Enhancing Speed-to-Market for Tags, Labels and Trim
Costa Mesa, Calif.–based Brand I.D. is known for producing stylish labels and hangtags for high-profile lifestyle brands such as Oakley, Guess?, Billabong and Speedo, but company principals are sometimes prouder of their less sexy but robust software system, which manages the trimmings supply chain.
Processes such as barcoding and VICS tagging have long been dreaded by warehousing personnel, but that has become easier through Brand I.D.’s SERO system, said the company’s customers, who also include VF Corp., Volcom, Rock & Republic and O’Neill Clothing. The coded tags are required for every piece of merchandise a manufacturer sends to a retailer. Managing them through traditional means usually results in mountains of spreadsheets.
Brand I.D. founders Andrew Hockaday and Colin Cormac saw this as a problem 12 years ago because of the thousands of pieces of data they encountered in the trim and manufacturing business. They first enlisted a third-party provider to deal with the issue but later brought development and programming in-house to provide a customizable solution for their rapidly growing customer base.
Now, orders are generated automatically by a company’s sales-management system, usually an ERP or MRP application. Whatever the case, using SERO, it automatically transmits the data to the Brand I.D. system. Brand I.D. then processes this data and tabulates the trim and UPC requirements. Garment vendors are immediately notified of their trim requirements. The garment vendor then confirms the order online, the tickets are printed and trims are shipped with the vendor being able to track the order online in real time.
“It doesn’t get any more efficient than that,” Hockaday said. “No one has to order trim, calculate yields or waste. It is done on the fly.”
John Fearnley, vice president of production and design for contemporary skate brand Volcom, said there was a slight learning curve but the company and its suppliers have found it to be a time saver.
“At first, our suppliers were a little difficult to convince to start using it, but since then, they have become dependent on it, and [it] makes their order processing easier,” said Fearnley. “It has expanded into in-bound EDI, which has streamlined the receiving process on our end and created better visibility on our product. We have also been able to integrate our UPC tags into the process. Every time we write a purchase order, Brand ID automatically gets the PO information along with the UPC information, and they go straight into printing the UPCs without anyone having to place an order. This saves my team valuable time because we generate thousands of orders per season. Without it, we would have to have a person dedicated to just that process full time.”
The company also has an online version, which provides parties with the ability to generate retailer tickets and tags, VICs tickets, and integrated tickets in a few steps.
“These days, more so than ever, people are looking for efficiencies within their operations. That’s where we have been able to help,” Hockaday added. “We customize our solution to their needs because each and every customer has a unique way of working. We not only handle trim but can extract data so brands can place garment orders in their ERP system, and the factory will receive the same garment order information automatically via the Web; accept and produce the order; then later generate the advance shipping notice, print out the UPC carton label [and] ship the order. Then once the order is received by the brand, it is automatically scanned and received into inventory.”
Brand I.D. has a facility in Hong Kong, which serves as its main distribution base, proximate to many of its customers’ factories. Its local facility in Orange County, Calif., houses a design and sales team to handle brand-centric products. From here, the company services domestic customers. Quick-turn denim producers and T-shirt makers have formed a large percentage of the company’s client list as a result.
“In these challenging times, what could be better than a box of trim arriving on the sewing-plant floor with no human intervention?” Hockaday said. “Once a customer goes the Brand I.D. automated route, there is no turning back, as the brand is able to reallocate the manpower that was being wasted on trim into other areas that have more impact on a brand’s success.”—Robert McAllister