seal branded polo shirts.

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The Project LogisticsThe project was assigned a dedicated project team and a project manager to monitor and report on the day to day running of the project as well as monitoring for any potential risks and communicate these early with agreed mitigation steps. Careful planning and preparation was required to coordinate the delivery of 8,000 wearer pack parcels to individual residential addressed around the UK whilst dealing with returns and exchanges all in a four week window.

Additional SupportAs well as delivering each wearer pack to 8,000 separate addresses and successfully managing adhoc orders, with the help of its Watford Regional Centre, Arco was also able to efficiently provide items that weren’t necessarily within its original capacity, including bottled water and fire extinguishers to all of the main venues within the Olympic Park. Due to the dedication from employees at Arco’s National Distribution Centre, the project was completed in just three weeks, including managing internal deliveries, and creating in house processes to effectively package and dispatch the packs to over 8,000 addresses.

Additionally, as an Official Uniform Supplier of the London 2012 Olympic Games, part of Arco’s responsibility was to also produce and supply the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) and LOCOG personnel with personal protective equipment (PPE), including hi-vis jackets, helmets, gloves and safety footwear. Each item coordinated with the uniform and included bespoke embroidery, badging and wearer packing.

The ResultWith the help of Arco’s in house team of clothing technologists and designers, sales managers and product experts, including Richard Lockett, Kirby Griffiths, Dalvir Sarkaria and Fraser Clarke, Arco was able to supply the London 2012 Olympic Games with a range of tailored, bright uniforms including polos, fleeces, waterproof jackets, trousers, baseball caps, trilbies, back-packs and water bottles.

Due to the range of items included within the uniform pack, Ambassadors were equipped to carry out their duties in the correct uniform, rain or shine. What’s more each item was branded with bespoke badges and logos to meet Olympic guidelines.

On behalf of the team here at ODA, I would like to thank everyone at Arco for all their hard work, dedication and professionalism during the Games. Arco’s service was extremely efficient, friendly and flexible, it has been a real pleasure to work with them throughout the process.Janelle Raeburn, Station Operations & Customer Experience Delivery Manager, ODA Transport

Greater London Authority volunteers wearing polo shirts with back heat seal branding.

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Bespoke polo shirt.

Bespoke waterproof jacket.

Bespoke polo shirt branding.

Bespoke waterproof jacket branding.

6Backpack. Greater London Authority blue branded t-shirt.

Cap. Trilby.

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Mayor of London Boris Johnson with Team London Ambassadors at the uniform launch event.

Boris Johnson with Ambassdors. Team Ambassdors.