Challenge
Unity Clothing’s owner expressed interest in embracing industry 4.0 to optimize operations and create a smart manufacturing facility driven by the latest digital technologies. In addition, he wanted to implement quality 4.0 management practices throughout the organization to align with the vision and offer an agile, “one stop shop” for the design and manufacture of clothing and accessories to support a healthy lifestyle.
Solution
CMTC began the project with Unity Clothing in August, 2018 to discuss the identification of growth opportunities through the development of a strategic business and manufacturing roadmap.
The CMTC team used a combination of best practices in technology/product roadmapping, process management, Hoshin Kanri, root cause analysis, strategic analysis, 360 degree view of the customer, market management and contingency planning to get to the desired end state. The key deliverable was a strategic business roadmap. Some of the questions that needed to be answered were:
- Who are Unity Clothing’s customers?
- What do Unity Clothing’s customers need?
- What is Unity Clothing’s current state and how best can it predict the future business ecosystem?
- Does Unity Clothing have the right level of capabilities, programs, products and services in place to meet/exceed customer needs?
- How is Unity Clothing going to deliver these products and services?
To answer these questions, the CMTC team used a four step approach, which included:
- A Smart manufacturing assessment to establish an initial understanding of the current state and where the company wanted to go
- Creating an as-is process map that captured qualitative and quantitative data/information
- Conducting a deep dive analysis of financial statements
- A set of root causes was developed based on the OPEX analysis
- A set of improvement ideas was framed to be tested and validated
- Charting out a strategic business roadmap that will guide the business to the desired future state
Impact
The strategic roadmap provided a vision for Unity Clothing to reach its business goals. Results of the implementation of parts of this roadmap are:
- The ability to constantly monitor overall stock on hand to keep storage and shrink costs down
- Approaches for a faster customer configuration process of the apparel
- Development of brand and image to improve market share, sales and customer loyalty
- Ensure that products continue meet customer quality expectations with growth
- Developing a targeted set of that fit Unity Clothing’s unique value proposition
- Agility to adopt and integrate new technologies as appropriate
"This project provided the map to implement Industry 4.0 to run the business.
Good job by CMTC!”Raymond Hwang
CEO, Unity Clothing