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Development Ltd
4
. Opportunity / Problem Definition and Objectives
As the company began to grow, and new clients were
secured, overriding issues started to cause problems,
namely:
- Production
problems
- Managing
offshore production
- Client
communication
- Keeping
ahead of the competition
4.1.
Production problems
Several problematic factors existed in production:
- Wide
product range (“Boots to suits”)
As a provider of corporate clothing the company
had to supply an ever-increasing range of products
including; belts, fleeces, overalls, jackets, ties,
aprons and deli jackets – the list was immense;
- Unpredictable
quantities (“One to Thousands”)
Quantities varied from one single garment to tens
of thousands often with requirements including one
off ‘specials’ for wearers outside the
normal size range.
- Cyclic
production volume
Production for any one client over a typical four
year period commenced with a large volume rollout
for the first two to three months followed by a
drop in demand to a lower “ongoing supply”
quantity before the next large rollout;
For these
issues the company defined an objective to outsourcing production to match
demand as required using a process known as Cut, Make and Trim (CMT).
CMT operates as follows:
- the company
designs the products
- specify
all component parts
- buy all
the components from fabrics to trimmings
- specify
how it is to be made
- ship
materials and instructions to manufacturing plants
who are subcontracted to assemble the product
- control
the production quality in the manufacturing plant
- finished
items are shipped back to IDL for distribution
4.2.
Managing Offshore Production
As per the old proverb ‘when it rains it pours’,
another setback manifested itself. In 1998/99 the Irish
clothing industry went through a huge upset. During
one short period the vast majority of clothing manufacturing
capacity in Ireland disappeared and moved overseas.
Most manufacturing now took place offshore mainly in
North Africa and Eastern Europe.
As the nature of IDL’s production followed the
industry CMT model, a far greater capacity than before
now had to go offshore. It wasn’t just a question
of cost reduction or being un-patriotic, it was a necessity
- only scant domestic manufacturing capacity remained
in a small number of product areas.
Diverting the bulk of assembly to offshore plants brought
about new issues. The diverse nature and cultures of
the factories along with the sheer distances involved,
meant the company had to attempt to exercise a higher
level of control over the manufacturing process, ensuring
garment quality, consistency and timely delivery. The
specifications and instructions sent to plants needed
to be precise and unambiguous.
The level of internal production management expertise
needed to rise in order to co-ordinate foreign production
with the head office requirements in Dublin. To achieve
this IDL needed to change its workflow practices. They
needed to synchronise the buying of materials, the supply
of comprehensive instructions along with the distribution,
co-ordination and control of the garment assembly process.
All this needed to be enforced over great distances
with the clarity and speed.
As the company continued to grow these issues caused
more problems. Managing the logistics of the operation
became increasingly difficult. The second major objective
was to look to an eBusiness initiative to tackle these
difficulties.
Another important aspect of the IDL’s business
was frequent communications with customers, as the supply
of clothing was often a contractual and on-going process.
At that time IDL worked on a paper driven Sales Order
Processing (SOP) system. Sales orders were made via
telephone or fax with all details having then to be
entered onto the SOP system manually.
Although IDL felt there was no need to have a promotional,
marketing oriented web site, they wished to offer a
Business-to-Business (B2B) web service to their customers.
IDL defined the objective to build a B2B site. This
site would offer their customers tailor made features
to improve both customer services and communications
A number of large UK based clothing concerns were infiltrating
the Irish market at this time and securing major corporate
contracts. The company wanted to communicate effectively
with their clients and have the same capabilities as
their larger competitors, but without incurring the
same overheads. IDL required a means of communicating
routine information to their clients with minimal effort
and cost.
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