Everyone travels on short or long journeys and carries baggage accordingly, right from childhood we use school bags and later office bags, laptop bags and luggage bags when we travel long distance. In order to understand how the bags are designed we visited Exim Enterprises in Dharavi Mumbai, to see for ourselves how the bags are made.

Md. Shamse Azam is the owner of Exim Enterprises, a man whose passion is to manufacture high quality traveling bags at an affordable price for the common man. He innovates and takes inspiration from the bigger brands and tries to create a better product more rugged, longer lasting and suited for Indian conditions. He also improves on the design by taking the feedback from his customers.

He founded the  business in 2000 and has increased the business turnover over the years, by maintaining his quality and focus on customer satisfaction. He once made more than 100 samples for a corporate order from ICICI Bank, just to ensure that there is complete customer satisfaction and his perseverance paid of and he got his first big order and after that there was no looking back.

Now he has specialised in corporate gifts that includes all kinds of bags, leather products & promotional items. He has created the brand Exim, which is an entire range of School Bags, Traveling bags, Trolley Bags, Ladies Purses, College Bags and Laptop bags, Duffel bags with trolley, Haversack Bags, Traveling & Gym Bags, T-Shirts, Caps, Wallets, Desktop Accessories and many more.

His schoolbags are made, keeping children in mind, he has observed their behavior and how they treat their school bags and accordingly tailors them to take all the wear and tear. He says that the bags have to be light in weight as the children are already overloaded with books and other material.

The travel bags are made of a canvas kind of material made of special fiber and laminated with special polypropylene or special rubber compound depending on the bag. which not only makes the material water proof, but also makes it sturdy by holding the interwoven fibre in place.

Mr. Azam  takes special pride in selecting the material that goes into making of his bags. The material consists not only the main soft or semi hard flexible fabric, but also the stitching, threads, Straps, Leather reinforcements, Zips, number lock mechanisms, wheels, the chassis that holds the trolley wheels and the bags and gives it complete strength and support, while absorbing the shocks from bumps and potholes.

Mr. Azam himself monitors the quality control in his workshop and has a dedicated person who checks each bag for fitting, stitching, zip movement and finishing. In fact the quality control begins even before he has received the raw material. The manufacturer first ensures the material quality with laser test equipment, after the material has been received, every batch is first tested by stitching a sample and applying pressure on it to see how the material reacts to the stitches and at what pressure it tears. Next is the zips and reinforcement material tests, finally the finished product testing.

Lastly he shared that he feels a pain in his heart when he sees people mishandling their bags. On probing he gave us the various Do’s and Dont’s for making travel luggage last longer.

1. Never apply undue pressure on the back of the trolley bags, as the trolley rods bend, causing difficulty in opening and closing the trolley handle.

2. Never overstuff the bags to an extent that it does not close and the zip comes under high pressure. This causes  the zip teeth to come out, causing a zip failure resulting in frustration and anguish.

3. Never Dip the bags in water and keep them in soap or other chemicals dissolved in water with an intent to get them clean. The fibres and lamination will come apart causing the bag to disintegrate. Clean the surface with mild soap and water with a soft rag. For best results, clean the entire panel, not just the soiled area and never submerge your bag in water.

4. The wheels of the bag are meant for helping you to reduce your effort in carrying the load, the surface should be smooth and wherever there are stairs or steps, you have to carry the bag and gently and place it carefully.

5. Never throw the bag or sit on the bag…..says.Mr Azam, as its a cardinal mistake users do when people are off mood.

Source: Lokesh Shastri