How Digitizing Information Can Help Disrupt Fashion – Source Journal

Like many consumer goods, fashion items have a limited shelf life. Since time is of the essence, hitting the right delivery window is critical to avoid overcrowding.

Visibility can help brands and retailers avoid getting stuck with “old” inventory, said David Levitt, senior solutions engineer at Exenta from Aptean, in a recent Sourcing Journal webinar, End-to-End Efficiency: Leveraging Visibility from Planning to Delivery. “Fashion never stops,” Levitt said. “It’s changing all the time, so visibility into your timing and planning is critical to staying ahead of the fashion curve.”

Adding to the challenge with fast-fading trends, running an apparel business has become increasingly difficult due to recent supply chain disruptions. Shelley White, president of PPE producer Lac-Mac, described the current state of the supply chain as “unpredictable.” And she should know. Her company experienced quadruple lead times, transportation strikes, material shortages, purchase order extensions or cancellations, and more. To combat long lead times, Lac-Mc predicts further into the future, and accurately forecasting demand requires reliable data.

Levitt said that while some supply disruptions are out of the company’s control, the data opens up the ability to better plan for issues so that retailers are not “blindsided.” Exenta from Aptean’s Enterprise Resource Plan (ERP) software covers everything from “concept to cash,” allowing companies to more effectively plan and track where items are in these processes.

ERP gives companies the ability to prioritize production or transportation levels based on demand. For example, it can indicate what needs to be done first to meet deadlines and can be prepared to automatically replace similar items to meet customer needs. Another advantage is the ability to see exactly what needs to be done with the speed of air shipping – perhaps sending a small part of the order that is needed immediately by air instead of the entire order – and reduces costs.

If companies are still using manual data management, they leave themselves open to risks such as missed delivery dates, Levitt said. It is an inefficient use of human resources as skilled workers spend their time on administration and are pulling away from their primary work.

Across the board, digitization helps fashion companies manage their workforce. Especially at the factory level, Xcenta with Aptean’s Shop Floor Control (SFC) solution helps companies account for the capabilities and capabilities of individual workers. Through SFC, Justin Hershoran, senior solutions architect at Exenta from Aptean, says companies can see a 10 to 20 percent increase in efficiency without expanding their workforce, which is in short supply.

“There are many different areas where shop floor control can help with the shortages and issues that companies and people are seeing today, from materials, to labor, and to the shortages that companies and people are seeing today,” Hershoran said.

For Lak-Mac, SFC provides information on machine downtime, allowing the supplier to track costs associated with downtime, repair or replace machines, and plan capacity more accurately. In addition, the right hobby improves cost calculations, which helps in determining the right margins.

Lac-Mac had an ERP before acquiring XNT from Aptean Software, but it ran its factory operations manually. This meant that he tracked quality control and production with paper and Excel spreadsheets. Far from the norm, Hershoran estimates that 70 percent or more of manufacturers don’t have technology on the production floor.

Lac-Mac is regulated by regulatory bodies as it supplies protective and health equipment. Rather than being nice to have, tracking is a must to be able to provide a chain of custody information.

White’s Lac-Mac legacy ERP system did not provide real-time data, which led to planning errors. Rather than typical fashion seasons, Lac-Mac primarily focuses on fast-turning custom orders—typically taking just 12 days from order receipt to shipment. This model requires reliable information to plan for material needs, because resources will be used soon.

One of the things that attracted Lac-Mac to Accenture from Apten was the team that understood the business because many of them worked in fashion. Using this background, the software is designed specifically for the needs of the industry. As an example, fashion products have size and color variations, each of which can be classified as separate SKUs in another ERP. Instead, Exenta from Aptean uses a pattern-based system that tracks all variations as one.

“The Exenta team is made up of people who are from the apparel industry, who understand the apparel industry and speak the language of the apparel industry,” White said.

To learn more, watch the webinar sponsored by Exenta from Aptean:

Watch the webinar here.