Coats Digital has announced that Thailand-based leading outerwear and sportswear manufacturer VT Garment Co. Ltd. has realised substantial increase in productivity, capacity planning accuracy and OTDP among many other benefits following the implementation of Coats Digital’s FastReactPlan solution.
Revealing the numbers, Coats Digital says VT Garment Co. Ltd. has improved its productivity by around 95 per cent, increased capacity plan accuracy by 92 per cent and doubled its On Time Delivery Performance (OTDP) since the adoption of FastReactPlan.
The solution has also optimised overall planning time by 57 per cent; reduced time spent loading orders by 67 per cent and significantly reduced people hours spent recording plan variations from 4 hours to just 10 minutes.
Since implementation, the company has additionally eliminated unnecessary overtime staff hours altogether and boosted staff morale by simplifying the often challenging and stressful task of planning which had negatively impacted the whole business.
According to Coats Digital, the adoption of FastReactPlan was instrumental in helping VT Garment secure the coveted ‘Golden Award’ at the ‘Thailand Lean Award 2017’ – an influential government-subsidised nationwide awards ceremony covering all manufacturing industries.
Prior to implementing FastReactPlan, VT Garment found that the lack of automation and real-time visibility in the production planning process not only meant there was limited information sharing between different departments, but also that manually produced capacity plans based on unreliable historical data, were time-consuming and cumbersome to produce and not accurate enough to make informed production decisions from. As a result, VT Garment’s management and planning teams found that capacity was often over-booked or under-booked, causing late deliveries and unnecessary staff overtime costs.
VT Garment was unable to respond to customer demands for quicker order confirmations, resulting in lost business and poor customer satisfaction levels. This led to increased pressure on staff, wasted resources and decreased profitability.
Following the implementation of FastReactPlan, VT Garment now has the ability to view capacity plans from multiple perspectives, resulting in a comprehensive understanding of its production capabilities and limitations. The solution has enabled VT Garment to easily compare different plans and select the most optimal option based on factors such as cost, efficiency and delivery time. The automation of planning processes has also freed up time for staff to focus on other important tasks, such as improving customer satisfaction and supporting new innovations and business growth.
Chalumpon Lotharukpong, Managing Director, VT Garment, commented, “Manually creating each plan would take an average of one hour per plan. So, with four typical plans, it would take four hours to complete. With FastReactPlan, we are now able to quickly evaluate the efficiency of each plan variation, which has reduced the time spent on planning from four hours to 10 minutes.”
Chalumpon further added that FastReactPlan allows VT Garment to plan better because the factory can choose the plan based on different factors, such as Capacity, Efficiency and OTD percentages, which has eliminated the need for manual calculations altogether.
“The customer experience has also greatly improved as a result of our ability to provide timely and accurate information, which is crucial for customers to make informed commissioning decisions. With the implementation of FastReactPlan, we are now able to send accurate plans and information to customers in less than two hours, rather than the usual three days it took before the implementation,” mentioned Chalumpon.
The solution has enabled VT Garment to save significant staff hours by streamlining the planning process, from order placement and checking delivery dates to tracking production activities, which has meant that extra time can be dedicated to delivering an enhanced customer experience.
With the ability to anticipate future plans and understand available capacity, VT Garment can now accurately calculate working hours effectively to take on additional business orders that it would have previously shied away from. FastReactPlan has also enabled the company to handle a wider range of orders, including shorter and more complex order requests, as it has the visibility and agility needed to make informed decisions based on accurate plan variation assessments.
“Greater resilience and agility will undoubtedly enable us to navigate through and respond quickly to supply chain shocks, and future-proofing for agile manufacturing will undoubtedly be the key to our success in 2023 and beyond,” concluded Chalumpon.
Pakawan Veerarote, Customer Success Manager, Coats Digital, averred, “We are absolutely thrilled that VT Garment has experienced such unprecedented results since its adoption of FastReactPlan. 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 a fashion apparel manufacturer. We are also extremely proud that Coats Digital has played such a pivotal role in helping VT Garment secure its much-deserved recognition as one of the most innovative manufacturing companies in Thailand. With its strong commitment to sustainable practices, fair wages, great working conditions and technological innovation, we are honoured to be continuing to play an important part in VT Garment’s journey towards increased award-winning digitisation and further global success.”
