How to Write a Bag Tech Pack: The 12-Component Template

Templates fail for a predictable reason: they give a buyer twelve empty boxes and no way to know which ones are load-bearing. The version below gives every component a purpose and a failure mode, so a buyer working through it can tell the difference between a field that is genuinely not applicable to this style and a field that has been skipped.

Work in order. The components are sequenced the way a bag is built, which means decisions made early constrain the ones that follow. A change to the shell at component three changes the stitch schedule at six and the needle size at six as well, and a pack written out of order has to be gone over twice.

What Goes on the Cover and Why Does Revision Control Matter?

The cover carries the style code, the season, the revision letter, the date and the name of the person who owns the file. None of that is decorative. A bag programme runs for years, and over that time the same style code accumulates revisions from a material change, a hardware change, a cost-down and a customer complaint. Without a revision letter on every page, nobody can say which drawing the golden sample belongs to.

The failure mode is specific and expensive. Bulk runs against revision C, the buyer inspects against revision D because that is the file open on their screen, and the difference between them is a 3 mm change to the binding that nobody remembers agreeing. Put the revision letter and the date in the header and footer of every page.

How Do You Write the Drawing Component?

Orthographic views — front, back, both sides, base and, where it matters, a section — with every dimension in millimetres and a tolerance band. Dimension the bag the way it will be measured on the inspection table, and say which: flat, laid empty and unfastened, or taped around the finished bag. A dimension without a measurement method is two different numbers.

Add callouts. Every callout is a numbered balloon on the drawing that points at a component named in the materials or hardware schedule, so the drawing and the schedules are cross-referenced rather than parallel. A drawing with callouts and a schedule with matching numbers removes most of the arguments that would otherwise be settled by opinion.

What Does the Materials Component Have to Name?

One line per material, and each line carries the generic name, the construction, the finished weight or thickness, the supplier, the shade reference and the certificate on file. Six fields, because any one of them being missing turns the line back into a description rather than a specification.

The two fields buyers drop are the supplier and the certificate. Without a named mill, a substitution is not a deviation — it is simply a different material, and nobody has breached anything. Without a certificate reference, a REACH or OEKO-TEX claim cannot be produced when a customer asks for it, which is always at the worst possible moment.

How Is the Colourway Component Structured?

As a matrix with one row per colourway and one column per component that changes. Work through the bag part by part and ask of each whether it changes colour: shell, lining, binding, webbing, thread, zip tape, zip teeth, slider, puller, hardware finish, print and label. Most styles have between eight and fourteen such components.

The common failure is the trim that nobody thinks about. On a two-tone kit bag the shell changes and the webbing changes, and the zip tape stays black on both — unless the buyer wanted it matched, in which case the pack needed to say so. Write the reference for every component in every colourway, including the ones that stay the same.

How Much Does an Incomplete Pack Actually Cost?

Count it in samples rather than in money, because that is how the cost arrives. A pack missing the hardware performance figures produces a sample with the wrong buckle; correcting it costs one more sample and part of the sampling window. A pack missing the measurement method produces a bag that measures wrong on the inspection table and passes in the hand, and correcting that costs a revision, a sample and an argument.

The largest single cost is the one nobody invoices: the delay between the buyer realising something is unspecified and the production team being told. On a programme running 500 pcs at MOQ with bulk at 35-50 days, a week lost to clarification at the sampling stage is a week lost at the delivery end, and the customer does not care where it was lost.

How Do You Write Construction and the Stitch Schedule?

Construction is a numbered sequence: cut, bind, assemble the body, insert the lining, close, turn, topstitch, fit hardware, inspect. The sequence matters because two sequences can produce the same bag at different cost, and because a sequence that has not been written down cannot be held constant on the second run.

The stitch schedule is a table with one row per seam. Each row gives the seam, the stitch class from ASTM D6193, the stitches per inch, the thread ticket and fibre, and the needle size. The stitches-per-inch figure is the one to think about: it is simultaneously the strength of the seam and the minutes of labour in it.

What Does the Hardware Component Need Beyond a Part Name?

Size in millimetres, material, finish, colour, supplier and a performance requirement with a number attached. The performance requirement is the field that gets dropped, and it is the one that matters, because two buckles of the same size and finish can differ by a factor of three in pull strength and nobody can tell by looking.

Write the number as a minimum with a test method behind it, for example a 25 mm side-release buckle tested to 180 N in-line pull on a tensile machine. Where the bag carries load — a camera bag with a body and two lenses, a kit bag with wet kit — the hardware numbers are the ones that decide whether the bag comes back.

How Do You Handle a Field That Does Not Apply?

Write "n/a — reason" rather than leaving it blank, because a blank field is indistinguishable from a skipped one and a reader cannot tell which. A welded cooler bag has no stitch schedule on the welded seams, and the pack should say so with the reason attached, not leave the row empty and let somebody decide later what it meant.

There are roughly six fields that genuinely do not apply to some styles: the stitch schedule on a fully welded body, foam on an unlined drawstring bag, hardware on a fold-top closure, artwork on an unbranded liner, a country-of-origin label where the bag ships inside another product, and a thermal test on a bag with no insulation. Each of them should be marked with the reason, and each of them should be reconsidered if the style changes.

Where Do Artwork, Labels and Compliance Sit?

Artwork is a block, not a file attachment. It states the file format, the colour space, the size in millimetres, the position measured from a named seam or edge, the placement tolerance and the application process. A buyer who attaches a file without those six lines has given the production team a picture and not a specification.

Labels and compliance follow as a list of named documents: fibre content, care instruction, country-of-origin marking, the tracking label where the product is a children's product, and the restricted-substance position for each market. Where a recycled-content claim is made, the GRS transaction certificate is the document that supports it, and the pack should name the certificate number rather than the adjective.

What Closes the Pack and Starts the Clock?

The last four components are packing, testing, approval and distribution. Packing states the fold, the stuffing, the polybag, the carton and the count. Testing states the standard number, the limit and the sample size for each claim. Approval names who signs and records which physical sample is the golden one. Distribution states who holds a controlled copy.

Once the last signature is on the file, sampling runs 6-10 working days and bulk runs 35-50 days from written sample approval, with inspection at AQL 2.5 under ISO 2859-1. Those windows hold when the pack is complete; they stretch when it is not, and the stretch is always spent on questions the pack should have answered. Ready-to-use blanks for all twelve components sit in the downloads library.

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