Continuous Improvement - A Necessity for Survival in the Modern Apparel Environment
As suppliers compete fiercely to respond to customer requirements for new standards of speed and flexibility, all conventional practices must be challenged and new ways found to supply quality garments faster and more effectively than ever before. The 'bar has been raised' higher than ever before and continues to rise at such a pace that only the most responsive and dynamic companies can expect to keep pace.
Good planning sits at the heart of any successful and responsive business. Achieving total visibility of all key factors during the planning process offers huge performance improvement opportunities, which many companies cannot currently realise because they simply lack the right tools for the job.
To rise to the challenge, vendors must:
- Dramatically Reduce Lead Times - through improved coordination and communication, proactive Critical Path Management, ‘One Version Of The Truth’, with dynamic priorities driven by the latest plan.
- Improve Flexibility - faster response to enquiries and changes, through reduction in manual (normally spreadsheet based) systems - better integration and visibility, including latest raw materials visibility when planning.
- Reduce Prices - through improved work-flow and efficiency, better awareness of capacity and capabilities, clear visibility of potential process bottlenecks and early warnings of potential problems in time to take action.
- Invest in Technology - free up investment capital through reduced work in progress and raw material stocks.
- Grow rapidly and in a controlled manner - by achieving a high level of standardisation in clear, easy to use systems, which minimise manual work, provide a central point of reference and facilitate the introduction of new staff to good working practices.
Fastreact facilitates the continuous improvement process, with ongoing, product development dedicated only to the garment industry, to ensure that Fastreact customers can stay at the leading edge of competitiveness in the apparel supply chain. Quick and easy to use, Fastreact provides Total Visibility in the planning process, bringing capacity, raw materials and critical path activities to one highly visual point of reference, on the Company network. All key information is available at the point of planning and then on-going changes in any one area, such as raw material availability or sample approvals are immediately highlighted to show any impact on the latest production plan.
Current performance, work in progress issues and supplier performance are similarly visible. ‘What-if’, scenario planning functions allow several alternative plans to be explored rapidly, without risk to the master schedule.
The powerful Fastreact report generator allows free capacity, loading and efficiency, factory schedules, work in progress issues, financial reports and customer delivery information all to be reported, emailed or exported from the system quickly and easily, whilst collaborative planning functions allow electronic updates from suppliers, sales offices etc.
Fastreact can be interfaced to a wide variety of business systems from In-House systems to SAP, thereby providing the tools required to stay ahead.
Fastreact facilitates the continuous improvement process, with ongoing, product development dedicated only to the garment industry, to ensure that Fastreact customers can stay at the leading edge of competitiveness in the apparel supply chain.
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