JD Edwards: April 2013

The fashion and apparel industry is facing challenges on all sides and in many forms. Consolidation of retailers, resulting in the advancement and dominance of the mega retailers means that there are fewer potential retailers, and the mega retailers have the strength and buying power to dictate price. The end consumers are have come to expect a wide variety of choices, that are refreshed and new on a short timeline coupled with attractive, competitive prices. Supply chains are typically complex, distribution channels and transportation costs volatile and usually expensive. And you must keep an eye on your best sourcing options as the global markets shift and change rapidly, impacting your ability to stay competitive.

The concept of collection is changing as the market demands more and more new fashion products. The resulting significant growth in the number of collections generates an increasing amount of overlap between collections, and multi-collection products to manage and control. Matching this growth is an increasing complexity in the management of catalogues and marketing, which requires a comprehensive real-time view of the whole enterprise. This change affects not only the marketing and logistics of a collection. Also impacted are the life cycle and profitability, including all associated revenues and design, production and distribution costs.

The diverse profiles of fashion industry customers add complexity to the mix. Each customer type, ranging from the multi-brand boutique to supermarkets via specialised chains, department stores, and traditional or internet mail order businesses, has its own set of expectations which must be met simultaneously in order to manage their complex manufacturing distribution needs.

Another major market trend, for both vertically integrated manufacturers and those with collaborative partners, is to provide more value-added services to support product sales.

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Apparel Management is a fully embedded ERP solution to support multi-attribute items for both distribution and manufacturing companies. JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Apparel Management offers total control of catalogues, seasonal offers, and collection overlap via a collection management application that enables definition of participating products (a product can be multi-collection), with timeframes, customer targets, pricing conditions and, if required, order entry specialization by collection to ensure control of distribution. Fashion industry specific information, such as fabric composition, cleaning codes, etc., are also maintainable and visible throughout the production, supply, sales and logistics processes.

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Apparel Management also offers a set functionality that, based on the collection concept and customer or distribution channel characteristics, allows definition of any type of specific conditions, such as management of rebates or free goods deliveries, as well as multi-currency pricing for export markets.

The fashion industry requires the effective allocation of stock to orders. Without it, the all too frequent outcome is inventory shortage when it comes to meeting demand at the most detailed level: style, color, size, etc. It is necessary to manage inventory, size/color balancing and coordinates to enable consistent deliveries. JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Apparel Management provides the user with an inventory allocation engine that has been specifically designed and developed for these needs, offering both the automation and flexibility needed by this crucial logistics function.

Apart from the standard features as production order tracking, activity recording and related quantitative, qualitative and manufacturing accounting reports, with tight integration to the general ledger of production management tools, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Apparel Management offers the following functionalities to address the requirements of fashion professionals:

Launching multi-product production processes to optimise material usage for a fabric or a theme;
Assign technical production data (routing and bill of material) to work according to the inheritance or exception model, and by association (color or size of the finished product in relation to the colors and sizes of components), substitutions and replacements across your supply chain,
Use automatic material planning to determine availability of components to meet the requested demand,

Apparel Management Products Highlights

Assign technical production data (routing and bill of material) to work according to the inheritance or exception model, and by association	Manage risk effectively, and simulate changing business conditions to develop strategic contingency plans
Manage up to ten product attributes (e.g. size, color, style, fabric rating, UV rating, etc.)	Gain profitability insight at many levels: Product group, brand and SKU levels Channel and customer profitability Manufacturing plant profitability at the individual line or work center level
Maximize data entry efficiency with Matrix order entry for sales and purchase orders and work orders	Unique fashion industry forecasting based on a combination of statistical techniques based on the spectrum of comparable collections, seasonality and extrapolation, and a collaborative model
Industry features for managing catalogues/collections and, seasonal offers	Multi-currency and multi-language capabilities
Product data management routing creations and outsource operations	Add any other JD Edwards EnterpriseOne module when business needs change and operations grow