The eight sections of a tech pack stay the same whatever you are making. The fields inside them do not. A techpack maker built only for apparel will hand you a points-of-measure chart when what a footwear factory needs is a last reference, and a jewellery workshop needs neither. Genpire generates specs across fashion, jewellery, footwear, bags, accessories, furniture, home goods and toys. Knowing which fields your category actually requires is the difference between a file that gets quoted and one that gets a phone call.
What stays constant
Every category needs the same skeleton: a bill of materials with composition and consumption, a tolerance on anything measured, construction or assembly notes, packaging and labelling, and colour references tied to specific components. Those five hold whether you are making a hoodie or a coffee table. What changes is the technical vocabulary each factory expects underneath them.
What changes, category by category
- Apparel. Points of measure with tolerances, grade rules per size, stitch class and seam allowance, fabric weight in GSM, shrinkage allowance after wash.
- Bags and accessories. Hardware specification by size and finish, zip gauge and length, strap load rating, lining construction, edge finishing method, gusset dimensions.
- Footwear. Last reference, sole construction method, cemented, welted, vulcanised, upper, lining and insole as separate material layers, sizing standard declared as EU, US or UK, tread pattern.
- Jewellery. Metal type and purity, stone specification by cut, carat, clarity and colour, setting type, plating thickness in microns, chain gauge and clasp mechanism, total finished weight.
- Furniture and home goods. Joinery method, finish schedule with sheen level, load rating, moisture content for timber, flat-pack hardware list, assembly sequence.
- Toys. Age grading, safety compliance standard such as EN71 or ASTM F963, small-parts testing, non-toxic finish certification, battery compartment specification where relevant.
The fields most people miss
| Category | Most commonly omitted field | Why it costs you |
|---|---|---|
| Apparel | Shrinkage allowance | Garment fits at sample, not after wash |
| Bags | Hardware finish | Mismatched metal across zip, clasp and rivets |
| Footwear | Sizing standard | Whole run graded to the wrong system |
| Jewellery | Plating thickness | Finish wears through within months |
| Furniture | Moisture content | Timber warps or splits after shipping |
| Toys | Compliance standard | Product cannot legally be sold in its market |
Each of these is cheap to specify and expensive to discover. A techpack maker that understands the category will prompt for them; one that only knows apparel will not know to ask, and silence is easy to mistake for a field you did not need.
Why category coverage matters when choosing a tool
Most tools in this space are built around garments, which is reasonable, apparel is the largest market. The problem appears the moment you make something else. An apparel-shaped template will happily generate a grading table for a ceramic mug, because it has no concept of what a mug is. Worth checking before you commit to a workflow: does the AI tech pack generator you are considering hold real category models, or one garment template presented as universal?
FAQ
Can one file cover a product with mixed materials?
Yes. A bag with a metal clasp needs both the hardware fields and the material fields, list them as separate BOM lines with their own specs.
Do non-apparel factories expect the same format?
The structure is familiar everywhere. The vocabulary differs, which is why using the right terms for your category matters more than the layout.
What if my product does not fit any of these?
Start from the five constants, then ask a prospective factory what they need beyond them. Most will tell you directly.
Will an ai tech pack maker invent fields it does not understand?
A weak one will fill every field it has, whether or not the field applies. Reviewing the output against your own category list is the check that catches it.
Specify for the product you are actually making
The fastest way to lose two weeks is to send a factory a beautifully formatted document written in the wrong technical language. An ai tech pack maker that recognises your category will populate the fields that category needs, and leave out the ones it does not. Pick the product you are furthest along with, generate one pack, and compare it against the field list above for your category, the gaps will be obvious within a few minutes.
Describe your bag, jewellery piece or footwear style in Genpire and check the output against the category fields above before you send it anywhere.
Related reading: What's inside an AI tech pack and the 10-point tech pack generator scorecard.