XINGHUO Glass Keeps Deliveries Moving Over Spring Festival

XINGHUO Glass shipped orders through the Spring Festival holiday this year, a period when many factories in China close and freight capacity tightens. The break ran from late January into early February, and the company put its delivery plan in place before it began, keeping goods moving to overseas buyers throughout.

Planning Ahead for the Holiday

The holiday period is planned months in advance at XINGHUO Glass. Orders are reviewed against the factory calendar, production is brought forward where a delivery date falls in the first weeks of the year, and the packing and loading schedule is set before the break begins.

The holiday is set by the lunar calendar, so its dates move from year to year. For a buyer working to a fixed delivery date, a shipment that misses the window before the break can lose weeks, which is why the schedule is settled long before the factory goes quiet.

That plan covers three things: what has to be finished and packed, who is on site to run it, and how the finished cartons reach the port when much of the freight market is standing still.

Staffing and Stock

Part of the workforce stayed on over the holiday to keep the packing lines and the warehouse running, so that stock was ready to load as soon as transport was available. Those staff were paid overtime rates for the days they worked and their days off were arranged around those shifts.

That crew covers the stages that have to happen after the last glass comes off the line and before a container can be sealed: packing, palletising, labelling, and dispatch. Every carton is checked and packed to the buyer's own artwork and specification, which is hand work as much as machine work, and it cannot be hurried through at the end of a container booking.

Glassware is a bulky, breakable product, so packing and palletising run to their own schedule and cannot be compressed at short notice. Keeping a crew on site through the break is what allows a container to be loaded the day a truck arrives rather than the week after.

Coordinating With Logistics Partners

Freight is the harder half of the problem. Truck capacity and warehouse space are both scarce in the run-up to the holiday and in the days after it, so the company booked vehicles and storage in advance rather than competing for them in the first week back. Truck slots and warehouse capacity were confirmed before the break, and finished stock was staged so that loading could start as soon as a vehicle was available.

Shipments were followed through the company's logistics tracking system, and status was passed to buyers as it changed, so that an order's position was visible from the customer's side rather than only from the factory's. Where a delay did appear anywhere in the chain, buyers heard about it from the company rather than discovering it when the delivery date passed.

Buyer Feedback

"We were worried the project would be held up over the Spring Festival, but the shipment still went out on time," said the purchasing manager of a supermarket chain in Malaysia. "That was better than we expected, and it makes us more confident about working together again."

What Comes Next

Jimmy Wang, CEO of XINGHUO Glass, said the holiday arrangement followed from the way the company treats a delivery date, and that it would keep working on both delivery times and how quickly shipment status reaches buyers. Buyers working to a spring delivery date are best served by confirming quantities before the holiday window closes, when production and freight slots in the first weeks of the year are tightest. To talk through a delivery schedule, reach the export team through the contact page.

About XINGHUO Glass

Jiangsu Xinghuo Technology Co., Ltd. (XINGHUO Glass) has been making glassware since 1999 from its base in Nanjing, China. The company works mainly with lead-free crystal glass and borosilicate glass, and covers forming, decoration, and finishing in house.

Its range covers glass drinkware, wine glasses and decanters, and glass tableware, supplied to importers, wholesalers, and retail chains in more than 30 countries. See About XINGHUO Glass for more.