Business

"Eighty-five percent of the reasons for failure are deficiencies in the systems and process rather than the employee. The role of management is to change the process rather than badgering individuals to do better." - W. Edwards Deming

Increasing levels of automation in the textile and fashion industry are an indication that companies understand the need to standardise, to measure, so that improvements can happen. Too often, the industry focuses on labour costs and productivity, rather than working towards standardising and improving processes and systems in a production house, for lean manufacturing, right first time, and overall increasing productivity and cutting costs.

And there are a host of tools available to the industry to do it right. As the industry takes decisions to invest in state-of-the-art production technologies over the next few months, supply chain management solutions is one important segment that it needs to start looking at with seriousness.

Cloud computing in textile management

New York based Infor builds industry-specific business applications with last mile functionality and scientific insights delivered as a cloud service. Dixcy Textiles Pvt Ltd, one of the leaders in the branded hosiery segment in India, has chosen Infor solutions - Infor M3, XI and d/EPM - to enhance core business processes and user experience for employees.

Dixcy Textiles uses Infor solutions to improve efficiencies

With over 3,000 employees, Dixcy Textiles has the capacity to produce up to 625,000 pieces of garments a day which get sold through 120,000 stores. Dixcy has witnessed excellent business growth over the last few years and was looking for an end-to-end software platform to achieve better process control and improve efficiencies.

The intent was to find a solution that is purpose-built and yet modern for use by millennials, considerations that prompted Dixcy to select Infor as the solution partner.

The textile major leveraged Infor M3 along with Infor XI and d/ EPM - purposefully-designed to provide better solution capability, heighten asset visibility, reduce procedural complexities, and instill more confidence in client relationships and business understanding.

Says Prem Prakash Sikka, Chairman & Managing Director, Dixcy Textiles Pvt Ltd, "The fashion industry is one of the most competitive in customer demands and trends.

With Infor's integrated solution, we are empowered to manage the entire process - including sourcing, distribution, manufacturing, and right up to wholesale - more efficiently, while allowing cost control to the company. We are thrilled that we have been enabled to move as quickly as the market does."

Infor M3 is a comprehensive, centralised ERP, built for medium to large national and international manufacturers and distributors. Written in Java, M3 gives clients platform independence and choice.

The complete Infor M3 System is comprised of five integrated product suites which together manage all the core and supporting processes in a business. Most make, move and maintain companies have unique needs related to customer service.

Customer Sales & Service offers support for market development, sales and after-sales service processes-particularly in multi-channel sales environments where you need a complete picture of customer commitments.

Customer Sales & Service combines web, mobile, and traditional order management tools with full service and rental management capability.

Advanced internet-based sales tools give your customers self-service capabilities, helping to drive your cost of sales down. With these applications, a company can manage everything from simple discrete products to complex configured products and kits, make-to-order or make-to-stock, telesales, and EDI. You can manage your sales channels using the same availability, pricing, and fulfillment controls whether they are office or field based.

The Infor M3 Customer Sales & Service Suite includes Sales & Marketing Automation, Sales Management, e-Sales, Service Management, Rental Management, Maintenance Order Management, and Project Management.

Infor M3 Enterprise Asset Management

For many businesses, asset availability is important. For businesses providing maintenance services to customers, it's critical. Enterprise Asset Management provides a solution to these challenges. The Infor M3 Enterprise Asset Management Suite includes Preventive Maintenance, Diagnostics Management, Work Order Processing, Equipment & Component Control, Maintenance Performance & Costing, and Vehicle.

Infor's other solutions for efficient management of business include supply chain management, financial management, management of manufacturing operations, CRM integration.

Indigo8's solutions for fashion business

The textile industry has a host of options to choose from. Another New York based company is Indigo8, which offered systems and softwares originally designed to manage the communication of all product information between their two New York design offices, Jersey warehouse and three Asian offices.

The system quickly grew to manage far more, including core operations such as pricing, quality control, critical paths, samples and production. This was way back in 2003, years before the cloud computing trend really took off.

Today Indigo8 have four core products: Clearstream Lite, Clearstream, Clearstream Enterprise and Pret-a Pos. Majority of its customers are apparel and fashion companies. The company caters to the day-to-day operational software needs.

So what does Indigo8 do

The following is an example of how its Clearstream product helps a growing fashion company run their operations.

Sam is a Sydney based fashion designer, running a successful clothing label with eight staff in an industry that is highly competitive. She currently sells to over 100 Australian retail stores and work's with an LA agent who represents her label there. Sam's fashion supply chain management including products, customers, suppliers, prices, sales, purchase orders and inventory are all stored within Indigo8.

Her staff constantly use it to analyse information, answer internal and customer questions, search on order information, account inquiries and all other general items that are part of the product development life cycle. In other companies in this industry, this information is typically stored in spreadsheets.

The following is the typical path that a collection will take as it moves through Indigo8's Clearstream apparel PLM software.

Product Design

Sam has just designed a new collection consisting of 60 new styles. She now wants to get them into her Indigo8 supply chain software so that she can order her samples and calculate her costs and prices.

Because Sam is extremely organised, she is using 12 fabrics and 25 trims across the entire collection; she places each fabric and trim onto a template before dragging the required items to their designated styles. Sam then drags the artwork and images of the styles from her desktop onto the styles as well. Filling in any technical information, before finally applying the specs and size information.

Her product input is now complete. From here, Indigo8 Solutions provides Sam with technology that has literally transformed her fashion supply chain.

Sampling

Sam's assistant order's the samples and tracks their progress using Indigo8 Solutions fashion supply chain software. It tells here which samples needs to be sent out, what is at the maker and the styles that have been sent back ready for quality checking and photo shoot.

The apparel supply chain software provides technology to manage the entire process from a single screen within the system.

Pricing

As samples arrive so will the factory FOB prices, Sam records the FOB prices in the system and then uses it to calculate her other costs such as freight, insurance and forwarder fees.

She can then use some simple tools to help her work out her margin, wholesale and retail prices.

Sales

When the samples arrive, Sam arranges her selling photos and uploads them into the Indigo8 SALES module. Armed with pricing, description's and selling images, she uses this information in the following ways:

Website

Soon after organising her sales, Sam arranges for the new range to be published to her integrated website, she can do this with a single click of a button.

Ipad

Her sales staff and agents can record sales in real time. Any sale recorded will feed directly into the main system, right from their IPAD.

Sales Forms (Excel)

For sales people without Ipads they can use the system generated excel sales forms. Which can be emailed out to anybody, filled in, returned and imported quickly and easily.

Ka-ching!

The new collection is selling like hot cakes, Sam has hundreds of orders flowing directly into her PLM software system, which have been entered with minimum effort, there has been almost no double entry of information. Sam's apparel supply chain has never been so organised.

Consolidation

Sam is getting the collection made with three different manufacturers. One local and the others in Asia. She wants to create three purchase orders and track the status of around 15 critical path tasks for each factory.

Her production manager uses Indigo8 to consolidate all those sales from hundreds of individual stores and buyers into just a few Purchase orders. The system can perform this function that used to take the Production Manager days in just 20 minutes.

Purchase Order Management

The production manager uses the critical path feature to track lab dip approvals, and fabric purchases that they need to arrange and send to the factory. The system allows her to create her own tasks and assign them to internal staff and track what is going on.

Delivery of the goods

Sam's products are shipped from the factory to both New York and Sydney for distribution which is managed internally. The system allows for Sam to have an unlimited number of warehouses, so this is easy for her to track. Her team then use Indigo8 to receive and check the goods, generate the final invoices and send her designs to the people that orders them. This is all seamless and each delivery is based on the original sales order.

Using modern solutions and innovative technology, the product lifecycle management software provides order in an industry that is often swamped in data entry and confusion.

Data management is necessary and easy

Europride Ltd supplies some of the UK's largest fashion retailers (New Look, Asda, House of Fraser, ASOS). However, its biggest challenge was understanding, managing and capitalising on its vast amounts of data.

It was clear that carbon paper copies were no longer a sustainable business tool. And with just four people managing the movement of 30,000 units per week, the administrative burden was starting to impact on the manufacturing process. The biggest problem was not knowing what was happening in real-time, as the company grew at a rapid rate.

The Challenge

Europride's ability to make crucial business decisions with the vast amount of data held in various spreadsheets became increasingly more difficult. As the business grew, managing and maintaining data manually resulted in inaccuracies and inefficiencies. In order to drive a new phase of growth, Europride needed to get its backoffice in order so that it could improve productivity throughout the entire business.

It was necessary to systemise processes, gain full transparency, and consolidate information into one location, including stock inventory, factory capacity and critical path. Hollie Hampton, Europride's Production Manager said, "The key to growth within our business is to ensure we optimise productivity across all regions and have an accurate view of the status of all our deliveries. We need real-time information and full visibility across our supply chain so that we can accommodate all eventualities - both planned and unplanned - from the timing of big cultural events like Ramadan or Chinese New Year, to unforeseen events impacting production deadlines."

The Solution

With the aim of developing a system that could take control of inventory and the whole supply chain process, Fabacus Overture helped identify all the different weaknesses that were affecting the company as a whole. Overture's management system was used for all manufacturing processes, enabling the business to keep up with the challenges of a fast-growing industry. Once Overture was implemented, Hollie could instantly see the difference. "Overture consolidates the information for us, and it now takes only two minutes to run our reports so we can make instantaneous decisions, rather than manually pulling together the information which used to take us half a day."

Overture enabled Europride to simplify their ordering and management processes and respond quicker to changes in customer demands around design, fabrics and trim. It achieved greater visibility and transparency of where every garment, button, stitch and zip was at any point in time, and gave an accurate status of every customer order.

Hollie's team now have the ability to manage an international fast fashion business without breaking a sweat. As a result, Europride were able to increase production from 40,000 to more than 400,000 garments a week.

Overture helped them by:

1. Boosting productivity

2. Improving communication

3. Prioritising raw material requirements

4. Increasing factory productivity and on-time production

5. Reducing wastage at every stage

6. Stopping over-ordering

7. Removing handwritten notes and Excel errors

8. Controlling and reduce level of material inventory and work in progress

9. Improving on-time delivery

Indochine achieves sustainable business growth with WFX

Indochine International is a global sourcing and manufacturing company in textiles with offices in over five countries and around 6,000 staff members. With clients like Forever New, Guess, and DKNY, Indochine has registered an impressive growth since many years. Their biggest challenge was to achieve uniformity among teams operating from different geographies and following varied processes, while not disrupting the performance of the organisation. In short, they were looking for an ERP tailored to the fashion industry, easy to use, flexible, and easy to integrate with their clients' ERPs.

Indochine opted for WFX software for its creative and adaptable functionality. The company believed that WFX software would solve most of their issues and not only introduce a single platform for their global team but would also scale with their business.

WFX team identified four specific goals:

1. Integrate local processes to a single platform

2. Establish global controls and pre-defined frameworks

3. Set up an approval matrix and provide transparency

4. Automate processes to eliminate duplication of efforts

Through the integrated order management, manufacturing and shipping modules, every department now possesses detailed instructions on requirements, deadlines, and real-time delay notifications in their work orders.

"Different departments had different spreadsheets. It was very difficult to integrate and read the data. With WFX, we were able to get all of that on the same platform. Cross-platform reports used to take two days minimum to compile. Now it takes ten to fifteen minutes," says Kevin, IT Manager, Indochine.

Bhartiya International Ltd. implements WFX Cloud ERP

Bhartiya International Limited, the largest exporter of leather fashion products in India implemented WFX Cloud ERP to enhance global manufacturing operations. Bhartiya's products are retailed by global fashion brands in Europe and North America and the company runs an annual capacity of half a million leather garments.

WFX Cloud ERP will manage Bhartiya's entire end-to-end business functions from product development, budgets, material planning, capacity management, merchandising, sourcing, production, quality control, sub-contracting, logistics and financial accounting.

This is a much needed in a company of the scale of Bhartiya, with 10 manufacturing locations in Inda, China, Bangladesh and Italy; six creative prototyping facilities; nine business development offices worldwide, that cater to 65 fashion brands across the world.

WFX will seamlessly integrate information and processes between design and merchandising studios in Milan with Bhartiya's world-wide manufacturing facilities and network.

"A global ERP solution has been a key strategic initiative to take our business to the next level. Though we are a large publicly-listed entity, our business demands that we move with the speed of a small company. Our success is a result of our flexibility, speed and innovation and we needed a technology partner and a product that directly enhances those qualities. WFX's track record, technology and ability to successfully implement software across management down to even workers with lower-literacy made it clear that they understand our business and are the right company to partner with." says Manoj Khattar, CFO, Bhartiya International Limited.

Says Mark Burstein, President, Sales, Marketing, R&D at NGC Software, "Organizational silos are the bane of so many brands' and retailers' supply chains, from disconnected departments to information disparages across channels. But there is relief in sight in the form of today's next generation supply chain management (SCM) systems that are connecting channels and alleviating the pain silos put on production and profits."

He lists out a few ways businesses can implement these new SCM practices across their enterprise, by:

1. Responding quickly to sales data. Boosting sales and profitability can be summed up with a simple formula: If something is selling, accelerate production and make more of it; if it's not selling, cut the losses and stop making it, because it's cheaper to cancel production. Even a handful of poor-selling products can ruin overall profitability. With the SCM hub connecting design, finance, sales and production data in real time, retailers and brands can quickly react to the latest sales information and make the most of every season.

2. Postponement. SCM allows organisations to push decision-making further downstream; this concept of postponement-waiting until the last possible minute to make decisions - is central to lead time optimisation. And it improves decisions, because the further into the design-production process, the more information companies have and the better decisions they make.

3. Performing quality audits at the factory. SCM allows organisations to incorporate quality audits as part of the enterprise platform. This enables you to check for quality at the factory before the goods ship; if an audit fails, you can address it at the source, resolving quality issues quickly and without undue cost.

Closing The Zara Gap - The Role of Technology

Zara has been a classic example of efficient supply chain management in the fashion industry. Everyone in the industry wants to achieve the level of success Zara continues to have each year, but the question still remains: How?

Relates Megan Castillo from NGC Software, "The Zara model presents a flat-out culture shock to most companies. Who ever heard of designing for 26 seasons a year? Or better yet, getting product from concept-to-store in just 15 days! We're not programmed to think or work in that way. And not everyone wants to get into the business of 'fast fashion'. But we could all learn a little something from Zara on how mastering the fashion supply chain leads to greater profit. At a recent event organised by Sourcing Journal, the discussion turned to how critical it is to speed up production and to eliminate the indecisiveness that tends to slow down the supply chain. As one attendee said, 'If it was only that easy. You should see the number of design revisions we go through for one style!'"

The reality is, it may take some investment in time and money on your side, but the efficiencies you will gain are worth it in the end.

1. Establish intuitive workflow calendars that manage milestone events and alert you when dates are missed that can cause production delays.

2. Collaborate with your global supply chain partners in real-time, and eliminate the use of spreadsheets and emails that become outdated or lost.

3. Reduce sample turnaround times, revisions, and overall cost with improved communications.

4. Start planning material requirements to lock in costs.

5. Eliminate indecisiveness with key analytics like sell-thru analysis and other big data, so you can cut what's not selling and allocate materials and resources to more of what is selling.

6. View real-time work-in-process updates when making decisions, not last Thursday's numbers.

7. Improve quality control with remote inspections, eliminating mistakes at the source, rather than waiting until the goods are shipped, saving time and money.

8. And more…

To sum up, you need to start making changes, even at the smallest level, and an SCM technology solution can help. We don't have time for mistakes, so we have to spend extra time planning.

NGC's EZ-Ship eases communications and improves packing and shipping accuracy

According to Mark Burnstein, "One of the biggest dilemmas we hear about from customers is the need to communicate with factories overseas to make sure merchandise is packed and shipped correctly. NGC's EZ-Ship is the best solution to this common problem and a necessity in today's omni-channel world to ensure shipments make it from the factory to their destination."

What is EZ-Ship?

EZ-Ship is a scan-pack solution and electronic data exchange that interfaces with NGC's Retail Supply Chain Management solution and can handle standard EDI X12 retailer's requirements. The software empowers manufacturers to introduce scan-packing and scan-loading to be compliant with purchase orders types such as: musical or mixed SKUs, solid SKUs or pre-pack orders. Therefore manufacturers are able to improve carton content and shipment accuracy to its distributions centres (DCs) and/or customers, and help reduce chargebacks and shipping errors that occur when merchandise is not delivered according to purchase order (PO) requirements.

Benefits of NGC's EZ-Ship

Benefits of EZ-Ship include:

1. Ease of Use: EZ-Ship has a simple workflow and easy to use system

2. Data Integrity: All data comes from SCM and/or EDI interfaces to ensure data integrity

3. Flexibility: Supports multiple shipping methodology and GS1-128 label formats

4. Security: Only P.O.'s assigned to the factory can be downloaded to EZ-Ship

5. Data Protection: All data is seamless transferred between EZ-Ship and SCM

6. Automation: Uploading and downloading of data can be automated

Leading apparel brands, including DXL, have already integrated EZ-Ship. DXL uses EZ-Ship to reduce chargebacks and packing errors by validating the contents of each carton and shipment sent from the retailer's factories. The retailer, who also utilises NGC's Fashion PLM, is the largest omni-channel specialty retailer of big & tall men's apparel.

EZ-Ship integrates with DXL's SCM and EDI systems and allows for shipments to multiple DCs directly from the factory. The solution supports unlimited ASN and label formats, providing remote shipping sites with the flexibility to use a standard import and export data set that easily integrates with any ERP, WMS or DC system.

SAP offers a host of solutions for the fashion industry

According to SAP, 18 of the top 20 apparel and footwear retailers in the world run SAP solutions. And 10 of the most admired retailers in the world run SAP solutions. With SAP solutions, fashion companies can verticalise their businesses and shorten the time from concept to customer, boost collaboration across the supply chain, and offer end-to-end visibility, flexibility and speed SAP solutions can help companies achieve these objectives while reducing overall IT costs and promoting future growth.

So what do SAP solutions help customers do? It helps in brand and merchandise management, procurement and manufacturing management, supply chain management, and omnicommerce customer experience management.

Apparel Magic's cloud solutions for the apparel industry

Another very popular supply chain management system is from Apparel Magic. The company's products and solutions have received rave reviews and endorsements from its clients. Companies look to ApparelMagic's PLM features when they need to track every important requirement during the product's development and selling lifespan. From the very beginning stages, when designs are being reviewed, fabrications tested, specs revised, and when important decisions are made regarding sourcing and raw material choices, high-visibility PLM is not a luxury, it's a mission-critical necessity.

Smaller companies who outsource production still need to record whether and when a garment has met compliance requirements (such as CPSIA, Prop 65, etc.). That's why Mulberribush owner David Feinberg credits ApparelMagic for "the ability to trim costs, by better understanding the entire product and sales environment - labour, materials, production cycles, customer buying patterns."

And larger companies, who typically control broader aspects of the development and supply chain, rely on ApparelMagic to track every important sign-off date and document reference in the testing and compliance process. According to Seven Licensing's President and Chief Financial Officer Peter Akaragian, "Whether it's a redesign to enhance the product's appeal or a change in available fabric and sourcing, we use ApparelMagic's PLM to determine our options and respond effectively."

ApparelMagic's unique "event history" tracking and document linking means that whether data is stored directly in our system or referenced by document number, the managers have instant access to requests, responses and the current status of certifications. They can even call up instant images of the certificates themselves.

But PLM requirements go far beyond formal certifications. ApparelMagic also presents a unified view of product history, including lab dips, customer approvals, details on the origin and consumption of raw materials, management of design sign-offs, technical drawings and photo images of garments, trims and accessories.

Once the product has survived the development process, ApparelMagic provides in-depth analysis of its sales performance and relative contribution to the bottom line. Ranking and analytical reports provide decision support to justify expanding the product, revising or retiring it, based on clear visibility of its performance over time. Badgley Mischka President Christine Bell Currence states, "ApparelMagic's PLM system has given us a significant boost in efficiency in many different departments. We use the system throughout the company to share data with designers, customer-service agents, production and inventory-control departments, even our warehouse fulfillment partners."

Today's most advanced and competitive players require a PLM that is light years ahead of what was expected even five years ago. Web access to far-flung offices and personnel is demanded. Drag and drop image management is essential. Onboard email integration for transmitting transactions, tech packs and approval forms is expected.

Solutions for the machine maintenance segment

Modustri and Caterpillar Inc. have launched a global machine and wear management platform for dealers worldwide. Modustri, a maker of analytics solutions for large scale deployments, announced the launch of the global wear part and machine management platform for heavy duty equipment with Caterpillar Inc. The Cat® Wear Management System is now available to Caterpillar's dealer network worldwide and features tools that will enhance the dealers' abilities to measure wear on parts, optimise machine fleets more effectively, forecast parts needs, and maximise maintenance and service performance.

"Through our joint effort with Caterpillar, we're able to combine the power of web-based and mobile experiences with our ground-breaking hardware technology to deliver a platform that completes and amplifies wear part and machine management across the dealership," said David Hamady, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, who recently joined Modustri and brings 20 years of advanced technology and solutions sales experience. "Dealers are no longer confined to relying on silos of field inspections, and manual quoting and forecasting processes. Our strategic alliance with Caterpillar has created a platform that will revolutionise the industry by providing dealers and Caterpillar the ability to utilise data efficiently and predictively, lowering the cost to serve, increase customer experience, and maximising asset uptime."

As Modustri brings this joint solution to industries beyond heavy equipment manufacturing, it is aiming to help companies gather and deliver data in a concise, meaningful way so it's easier for them to identify new opportunities for efficienc