About
Thirty years in the making.
Eighteen years learning the trade before the first machine, then a factory that has grown every few years since. Here is the timeline, the first buyer we still supply, and the people who built it.
Origin, 1997 → 2014
Eighteen years before the first machine.
Mohammad Masud Karim entered Bangladesh's garment-accessories trade in 1996, joining Maxcom's commercial department in 1997. He worked up through merchandising, shipping and banking, reaching corporate Group GM before leaving in late 2012.
2013 was not a pause. A year of courses, workshops and networking, and of trading in trims without owning a factory yet, spent assessing the risk of the next step rather than avoiding it.
To become an entrepreneur, you need space, you need to think, you need to assess risk.
Mohammad Masud Karim · Managing Director
TotalTex opened in 2014.
Growth
The floor plan, year by year.
Every expansion has stayed on one floor: TotalTex runs a single-storey, steel-structure facility in Zirabo, Ashulia, built to keep adding capacity rather than height.
- 201412,000sq ft
Poly section only
TotalTex opens in Gazipur: three sets of machines, about twenty people, one product line.
- 201621,000sq ft
First expansion
Still in Gazipur, the floor nearly doubles as the range grows beyond poly.
- 201725,000sq ft
Move to Zirabo
The factory relocates from Gazipur to Zirabo, Ashulia, its home today.
- 201840,000sq ft
Scaling the floor
The Zirabo facility expands again as the product range and buyer list widen.
- 202466,300sq ft
Present day
66,300 sq ft, eleven manufactured lines, 250+ people on the floor.
First buyer, 2014
12
years supplying IRIS Group, still running
Still supplying the buyer who started it.
IRIS Group became TotalTex's first buyer in 2014. The first order was poly. Twelve years on, IRIS Group is still a live account, not a case study from the archive. Mohammadi Group, another early relationship, is also still supplied today.
2020
No buyer lost.
- Staff were paid on time, throughout.
- Every instalment was paid in full and on schedule.
- Production paused only for the government-mandated lockdown.
- No buyer was lost. Buyers were gained as other suppliers could not hold their commitments.
People
Grown from the floor up.
Roughly a quarter of today's mid-level and managerial staff started on the factory floor.
Our production head started as a designer and now manages every production manager in the building.
Our accounts head started as an accounts assistant and now runs the company's entire finance function.
The reasons people stay are unglamorous and consistent: on-time salary, real career progression, and a family atmosphere that keeps people working alongside the same colleagues for years.
Philosophy
Long-term, on purpose.
Everyone at TotalTex is treated as a stakeholder, not a resource: an equal beneficiary of the company's growth, not only a contributor to it. That commitment runs across three things: employment, the national economy, and sustainability.
We have a deep love for our country and at its desperate times we want to support it, as it supported us for our entire run.
Mohammad Masud Karim
The Managing Director's note
Quality, on-time delivery, commitment, communication, accountability. I try my level best to ensure all of these.
The rest is best seen in person. A visit ends where the story started, in the Managing Director's office.
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