Founder

THE ISSUE

Import development and production implies an extended process due to longer lead-times required by intercontinental product transportation. Using the same domestic calendar would not allow the business to deliver to market or customers on time. 

THE INNOVATION

• Created Import calendar.
• Created transition calendar.
• Managed all supply chain departments (Design through Distribution) through 6 months of non-standard milestone requirements.

THE OUTCOME

All divisions successfully transitioned to new production requirements without dropping service to customers.

THE ISSUE

• Overdevelopment budgets overblown.
• Increasing warehousing cost.
• Margin erosion.

THE INNOVATION

• Provided tracking via upgraded data collection and master data management processes.
• Created dashboards to provide updated visibility into inventory.
• Created interdepartmental discussions to facilitate solutioning.
• Rationalized SKUs.
• Focused the brand on optimizing the Design Development process.

THE OUTCOME

• Decreased excess inventory by over 50% within 1 year.
• Overdevelopment budget decreased by over 200%
• SKU performance skyrocketed.

THE ISSUE

Product Development/Production & Tech Design staff must work +50hrs per week (on average) to maintain corporate standards. Cost negotiations take up to 1 week to resolve with international partners.

THE INNOVATION

• Designed/Built/implemented PLM Database in MS Access to facilitate centralized data capture and reporting.
• Updated product costing tools.

THE OUTCOME

• Meetings shorter and more productive.
• International Cost negotiations resolved within 2 to 3 workdays.
• Staff back to standard work week.
• Within a single season of roll-out, the brand gained 2 points of overall GPM, making the brand the most margin-profitable division within the corporate portfolio.

THE ISSUE

Manual ATS allocations, inventory tracking and order balancing is very slow and must be handled by order. There is only ONE full time company employee. If the sales team is at market, or customers simultaneously request replenishment, multiple ATS requests can be made at once. In this environment, it is difficult/impossible not to oversell and disappoint customers when, upon packing, their items are discovered to be out of stock. Revising orders also causes extra busywork, which can easily have a compound effect on a single employee.

THE INNOVATION

Designed/Implemented and project managed API patch to a Shopify Store that I custom-built for this task.

• A single, well designed, API connection from Shopify to the WMS was able to calculate real-time inventory. 
• The ubiquitous Shopify interface was familiar to customers and allowed them to browse the catalogue, and have instant and accurate transparency into our inventory.
• Customer Management inherent in Shopify gave us ability to edit and manage, views, discounts and to capture wholesale seller’s information in a much more organic fashion. 
• Shopify reporting set to export to a fashion to provide uploadable order data to ERP (decreasing the effort spent inputting orders to even the external system).

THE OUTCOME

The process went from a multi-hour/day exercise that could be performed for one order at a time, to an instantaneous and infinitely more accurate and integrated process that could be performed on infinite numbers of orders simultaneously. 

THE ISSUE

Truly manual shipping, especially to EDI clients and major department stores, is difficult. With a staff of one, it is, nearly, impossible.

THE INNOVATION

Hand-coded databases and automations to mimic integration interfaces between SAP and the WMS, SAP and Shopify, WMS and Shopify, SAP and Front-end Systems and EDI.

THE OUTCOME

Was able to ship 3 seasons, implement EDI for majors (Saks, Neiman, Nordstrom, YNP, etc) & satisfy all data requirements for Boutiques and Majors WHILE maintaining an +95% On-Time to Customer Delivery performance.

THE ISSUE

• The product must move from CA Warehouse, to Italy Warehouse and then to a new North America Facility in Atlanta GA.
• A new instance of SAP will be used to manage the transition.
• This operation will happen at Quarter-End and it must happen without ANY interruption to customer service deliveries.

THE INNOVATION

• Created special project calendars to manage physical movement goals (for both staff and inventory).
• Designed/Implemented automated integrated data collection tools and databases hand-coded to  decrease weekly reporting processing time from 2 days to 4 hrs).
• Project Managed SAP integration project for our brand alongside Parent Company leadership and external consultants.

THE OUTCOME

• Moved product across continents without dropping inventory.
• Integrated to new instance of SAP and updated processes for users of subsidiary SAP instance.
• Made all quarter shipping goals (for both both financial budget and on-delivery goals).

THE ISSUE

Customers are cancelling orders due to lateness. As a result, budgets and forecasts are not met and excess inventory explodes.

THE INNOVATION

Created system of tracking performance to Key Milestones.

• Re-Tooled data tracking in each key supply chain department
• Created dashboards to monitor progress.
• Designed reporting for and led Monthly Executive review.
• Created system of departmental and interdepartmental meetings at the Managerial level to promote cross-functional cooperation and solutioning at all points within the organization.
• Facilitated process solutions, documentation and training in all Supply Chain activities from Design (development, merchandising and operations) to Distribution.

THE OUTCOME

• Within 18 months, the business is Delivering On-Time to customer 95% (within 5 days of stated order cancel date).
• The business sustained this performance until it could be sold to a different Parent Company.