Our History
Our Journey Over The Years
COMBINED EXPERIENCE OF 40+ YEARS
We are proud of our incredible history and the journey which started back in 1980 with the passion of a young enthusiastic engineer enriched with the skills embedded in the grains of Sialkot. With combined experience of 40 years in sports goods manufacturing; Forward Group (Parent company of HMK General Trading) is now a trademark of innovation and excellence developed completely on the concepts of Lean and Sustainability. We have achieved a lot due to our commitment and passion. We have the simple goal; achieve highest levels of quality by discovering new horizons of technology
INCEPTION OF FORWARD SPORTS
In 1991 Forward Sports was established by Mr. Khawaja Masood Akhtar, a civil engineer who had been working in the football manufacturing industry for some years and whose passion for the game led him to lead his new sweatshop.
STARTED PARTNERSHIP WITH ADIDAS
The first years of Forward Sports of 50 employees proved to be difficult in the intense and competitive market. However, Masood worked his way out starting from 1000 balls per month and finally won his trust over world biggest giant in the market "Adidas" in 1994.
BEST LEAN MANUFACTURING AWARD
Till 2003 most of the production processes involved in producing hand-stitched balls were manual. Understanding that, Forward strategized his business approach by implementing "Lean Manufacturing" principles that helped reducing waste and won 'Best Lean Manufacturing System' award from adidas.
MECHANIZED MANUFACTURING PROCESS
The year 2004 proved to be revolutionary for Forward Sports as it mechanized most of his football manufacturing processes in this year. Different machines were developed with the help of local and foreign consultants including automatic lamination machine, more than 200 pieces per stroke cutting machines and seven automatic multicolor printing machines
BAGS MANUFACTURING UNIT STARTED
In 2007, Forward achieved another milestone and started Bags Manufacturing with the establishment of a completely separate business unit named “Forward Gear”.
THERMAL BONDING TECHNOLOGY STARTED
In 2008, Forward successfully developed the thermal bonding technology and set up a new assembly line for thermal bonded footballs and took it to the level of mass production of Official Match balls for adidas.
WORLD'S LARGEST HAND STITCHED FOOTBALL PRODUCER
Forward mechanized its hand stitched manufacturing processes and enhanced its capacity to 700,000 hand stitched balls per month and became the world's largest hand stitched football producer. Also in 2009, Forward took quantum leap and won the orders for official match balls of UEFA Champions League 2010 in Spain.
OLYMPIC 2012 OFFICIAL BALL PRODUCER
Forward proudly developed and produced the official balls for the London Olympics 2012.
OFFICIAL WORLDCUP 2014 BALL DEVELOPER
In 2014, Forward won the contract to produce official match ball for the world cup 2014 named “Adidas Brazuca”.
AIRLESS MINI BALL - OFFICIAL MATCH BALL FOR WORLDCUP 2014
In 2017 Forward achieved two major miles stones. Air Less mini ball technology was developed to produce Mini Balls without the Air and also Forward developed the official 2018 World cup ball “Adidas Telstar”
FORWARD GROUP DMCC ESTABLISHED
Forward Group DMCC Commercial Office was established for global selling and International Expansion. It started B2B and B2C operations with its office and dedicated team based in Dubai, UAE
INCEPTION OF HMK GENERAL TRADING
Expanding Horizon into More Areas of Sports, Fitness, Health and Life Style with the inception of HMK General Trading LLC under Forward Group DMCC.