Lawson Software announced that TAL, a leading garment manufacturer based in Hong Kong, successfully implemented the Lawson M3 Fashion Planning Workbench and the Supply Chain Order solutions. As two key components of the Lawson solution for the fashion industry, these enterprise applications are designed to help TAL achieve shorter planning and production lead times, respond faster to market trends and improve inventory management.
TAL is one the largest and most successful fashion apparel producers in the world producing approximately 55 million garments each year. TAL owns 4.2 million square feet of production floor area in 12 factories worldwide, and creates one in every seven dress shirts sold in the United States.
TAL has been using the Lawson M3 Enterprise Management System since 2002 in its factories in seven countries to help minimize production peaks and valleys. To achieve that, the company identified medium- to long-term planning as one of the critical processes for its operation, because it needs to match production capacities across all factories with orders that it expects six to nine months in advance.
TAL also wanted to achieve higher visibility in material requirements planning, because most of the company’s products are made-to-order, requiring specific materials for specific orders. The company selected the Lawson Fashion Planning Workbench and Supply Chain Order solutions to help improve production and material requirements planning.
The Lawson M3 Fashion Planning Workbench helps TAL balance production load across its multiple sites and assists with planning at the style/color level. This gives TAL the ability to better plan capacity across the company’s various production sites and simulate load based on possible operational and business changes.
“We used to rely on Excel spreadsheets for mid-to-long-term capacity planning but it was time consuming, not integrated and susceptible to human error,” said Delman Lee, director of technology for TAL.
“With Fashion Planning Workbench, whether it is the sales team loading orders or the planners balancing capacity, all changes are immediately updated for everyone to see. We also saved time. For 200,000 orders, we used to take eight hours to download and sort date with Excel, but it can be done in 30 minutes now.”
Implemented at 10 of TAL’s production sites, the Lawson M3 Supply Chain Order solution helps TAL plan and manage order chains by linking orders with supply chain data. This helps the company manage issues related to changes along the supply chain. The solution is designed to help improve delivery accuracy, reduce inventories, eliminate manual work and allow more agile management of supply chain issues.
“With Supply Chain Order, if we change the quantity of a customer’s order, all other related material requirement orders are taken care of. We estimate that this gives us 80 percent savings in time spent on these tasks,” added Lee.
“While requirements and expectations in the garment manufacturing industry have increased, one thing that hasn’t changed is the drive for lower costs and increased efficiency,” said David Hope, regional managing director for Lawson in Asia and Japan. “With Lawson M3 Fashion Planning Workbench and Supply Chain Order, garment manufacturers have a great deal of flexibility and automation that allows them to become more efficient, more responsive to market trends, and to reduce total costs.”
With Lawson M3 Fashion Planning Workbench and Supply Chain Orders, TAL is better positioned to manage seasonal peaks and valleys for production. “If TAL’s goal of having a flat production cycle is achieved, the projected saving will be US$3 million a year,” added Lee.
“But the benefits don’t just stop there. If we achieve an evenly loaded plant, where we plan for an even line of normal working hours, we can increase the overtime limit, which means an opportunity to take more orders.”
