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▪ Full-package sourcing companies-bid on all aspects of the project through final delivery. With no visibility into sales, style, or size breakdowns when they purchase fabric, they risk running out of fabric and losing sales or purchasing too much and ending up with excess inventory.
▪ CMT contractors-maximize fabric provided to them by the brand or fashion company, whose buyers purchase the minimum amounts required to minimize materials costs, import duties, and transportation charges. Contractors must fulfill contract quantities and still operate profitably.
▪ Vertical producers -procure their own piece goods for production in-house or offshore. They must balance costs and production efficiency so that they can meet their performance goals.
Chaotic Order Entry Increases Complexity
Order entry is chaotic. After initial costing and production commitments, customers often change their orders in response to consumer behavior-up to the moment cutting begins. More seasons, more styles per season and less-flexible small lots lead to confusion and overloaded production environments that are more prone to errors and inefficiencies.
Lack of Planning Expertise Lowers Efficiency
The efficiency of the cutting room is highly dependent on the skills of the planner, and many factories do not have experienced marker-planning staff. In addition, short lead times and frequent changes leave little time for creating cut plans. Therefore, planners do not have the luxury of examining a full range of spread solutions to optimize each plan before execution.
Small Differences Magnify Waste
Planners and spreaders tend to allow additional tolerances in spread lengths. Considering the number of plies in a spread, these tolerances accumulate into several yards of wasted fabric in each order. Margins can be nibbled to death by end loss.
Quality Problems Introduced
When buyers purchase materials for contractors, they cannot afford to buy and ship more than is required. Unfortunately, when markers are not optimized at origination, they can introduce opportunities for quality problems. For example, turning parts one or two degrees can result in more units from the same amount of material-but result in poor quality for all. When variances are introduced, significant quality issues almost always result.
ACHIEVING THE PREVIOUSLY IMPOSSIBLE WITH LECTRA OPTIPLAN
Every business that uses soft materials experiences the same issues. Regardless of business model, all companies seek to maximize efficiency and minimize costs, while preserving product quality. The more accurate that the manufacturer or sourcing company can be- at the earliest possible moment in product development-the more successfully it can balance cost and risk factors in its favor.
Lectra Optiplan offers manufacturers an intelligent material optimization solution that delivers soft material savings of up to five percent-or more. Optiplan enables in-house production, contracting, and fullpackage sourcing operations to accurately pre-calculate soft material consumption for costing and purchasing management to improve throughput and cost performance.
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