1	Driving Speed and Efficiency with Supply Chain Visibility
2	Wilsons Leather Background Leading specialty retailer of leather outerwear, apparel and accessories in the United States. 619 Stores in 45 states Mall Outlet Airport Seasonal Stores (additional 200-300 stores) 2002 Revenue - $720 Million Vertically integrated with production facilities throughout Asia
3	The Challenge - 2000 No production Sourcing systems: Email Faxes Spreadsheets Goal: Define and implement a Sourcing systems infrastructure that will enable the achievement of long term Sourcing objectives and support the company’s overall growth initiatives
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5	The Business Impact Double and triple handling of every PO and Spec package Makers and Asia office unsure if data was accurate and / or timely Manual, weekly production tracking via email, phone calls, and spreadsheets Non-targeted problem communication resulting in conflicting direction A manual, monthly process that could not support dynamic, weekly ordering with varying cycle time requirements
6	The Business Case Not made solely with the removal of non-value added labor The case was made by evaluating the business impact of poor visibility scenarios: Cost of missing a cancelled PO where demand has crashed Lost margin because of a 2 week delay in shipping on a trend item Lost margin because of a missed PO revision for an increase in demand Cost of product where the wrong sub material was used due to late spec Intangible - Sourcing can’t accommodate varying, weekly cycle times Intangible - Sourcing can’t scale, poor data integrity, flexibility
7	The Vision Real time, web based, direct to maker PO’s and Spec Packages One central source of information, ensuring all stakeholders were viewing the same, most current, accurate, and complete information available Automated alerts and reporting to indicate production problems early in the production cycle, enabling proactive vs. reactive issue resolution Targeted problem communication, collaboration, and resolution Technology that enabled dynamic ordering with varying production cycle times
8	Choosing a Technology Partner Required a partner that grasped the business problem and had the willingness and capability to grow with Wilsons and their requirements over time Developed an RFP that included process scripts to be followed that demonstrated the software’s capability to solve the business problems Invited three vendors to demonstrate their capabilities
9	The Solution – NGC’s e-SPS Exhibited tremendous customer focus and service in preparation Felt strongly about our ability to partner with NGC for the long term The technology solved our business problems Incomparable / Untouchable Ease of Use Low cost start up - utilized the common internet browser language Flexible and scaleable
10	Implementation & Training - 2001 Initial implementation consisted of 3 e-SPS modules: Production Tracking Product Development Collaboration From hardware installation to start of maker pilot was 4 months The partnership yielded flawless system execution once in production Utilized train the trainer model to rollout. Trained via video conference in 2 hour time frame. Web based functionality extremely intuitive and well received.
11	Customer Response After a week of training vendors, our Hong Kong office reported: “Training went well and they love the new system. They all believe it will help them better manage their orders. On the home office side, we were slow to bring up our Accessories vendors. Our Hong Kong office regularly pushed to get Accessories implemented because of the benefit they received with Garments. India desperately wanted to go-live on the system. From one of our toughest merchants: “The system is very easy to use!”
12	Results -2002 Eliminated majority of non-value added labor activity Improved cycle time Ensured the visibility to be timely, accurate, and single source Targeted communication / collaboration Moving to the proactive vs. the reactive Foundation for larger supply chain initiatives. Could not be executed without e-SPS.
13	Lessons Learned Change management is still the biggest component of any improvement initiative. Technology by itself will not change old habits. I.e. The production veteran still wants to track production his way. Re-definition of roles is essential to move forward - time will be filled The system is intuitive enough to be trained in 2 hours via video conference
14	Next Steps - A Growing Partnership Have implemented e-calendars that has enabled proactive leather development tracking e-Pack is currently being implemented to provide electronic shipping documents with the goal of eliminating customs delays / inefficiency Implementing Inbound Visibility in July 2003 to provide full “in-transit” visibility from the time of PO ship through to DC receipt. Implementing quality module late 2003 that will enable remote quality sampling, quality defect tracking, and vendor quality score carding.