What Is a Bag Tech Pack and What Should It Include?

Buyers meet the tech pack at the same moment they meet the first real quotation, and that is not a coincidence. A price for a bag that does not exist yet is a price for an assumption. The pack is what turns the assumption into a set of decisions somebody can cost, and it is the only artefact in a bag programme that survives contact with a second run.

The useful way to think about it is as a contract with yourself. Everything agreed before the first sample is written down in one place, numbered, and dated. Six months later, when the fabric has changed mill and the colour has drifted half a shade, the pack is the only thing that can say what the original decision was.

What Exactly Sits Inside a Bag Tech Pack?

Twelve sections, in a fixed order, because the order follows the way a bag is actually built. The cover carries the style code, the revision number and the date, without which nothing else in the file can be trusted. The drawing carries orthographic views with dimensions. The materials section names shell, lining, foam, webbing, thread and hardware with a mill and a shade reference for each.

After that come construction notes, the stitch and seam schedule, the hardware schedule, artwork and placement, the label and compliance block, the colourway list, the packing specification, the testing requirements with the standard numbers, and finally the approval block with names and dates. A pack missing the last section is a draft, however good the drawing is.

Why Does a Tech Pack Decide the Price Before a Sample Exists?

Because the quotation is arithmetic performed on the pack. Shell fabric is costed from the marker width and the yield, foam from the die size, webbing from the cut length, hardware from the schedule, and labour from the stitch count and the operation list. None of those inputs exists until the pack states them, so a quotation issued before the pack is finished is a placeholder.

This is why two quotations for the same photograph can differ by a wide margin without anybody being dishonest. One was priced against a complete specification and one was priced against a guess about what the specification would turn out to be. The gap closes the moment the pack is signed, which is the single strongest argument for finishing it before asking for a number.

How Is a Tech Pack Different from a Drawing or a Photograph?

A drawing fixes geometry and a photograph fixes intent. Neither fixes the decisions that cost money: which mill supplies the shell, what the seam allowance is, whether the webbing is 25 mm or 32 mm, how many stitches per inch close the gusset. Those decisions live only in the pack, and they are the ones that move the price.

There is also a difference in who can act on it. A drawing can be read by anybody; a pack can be built from. The test is simple. Hand the file to somebody who has never spoken to the buyer and ask whether a sample can be produced without a single question. If the answer is no, the file is a drawing with notes, not a pack.

What Does a Complete Materials Section Actually Name?

Fabric is the section buyers fill in fastest and get wrong most often. "600D polyester" names a yarn count and nothing else: it does not say whether there is a coating, what the coating is, what the finished weight is, or who supplies it. A usable line reads "600D polyester, PU coated, finished 260 gsm, mill A, shade reference PMS 19-4052, OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100 certificate on file".

The same discipline applies to the parts buyers treat as minor. Thread is specified by ticket number and fibre, not by colour alone, because a polyester thread sewn through a nylon shell behaves differently from a nylon thread in the same seam. Foam is specified by density in kg per cubic metre and by thickness in millimetres, because a 5 mm foam at low density and the same foam at high density are not the same part.

How Should Construction and Stitching Be Written Down?

As a schedule, one line per seam, rather than as prose. Each line names the seam, the stitch type, the stitches per inch, the thread and the needle size. ASTM D6193 is the reference most bag programmes use for stitch and seam types, and naming a stitch type by its class number from that practice removes the ambiguity that words such as "strong" or "reinforced" always leave behind.

Two numbers carry most of the load. Stitches per inch sets both the strength and the cost of the seam: more stitches means a stronger seam and a slower operation. Seam allowance sets how much material sits inside the seam, and it is the number that decides whether a turned bag comes out square or twisted. Both belong in the pack, not in the sampler's judgement.

Where Do Hardware, Branding and Artwork Go in the File?

Hardware gets its own schedule, one line per part, because hardware is the component most often substituted without comment. Each line names the part, the size in millimetres, the material, the finish, the colour, the supplier and the performance requirement. "Buckle" is not a specification; "25 mm acetal side-release buckle, black, 180 N minimum pull" is.

Artwork gets a block that states the file format, the colour space, the size in millimetres, the position measured from a named seam or edge, the rotation tolerance, and the process it will be applied by. A logo drawn for embroidery and the same logo drawn for a heat transfer are two different files, and a pack that says "logo on front panel" without saying which file is being referred to has not specified anything.

What Does the Packing and Compliance Section Cover?

Packing is specified because it is the part of the bag the buyer never sees on a sample and always sees on an invoice. The pack states the fold method, whether the bag is stuffed, the polybag gauge and whether it is perforated, the carton specification, the number of pieces per carton, and the carton weight and dimensions. Those five lines decide the freight bill and whether the carton survives the drop it will get.

Compliance is specified as a list of named documents rather than as an adjective. Where the programme sells into the European Union, REACH restricted-substance compliance is a document; where it sells into California, a Proposition 65 position is a document; where it sells children's product, CPSIA tracking and testing is a document. Writing "compliant" in the pack specifies nothing that a laboratory can test.

Who Holds the Pack and Who Is Allowed to Change It?

One controlled copy on each side, named in the distribution block, and one person on each side authorised to issue a revision. Everything else is an uncontrolled copy. This reads as bureaucracy until the first time a buyer and a production team discover they have been working from different files for three weeks, which is a discovery that always happens after the material has been bought.

The rule that matters is that a revision is issued, never implied. A change agreed on a call, in a message, or at the bench is not a revision until it is in the file with a new letter and a date. Sampling is priced on the assumption that the file is the only source of truth; when it stops being that, the 6-10 working day window stops meaning anything.

How Does a Signed Tech Pack Start the Sampling Clock?

Sampling is quoted as 6-10 working days from a signed-off pack, and the signature is the trigger rather than a formality. The clock includes pattern making, cutting, assembly, and the internal check against the pack; it does not include the days spent clarifying what the pack meant. A pack that arrives with four open questions has not started the clock.

Once the sample is approved in writing, bulk runs 35-50 days and is inspected at AQL 2.5 under ISO 2859-1 at General Inspection Level II. Both figures are honest windows rather than promises: the sampling window widens to 12-15 working days on a complex style with welded seams or multi-panel foam, and bulk widens where a component has to be tooled. The development note on why bulk takes 35-50 days sets out what fills those days.

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