ClearOrbit's collaboration solution lets furniture maker track inventory from overseas suppliers to final domestic delivery
Austin, TX — January 20, 2006 — Lexington Home Brands, a furniture maker that markets such brands as Nautica Home, Tommy Bahama and Liz Claiborne, said it has implemented ClearOrbit's Purchase Order Collaborator (POC).
As Lexington has adjusted to changes in the global marketplace and sought finished furniture from overseas contract manufacturers, the company has implemented ClearOrbit's POC to automate, centralize and control the tracking of over $55 million in annual inventory across four warehouses, where over 300,000 items are received, staged and shipped each year.
Lexington uses POC to track individual furniture containers as they are shipped from Asia. When orders are received, Lexington registers the inventory with custom barcodes generated by ClearOrbit's POC, which automatically identifies missing units or shipment discrepancies. POC also tracks the results of quality assurance tests conducted on each incoming item.
With this data captured in its Oracle enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, Lexington then ships finished products on to its nationwide network of independent home furnishings retailers, and Destination Home retail stores and designer showrooms.
The POC also provides warehouse management system (WMS) functionality to track the disposition of inventory as it moves through Lexington's sophisticated and highly responsive supply chain. POC is part of ClearOrbit Xtended Process Control (X.PC) Suite, which provides Lexington with process automation by extending the functionality of its Oracle E-Business Suite. The added capabilities offered by POC are designed to reduce the errors and inefficiencies associated with traditional methods of procurement and replenishment. Utilizing a rules-based approach that offers business process configurability without customization, POC uses Oracle's enterprise database model for real-time data.
ClearOrbit's Purchase Order Collaborator eliminated a huge black hole' in import receiving, said Larry Merritt, director of Global Logistics for Lexington. We had no tracking of incoming items or goods that were waiting to be processed at our receiving warehouse. With ClearOrbit, we have end-to-end supply chain visibility, combined with the ability to automatically identify and reconcile shipping errors. Plus, the ClearOrbit team was superb — the finished product does exactly what we envisioned during our very first meeting.
John Reece, ClearOrbit's president, commented: Lexington Home Brands has demonstrated real vision in the way it has adjusted its supply chain in response to rapid changes in the world of furniture manufacture and distribution. What ClearOrbit offers to Lexington is a way to collect, manipulate and view data so that it gives them complete, customizable control over their global operations, all while leveraging their investment in Oracle ERP.
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