Coats Digital has shared results following FastReactPlan’s adoption by leading sportswear specialist, Bowker Asia Limited.
As per results, Bowker has increased capacity plan accuracy by 10 per cent, boosted production efficiencies by 3 per cent and improved its on-time delivery performance (OTDP) by 10 per cent.
FastReactPlan has enabled the company to connect and consolidate its planning and scheduling information across disparate sources into one highly visual, unified system, enabling it to transform its efficiency, data accuracy and inter-departmental collaboration.
Prior to implementing FastReactPlan, Bowker relied on manual processes such as Excel spreadsheets, emails and lengthy meetings to manage all of its capacity planning and line scheduling processes. As a result, Bowker suffered significant efficiency losses in all areas of the business – unnecessary long periods of production idle time, unnecessary inventory and overtime costs and a loss in revenue as a result of having to provide discounts for late deliveries, on top of additional expedited freight costs.
Fenny Feng, General Manager, Bowker Asia, commented, “The data was disconnected, repetitive and lacked any dynamic linking or overall visibility, so it needed to be repeatedly discussed and confirmed by various departments throughout our meetings – which would typically last over three to four hours.”
FastReactPlan has brought several benefits to Bowker’s planning and scheduling teams. It provides them with a single, real-time source of information, enhancing their understanding of production capacity, order details, and delivery visibility. This improved capacity assessment enables Bowker to handle more diverse and complex orders. The system’s unified information has also enhanced collaboration and decision-making across teams, while automatic notifications and data alerts help predict and plan for last-minute production changes efficiently.
“Thanks to FastReactPlan’s report generation tool that provides us with the data-supported business analyses we need to make agile, informed business decisions,” added Fenny Feng.
Sonic Wu, Senior MIS Manager, Bowker Asia, commented, “Our planning teams are consequently able to monitor the loading and capacity of each factory at any time, which was not possible in the past. Now, we can effectively manage a longer-term forward-looking plan, and quickly assess different status orders to successfully create realistic delivery times, whilst also effectively balance the impact of uneven capacity scenarios in low and peak seasons.”
“We are thrilled that Bowker has experienced such fantastic results since its adoption of FastReactPlan,” mentioned Andy Zhang, Project Manager, Coats Digital, adding, “The solution has positively impacted all areas of the business and proves just how vital, accurate and highly visual, capacity plans are to the future growth of fashion apparel manufacturers. Bowker is a trailblazer in the sportswear manufacturing industry and we very much look forward to working in partnership to ensure it continues to drive efficiencies, profitability and best practices as it pushes the boundaries of innovation and efficiency in the textile and garment manufacturing industries.”