Markets fluctuate and consumer preferences change. How are Home & Lifestyle companies keeping up? Can you scale production and launch new products at just the right time?
Success for many Home & Lifestyle companies comes down to their ability to model their manufacturing resources and constraints so they can stay in control as they scale up. Home & Lifestyle companies turn to supply chain planning and optimization software to gain a clearer view of their supply chain, allowing them to absorb growing complexity, handle workforce fluctuations, reduce production lead times and plan ahead to make best use of their resources. The result: production capacity can double and crafting facilities run at maximum efficiency.
As Home & Lifestyle businesses scale their operations to keep pace with consumer demands, they need to be sure that their manufacturing resources can keep up. Introducing new collections and launching more intricate products can feel risky, but it doesn’t have to.
Here are five ways supply chain planning and optimization software can transform your business for the better:
1. Increase production capacity
Fulfilling product campaigns and seasonal demands every year is likely to put pressure on Home & Lifestyle businesses to increase their production capacity. One of our customers found itself in this exact position, going from producing tens of thousands of products to over a hundred thousand pieces across over 1,500 designs. The company now launches more than 500 new designs each year to keep up with consumer demand and turned to software from DELMIA Quintiq to handle its tactical and operational production planning.
The intelligent production planning software optimizes the company’s supply chain from end to end, helping it to stay on top of inventory levels, ensure high delivery performance, high yield and avoid excessive waste. It means the company can achieve the highest possible throughput with the lowest possible inventory, leading to increased production capacity while ensuring high quality levels at all times.
2. Make best use of resources
Comprehensive supply chain planning software not only helps you to optimize the use of production equipment and raw materials, but your human resources too. With Perfect Production based on DELMIA Quintiq manufacturers gain full visibility of the entire production process and can match specialized craftsmen with the right mix of skills to execute planned production.
Management can look at production plans through an intuitive planning interface and use real-time reporting tools to ensure activities on the shop floor stay on track and keep up with the realities of day-to-day operations. So, if a machine breaks down or members of the workforce are absent, schedules can be reassessed and resolved quickly and efficiently, all while ensuring ongoing communication between planners and the shop floor so that everyone is aware of what’s going on.
3. Focus on quality
As brands grow, so do their collections. But regardless of how big your operation grows, it’s important not to lose sight of your business values and remember why consumers choose to buy from your brand in the first place. If quality slips, they’re likely to vote with their feet and buy elsewhere.
Industry leaders employ in-process quality assurance and control measures across their supply chain. This involves carrying out ongoing monitoring, speedy quality inspections and forward analytics in all logistics and production workflows and using real-time data insights to detect and rectify errors early. So, whether you’re making hundreds of products or hundreds of thousands of products, you can guarantee quality and continue to meet time-to-market targets.
4. Support retail expansion
It can be a constant challenge meeting the demand from the retail stores you sell your products via. Whether you’re expanding your own stores or selling via wholesale, demand for products can quickly accelerate.
DELMIA Quintiq supports Home & Lifestyle brands and manufacturers’ growth and market ambitions by helping them to achieve lean production and scale up to meet increasing demand. This involves having a detailed view of company KPIs and plant-specific constraints to determine how much of what, when and where to produce to ensure that orders are made according to their confirmed delivery dates for each store, any unused inventory is assigned to where it’s needed and that all safety stock targets are met.
5. Ensure on-time delivery
An effective supply chain optimization solution helps Home & Lifestyle brands become agile enough to delivery products on time and flexibly scale up and down to cater to peaks in seasonal consumer demand.
Case Study
One of the world’s largest jewelry manufacturers uses Perfect Production based on DELMIA Quintiq to significantly reduce production lead times so it can serve the market with exciting new products faster and keep up with demand spikes. It achieves this through demand forecasting and scheduling to avoid bottlenecks, errors and unforeseen cost increases. Armed with detailed data insights, it has complete transparency of its operations and is able to successfully meet both planned and unexpected orders on time, every time.
Click here to find out how to scale up and launch new products faster.
Lauriane is currently Marketing Director for the Home & Lifestyle Industry at Dassault Systèmes. She took over this role in 2016, after ten years of work experience at Dassault Systèmes in various Marketing and Communication positions. Prior to this role, she spent four years in charge of the Communication for the FashionLab by Dassault Systèmes, the company’s technology incubator dedicated to the fashion industry. She holds a Master in Management with a special emphasis on Marketing. Passionate about fashion, digital technology and sustainable innovation, she creates and delivers inspirational content for various communication channels. She is also in charge of developing strong relationships within the home & lifestyle ecosystem.