How to Write a Bedding Tech Pack: The Spec Document That Makes Bulk Match Your Sample

A bedding tech pack is a single specification document you hand a supplier so the bulk run matches your approved sample instead of the mill's best guess. It pins down every measurable attribute of the product: finished dimensions and tolerances, fabric (fiber, weave, yarn count, GSM, thread count), construction, colorway and lab dips, logo, labels and packaging, testing and compliance, an AQL inspection plan, and a revision log. Write it well and disputes have an objective baseline; skip it and every quality argument becomes your word against the factory's.

This guide walks through each section a bedding tech pack needs, with the specific numbers and tolerances an experienced OEM buyer should be stating. It applies whether you are ordering a single private-label duvet set or a full hotel linen program, and it assumes you have already approved a physical sample. If you have not, read how to order bedding samples from China before bulk first, then come back and codify what you approved.

What is a bedding tech pack?

A tech pack (工艺包, literally 'process package') is a technical specification file that tells a manufacturer exactly how to build a product, not just what to build. In apparel it is standard practice; in bedding it is just as critical and far too often skipped. A bedding tech pack is the controlled document that translates your approved sample into repeatable instructions, so that a production line running 5,000 duvet sets in month two makes the same product you signed off in month one.

The core of the tech pack is the bill of materials (BOM). A bill of materials is an itemized list of every physical component in the finished product, inside and out: shell fabric, filling if any, sewing thread, zippers or button closures, woven brand labels, care and fiber-content labels, hang tags, polybags and cartons, each with a specification and placement. Everything else in the tech pack, dimensions through testing, describes how those components are assembled and verified.

Tech pack vs purchase order vs spec sheet

Buyers routinely confuse these three documents, then wonder why bulk drifts. A tech pack differs from a purchase order in that it specifies how the product is made, not just what and how many; a standalone spec sheet is only a fragment of a tech pack. The three work together: the tech pack defines intent, the purchase order commits quantity and price, and any loose spec sheet feeds detail into the tech pack.

The eight sections every bedding tech pack needs

A complete bedding tech pack has eight working sections. Each one closes a specific gap where bulk tends to deviate from sample. The table below is the anatomy: what each section must specify, and the single most common error that lets defects through inspection.

Dimensions and tolerances: specify the sewn size, not the bed size

The most common dimension error is quoting a mattress or bed size and expecting the factory to derive the finished product. State the finished, sewn dimension of each SKU and give every measurement a tolerance. A tolerance is the plus-or-minus range within which a measurement is still acceptable; silence implies zero tolerance, which raises rejection rates and invites argument. For made-up cut-and-sewn bedding, a tolerance of roughly plus or minus 1 to 1.5 cm on small panels and plus or minus 1.5 percent on large panels is a common, workable band (indicative; confirm against your own fit standard).

Build a measurement table by SKU and by size. For a duvet cover, specify overall width and length, closure position and opening length. For a fitted sheet, specify the flat panel plus the corner pocket depth, because pocket depth is what determines whether the sheet fits a 25 cm or a 35 cm mattress. For pillowcases, specify the case body plus any flap or housewife hem. Remember that a filled duvet shell is cut larger than its stated finished size so it does not pull in when filled; note that allowance explicitly so QC does not flag correctly sized goods as oversized. Hotel programs in particular should lock pocket depth and hem construction tightly, since one wrong pocket depth can strip an entire property's linen order. See the hotel linen program page for the sizing conventions that recur across properties.

Fabric and the bill of materials

The fabric line is where vague tech packs cost the most money, because a single number never describes a cloth. Specify the full stack: fiber and blend ratio (for example, 100 percent combed cotton), weave (percale, sateen or twill), yarn count, thread count and GSM, plus finish (mercerized, calendered, brushed, wrinkle-resistant). Thread count is the number of warp and weft threads per square inch and is only meaningful alongside yarn count and weave; GSM (grams per square metre) is the weight of the fabric and is the more honest density signal. State a GSM tolerance, commonly plus or minus 5 percent (indicative).

As a rough orientation for cotton sheeting: percale bed linen commonly runs about 110 to 140 GSM at roughly 200 to 220 thread count, while cotton sateen sits higher at around 300 to 400 thread count (indicative ranges, not a substitute for your own approved fabric). If you are unsure why two 300-thread-count fabrics can feel completely different, read what GSM means in bedding and the thread count truth guide before you lock these numbers. Every ambiguous fabric line also feeds directly into price, so a tight BOM is what lets you read a bedding quotation and its cost breakdown line by line.

List the BOM in a table with a row for every component: main shell fabric, any secondary or reverse fabric, filling, sewing thread (with tex or ticket number and color), closure (zipper gauge and length, or button type and count), woven label, printed care and fiber label, hang tag, polybag and master carton. Give each a supplier reference or an approved-sample reference, a quantity per finished set, and a placement note. A missing BOM line is a missing component at the sewing line, which becomes a rework or a short shipment.

Construction and stitching specs

Construction is where 'it looked the same in the sample' quietly falls apart in bulk. Replace adjectives with measurable specs. State seam type and seam allowance (for example, French seam on duvet side seams, 1 cm allowance), stitch density in stitches per inch (SPI), hem depth, corner mitre method, and closure construction. For bedding, 10 to 12 SPI on main seams is a typical, durable range (indicative); too few stitches and seams gap under laundering, too many and you perforate and weaken the cloth.

Call out the stress points explicitly: zipper end-stops and bar-tacks on duvet openings, reinforced corners on fitted sheets, and the flap depth and closure on pillowcases (housewife, Oxford or envelope). If a construction detail matters for durability under commercial laundering, say so, name the test it must survive, and photograph the approved sample seam so the mill has a visual reference alongside the numbers.

Colorway, Pantone and lab dips

Never approve a bulk color from a screen or a printed image. Specify color by a physical standard: a Pantone TCX or TPG textile code, or a physical swatch you have signed, together with a delta-E tolerance and the light source under which color is judged. A lab dip is a small swatch of your actual production fabric, dyed to your target color under factory conditions, that you approve before the mill dyes the bulk lot. The factory then dyes production to match the approved lab dip, not the original Pantone chip, so the dip is the real contract for color.

Set expectations in the tech pack: allow two to three lab-dip rounds for standard shades, and expect four to five for difficult colors such as bright reds, deep navies and neon greens (indicative). Agree a delta-E tolerance, commonly in the 1.0 to 1.5 range, and specify that color be assessed under standardized daylight and at least one store or fluorescent light to catch metamerism. State how many approved dips you require and who holds the sealed reference. Lab-dip approval belongs in your sample stage, so fold it into the sample-before-bulk process rather than discovering a color mismatch on the bulk lot.

Labels, packaging and care-label law

Labels are not decoration; for most markets they are a legal requirement, and the tech pack is where you get them right before thousands of units are sewn wrong. Specify the woven brand label artwork and placement, and the exact text of the care and content label for each destination market. In the United States, the FTC's textile rules require most textile products to carry fiber content by generic name and weight in descending order, the country of origin, and the identity of the manufacturer or responsible marketer, plus care instructions. In the European Union, Regulation (EU) No 1007/2011 requires a durable, legible label showing fibre composition using only the approved fibre names, with percentages by weight in descending order.

Get the destination law right per market, because a compliant US label is not automatically a compliant EU label, and a relabeling exercise on landed goods is expensive. Then specify packaging with the same rigor: fold method and dimensions, insert card, polybag type and any required suffocation warning, header card or belly band, units per inner, units per master carton, carton dimensions and weight, and barcode or shipping-mark artwork. Private-label programs live or die on this presentation layer, which is why the private-label bedding page treats packaging as part of the product, not an afterthought.

Testing, compliance and the AQL plan

The testing section states, up front, the pass criteria that the goods and the inspection must meet, so accept-or-reject is decided by the document and not by a phone call. Specify the safety and performance tests: OEKO-TEX certification support where required, colorfastness to washing and to rubbing, dimensional change (shrinkage) after laundering, pilling and, for any duvet fill, fill power or composition. OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100 is an independent certification that tests textiles against a list of hundreds of harmful substances; bed linen sits in Product Class 2, the direct-skin-contact class, which carries stricter limit values than home textiles without skin contact.

Then set the inspection plan. AQL (Acceptance Quality Limit) is the maximum percentage of defective units that a lot may contain and still be accepted, and it is defined by the international sampling standard ISO 2859-1. State your inspection level and your AQL by defect class; for bedding, AQL 2.5 for major defects and 4.0 for minor defects at General Inspection Level II is a common, defensible plan (indicative). Without an AQL clause the inspector has no rule to apply, and a borderline lot becomes a negotiation instead of a decision. Also specify a maximum shrinkage, commonly around 3 percent for cotton bedding after the stated wash (indicative), so a soft, correctly sized sheet does not turn into an undersized reject after the first laundering.

How to build a bedding tech pack, step by step

Build the document in the order the factory will use it, and finish before you place the purchase order. The flow below is the sequence we see work most reliably for OEM and ODM bedding programs.

Sourcing bulk against a locked tech pack

A tech pack is only worth what your supplier can hold it to, so the supply model matters as much as the document. BeddingTextilePro runs a source-factory-direct supply model: we operate locked, dedicated production lines at large-scale Nantong bedding mills, and goods ship direct from the mill, so you get mill pricing with no middleman markup while your tech pack is enforced by our own in-line QC. We are wholesale only, with a 100-set minimum order quantity per style, full OEM and ODM manufacturing, and OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100 support on qualifying fabrics. Send us a finished tech pack and we return a quotation within one business day; if you only have a sample or a reference product, we will help you turn it into the spec document above so your first bulk run is checked against a fixed, agreed standard rather than a memory of a sample.

Build it once, control every revision

The last section is the one that keeps the other eight honest: the revision log. A revision log is a dated record of every change to the tech pack, showing what changed, who changed it and why, tied to a version number that appears on the header of every page. Without it, an email tweak to a hem depth or a color tolerance becomes an invisible change, and the factory sews a version nobody can prove was agreed. Number every release, log every edit, and make the version number the first thing both sides check before cutting. Do that, and the tech pack stops being paperwork and becomes what it is meant to be: the single source of truth that makes your bulk match your sample, order after order.

Preguntas frecuentes

What is the difference between a bedding tech pack and a purchase order?

A bedding tech pack specifies how the product is made: fabric, construction, tolerances, color, labels and testing. A purchase order specifies only what and how many, plus price and delivery. The tech pack defines technical intent and is referenced by the order; the purchase order is the binding commercial commitment. You need both, because an order without a tech pack has no quality baseline to inspect against.

What fabric details must a bedding tech pack include?

Specify the full fabric stack, never a single number. State fiber and blend ratio, weave (percale, sateen or twill), yarn count, thread count and GSM, plus finish. Thread count is only meaningful alongside yarn count and weave, while GSM measures actual fabric weight. Give GSM a tolerance, commonly around plus or minus 5 percent, and reference an approved fabric swatch so the mill matches a physical standard, not just numbers.

What is a lab dip and why does the tech pack need one?

A lab dip is a small swatch of your actual production fabric, dyed to your target color under factory conditions, that you approve before the mill dyes the bulk lot. The factory then matches production to the approved dip, not the original Pantone chip. The tech pack should state the Pantone code, a delta-E tolerance around 1.0 to 1.5, the viewing light, and how many dip rounds are allowed before bulk dyeing.

What AQL should I set for a bedding order?

AQL (Acceptance Quality Limit) is the maximum percentage of defective units a lot may contain and still be accepted, defined by ISO 2859-1. For bedding, a common and defensible plan is AQL 2.5 for major defects and 4.0 for minor defects at General Inspection Level II. State it explicitly in the tech pack; without an AQL clause the inspector has no rule to apply, and borderline lots become a negotiation instead of a decision.

Fuentes y referencias

1. 1.Regulation (EU) No 1007/2011 on textile fibre names and labelling (EUR-Lex)
2. 2.OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100 (official standard overview)
3. 3.Textile Fiber Products Identification Act (US FTC labeling law)
4. 4.Acceptable quality limit and ISO 2859-1 sampling
5. 5.Units of textile measurement (thread count and yarn count)
6. 6.Grammage (grams per square metre, GSM)
7. 7.Pantone Matching System (standardized color communication)