A client came to us with an idea for a gift product: a box containing several different items, brought together in a particular way. They could picture the finished set. Making it meant dealing with a number of businesses that each supplied only one part of it.
We took the set apart on paper and sourced its components individually. The box had its own supplier. The contents had others. We then worked out which parts should travel together, which should move separately and where the assembly made sense.
Some components were collected at a workshop, assembled and shipped from there. Others needed separate arrangements. Behind the finished product were several production schedules, supplier conversations and decisions about consolidation, transport and customs.
For the client, it remained one product. They did not have to turn their idea into a second job coordinating all the businesses needed to make it. They ordered a finished gift set, and that was what we delivered.