It’s fair to say that it’s been a veritable rollercoaster ride for most global apparel manufacturers over the past three years. For those that successfully navigated the Covid pandemic, the subsequent huge rise in costs from materials, energy to shipping, increased geo-political uncertainty and the cost-of-living squeeze affecting global consumers has left most apparel manufacturers shaken as well as resolutely stirred.
The truth is that the pandemic literally galvanised the fashion industry to adopt a digital agenda fast if it stood any chance of surviving an increasingly complex and uncertain future. As a result, the rapid digitisation of the fashion supply chain has ensued at a lightning pace. New solutions are evolving fast and existing technologies are being consistently enhanced to relieve the industry of its notoriously outdated and fundamentally analogue ways of doing business, so it can confidently forge a successful future.
Many fashion manufacturers have consequently acknowledged that in order to survive, they must digitise their processes as much as possible to mitigate risk and remain agile, sustainable and profitable. Another huge incentive is the fact that brands have been quick to reward more technologically advanced vendors with their business – after all, which brand doesn’t want a more reliable supply chain partner?
Although most fashion manufacturers are at different stages of their digital journey, some vendors have been slow to respond to the clarion call for digital transformation due to uncertainty and an overwhelming confusion regarding where they should actually start. Should they invest in 3D design? Purchasing and costing tools? Workforce management solutions? Logistics technologies? Fabric optimisation tools? Or in advanced analytics and AI?
In reality, there is no hard and fast rule on which one specific technology solution will make the biggest difference to all manufacturers, since they are not the same. Apparel companies consequently need to fully research, assess processes and discuss cross-department wise which areas of their business would benefit from digitisation most acutely.
Although apparel manufacturers have a multitude of options and numerous avenues to explore, there is one particular technology that stands out from the rest in being able to directly impact an apparel manufacturer’s bottom line in the fastest and most effective way and that is in the area of planning.
Simply put, digitising planning processes provides the biggest return on your tech investment in the shortest amount of time and enables you to reduce unnecessary production processes and material waste efficiently.
Traditional capacity plan scheduling using manual processes such as Excel is by far one of the most laborious, cumbersome and time-consuming tasks a manufacturer has to face. Planning involves multiple teams with various stakeholders required to make important decisions. Often operating in siloes, without immediate access to accurate capacity plan and critical path information in one unified, connected system, planning teams have to deal with fragmented information, data misalignment and significant coordination challenges.
Analogue-based planning processes consequently result in significant errors which lead to delays, inefficiencies, unnecessary firefighting, material/time waste and increased costs.
By putting the digitisation of planning processes at the heart of their digital agenda, apparel manufacturers can quickly streamline planning workflows in one fell swoop to provide all planning teams – across many factories and across different geographical territories – the unified visibility they need to collaborate super-effectively, in real-time, to make meaningful business decisions together in a faster way.
No other software technology has the ability to optimise efficiencies, cut costs, improve staff morale, reduce waste, boost business agility, enhance ODTP and improve customer service than robust planning tools.
Improved visibility into what can be manufactured where and when – with an accurate assessment of which production lines have the capacity to take on additional orders or lines which have taken on specific product designs before – gives manufacturers the invaluable capability to confidently take up increased business, more varied order requests and the ability to deliver on time – every time. Improved on-time delivery performance, in turn, safeguards profit margins as more expensive freight costs are no longer required to meet customer’s delivery expectations.
In addition, robust planning tools do not just facilitate increased business growth, they also boost staff morale by embedding accuracy and transparency into the production process from the onset, so that employees generally only work during the contracted hours they have signed up for. By effectively eliminating the need for firefighting and excessive overtime working, employees benefit from a more stable working environment with more time to focus on creative areas, customer service or business growth as well as more realistic performance targets. In countries such as Asia where staffing is often a challenge, for example, a well-run, digitally enhanced employer is undoubtedly going to prove to be a more attractive option than one that is not.
The accuracy that digital planning systems can afford also enables manufacturers to realistically monitor and optimise their resource usage, energy consumption and waste generation throughout the planning process. With a greater focus on sustainable practices, not just by consumers, but also by global industry regulators, digital planning systems can play an important role in helping to provide the transparency that regulators need, whilst enhancing sustainability initiatives throughout the apparel industry.
There is little doubt that if fashion manufacturers want to successfully adapt and respond quickly to new customer expectations around sustainability, more personalised fashion customisation and more agile production turnarounds to meet the latest fashion trends, then they must invest and continue to invest in technology and robust digitisation programmes to help them mitigate the many challenges ahead.
By putting planning as the cornerstone of every digitisation roadmap from the very start, apparel and footwear manufacturers lay the strong foundations required to build their digitisation programmes successfully, reaping key business benefits quickly, so that other areas of the business can be digitally integrated at the right time – perhaps following the significant ROI rewards realised from the initial implementation.
As American religious leader and author, Gordon B. Hinckley reminds us, “You can’t build a great building on a weak foundation. You must have a solid foundation if you’re going to have a strong superstructure.”
About the Author – Martyn Page – Director, Customer Success, Coats Digital
Martyn has over 30 years of manufacturing experience in multiple countries and has played an instrumental role in spearheading the opening of numerous manufacturing facilities in the UK, Morocco and Sri Lanka. He facilitated the opening of two FastReactPlan offices in the South Asia region and headed up the training programmes for both concerns in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
Since joining FastReact (now Coats Digital) in 2002, Martyn has been involved in multiple areas of the Coats Digital business, including in implementation, project management and sales and now heads Coats Digital’s Global Success Team.
Martyn is an expert at providing important process improvements required to guarantee a consistent high return for customers and has delivered multiple international projects within timescale and budget that has enabled Coats Digital’s customers to deliver significant ROI from their technology investments.
