MAROQUINERIE THOMAS

The Challenge:

A MORE FLEXIBLE, COLLABORATIVE AND EFFICIENT SUPPLY CHAIN

The Maroquinerie Thomas supply chain needed greater flexibility and adaptability to keep up with the challenges of the luxury and fashion sectors, allowing for seasonality (up to six collections per year) and the levels of precision they demand. Their multi-site structure is an asset in terms of capacity but adds further complexity to flow management. This point encouraged the company to implement end-to-end solutions that are structural and agile at the same time.

The needs highlighted during specification development were: greater capability to manage aggregated data; greater data transparency and reliability; more exchanges between the central site and the workshops, and therefore between the various business lines, taking into account specific characteristics of each stakeholder; greater anticipation by robust planning, particularly for the Master Production Schedule (MPS); greater autonomy for each entity; more analyses of key performance indicators, etc. Last but not least, cloud delivery, which is essential because it is part of the company strategy for the administration of its information system.

The Solution:

CENTRALIZATION THROUGH COLLABORATION

Three software vendors were in competition. Only one made it through and it was QAD Digital Supply Chain Planning (DSCP)* and its Production Planning, Procurement Planning and Advanced Analytics solutions. “We didn’t want to change our internal processes, just improve them and provide them with the necessary technological and technical support,” adds Christophe Pinard.

“The difference came from the robustness, ergonomics and especially the agility of the QAD DSCP solution. Today, information is centralized, but it comes from everyone, from everywhere, and can be accessed by everyone and anywhere.“

Based on all the data aggregated by QAD DSCP at the Semur-en-Auxois central site and the definition of the role to be played by each person, the supply chain team draws up a Master Production Schedule (MPS) which will be used as a guideline.

Working in close contact with our customers, the workshops adjust their production capacity to the demand for each family. The central planner then uses shared information to develop their MPS on a four-month horizon. “Things tend to change very quickly in our industry,” confirms Christophe Pinard.

“This production schedule will actually be reviewed every week. We have to constantly adapt to the demand and requirements of our customers, as well as to raw materials procurements, often involving goods that are rare and expensive.”

“The scheduler then prepares manufacturing orders for each order and each site. Everything goes through the QAD DSCP end-to-end solution in cloud mode. Duplicate entries and spreadsheets are therefore significantly reduced. Our unique data source is automated, secured and homogenized. It means that our communication is standardized and streamlined. We all speak the same language, wherever we are.“

Advanced Analytics, the QAD DSCP  data analysis solution, makes it possible to have a comprehensive as well as a fragmented vision of company activity, whether on a daily basis or over the longer term. Depending on priorities, Maroquinerie Thomas can run the automatic analysis of its main KPIs to validate or even anticipate certain decisions.

“It is very simple to set up your ‘story’ based on a very specific indicator that you want to track. It is an integral part of our digital transformation process. It is also a good way to communicate internally using real-time, in-depth, consistent and graphic analyses, which can be easily understood by everyone,” says Christophe Pinard. “This method is still a bit new to us. Currently, it is mainly used by the supply chain team, which therefore forwards top-down information. In the long run, what we are aiming at is to generalize the method to ensure bidirectional data flow and analysis.“

The Benefits:

CONSISTENT AUTOMATION, EFFICIENT COLLABORATION

Is the result tangible? “It would have been much more difficult to operate without the Production Planning, Procurement Planning and Advanced Analytics solutions during this Covid 19 pandemic,” confirms Christophe Pinard. “Dozens of MPSs had to be recreated in three or four months to incorporate the new constraints, particularly in terms of supply. The tool has demonstrated how agile and powerful it is, largely thanks to its simulation capabilities. It has enabled us to adapt to this particularly tense period and continue to satisfy our customers and maintain activity on our production facilities.”

Among the benefits of QAD DSCP, the following are noteworthy:

• Centralization and sharing of secure and always up-to-date information
• Consistent automation and reliability of the different plans (Budget, Capacity Plan, Master Production Schedule and Supply).
• Simple and quick analysis of the main KPIs for more agile and fast decision making
• More efficient collaboration between production facilities and the Semur-en-Auxois central site
• Simpler information system administration thanks to the cloud mode

“We are working on building an even more collaborative environment to work together and make the right decisions at the right time,” says Christophe Pinard. “To achieve this, we will be incorporating more analyses into our planning. The web environment is one of the assets we will be using. Every actor along the entire supply chain will be able to understand and appreciate the consequences of their decisions. And how will the capacity change impact customer demand, or supplies for instance? All these equations must be easy to solve, quickly and automatically.”

“QAD DSCP is designed to change and adapt to any context. The COVID period has proved it to us,” he adds. “These solutions are one of the basic cornerstones of our information system. It is up to us to develop a real supply chain culture in the company. We have everything it takes to succeed: the people and state-of-the-art technology.“

*QAD Digital Supply Chain Planning (DSCP) was formerly known as QAD DynaSys