Kitting out 200 people without a single wrong size: the method that works

A garment that is too big is not just unflattering. A sleeve that flaps near a rotating machine is a snagging risk. Trousers that are too long mean a hem dragging through dust and a trip that ends in lost days. Too small is worse still: the garment simply will not be worn. You will have paid for protection that nobody puts on.

Ask ten people their trouser size and you will get ten sincere answers and roughly fifty per cent errors. It is not bad faith: people answer with the size they wore three years ago, the one in their favourite jeans, or the one from a brand whose pattern has nothing to do with workwear. A work jacket is cut generously, with shoulder ease for movement — a retail M is not a workwear M.

The most reliable method fits into one well-run half-day. It needs a size set — one garment in each size of the chosen model — and somewhere people can try things on in peace. Allow roughly three minutes per person once you hit a rhythm.

1. 1Get the full size set of the exact model that will be produced, in the final fabric. A fitting on a near-enough model is worthless.
2. 2Set up one fitting point per site, with a changing room or a screen. People need to move, raise their arms, crouch down.
3. 3Call people in 15-minute slots by team rather than opening a continuous flow. You avoid the queue that puts people off.
4. 4For each person, record three things: employee number, the size chosen on top, the size chosen on the bottom. Two different sizes top and bottom are normal and common.
5. 5Log the exceptions separately: very tall or very short builds, specific leg-length needs, pregnancy, medical constraints.
6. 6Lock the file the same day and have team leaders countersign it. A list that circulates for another week is a list that changes on its own.

The European standard EN 13402 sets out the principle most manufacturers follow: a size is designated by body measurements, not garment measurements. Measure over light clothing, tape flat, neither tight nor loose. The person stands upright and relaxed, arms by their sides.

Add overall height for anything that is a one-piece coverall: height, not chest, decides whether the crotch sits where it should. And think about safety footwear: trousers are measured with the boots the person will actually wear, not in socks.

For a long time, kitting out a woman meant handing her a smaller man's garment. The result is familiar: shoulders too wide, no waist, a crotch that sits too low, and constant friction in every movement. A women's pattern is not a marketing gesture, it is a safety matter like any other — a badly fitted garment ends up altered by hand, rolled up or left open, and loses its properties.

• Always ask whether the model exists in a women's cut, and write it into your specification.
• Let the people concerned try both cuts: some prefer the straight cut, that is their call and it should stay available.
• Plan maternity sizes or temporary adjustments up front rather than in a panic.
• Check that pockets stay reachable on the women's cut — it is the detail most often sacrificed.

Once the fitting day is behind you, you hold something valuable: the real, verified size of every person on your headcount. Do not let it die inside an order file. Transfer it into a permanent register, kept by employee number, with the issue date and the model supplied. The following year, repeat orders become a formality, new starters are equipped in days, and replacements no longer trigger a small internal investigation.

An issue plan is never fixed. People arrive, leave, change roles, tear trousers on a sheet-metal edge. Ordering exactly your headcount condemns you to launching a small run three weeks later — at small-run prices. A 10–15% safety buffer, concentrated in the middle sizes that cover most builds, costs far less than an emergency top-up.

• Keep the safety buffer on site, not at the supplier: it has to be available in hours, not weeks.
• Set a written exchange rule when the garments are handed out — who swaps, against what, within what window.
• Plan renewal around observed wear, not a theoretical calendar.
• Keep the technical sheet and the exact model reference: that is what lets you reorder identically two years later.

To build the issue plan itself — which pieces, in what quantity, for which role — our sector-by-sector selection guide walks through the reasoning role by role, and the catalogue lets you put together a concrete list of references to price up.