Grand Rapids, MI January 20, 2003 Timex Corp., the largest selling watch brand in America, has chosen to go live with order-to-delivery software provider Provia Software's ViaWare WMS warehouse management and ViaView visibility and event management products at its main manufacturing facility in Cebu, The Philippines. The site manufactures and distributes Timex watches throughout North America.
As a supplier to many of America's leading retailers, Timex is using the kitting and assembly functionality in ViaWare WMS to handle the detailed assembly and packaging requirements of its clients. "Our clients don't want to spend time preparing product; they want to take shipments from us and be able to place them right on the shelf," said Steve Garrett, director, global supply chain and logistics, Timex. "Our clients require us to provide store ready product, with pricing and security measures already in place. With ViaWare, we're able to adhere to these requirements."
In order to accomplish this, Provia said ViaWare WMS uses much of the same component stock to build the various product kits for each client and keeps the product in various stages of assembly until the completed product is needed. By postponing the final watch assembly, Timex thus reduces the number of completed watches for each client on the shelf and instead assembles them "on the fly," reducing the overall inventory that is stored in its Cebu facility.
"By using kitting, we'll be able to reduce our overall inventory by as much as 20 percent, and we're better able to handle customer compliance requirements," continued Timex's Garrett. "Accuracy in customer compliance results in immediate bottom-line savings because of reduced penalties for non-compliance."
ViaWare was also able to tie-in with Timex's Oracle enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and its various modules, like order management, manufacturing and inventory. As a result, sales orders for specific orders are downloaded from Oracle to ViaWare WMS as outbound orders, which creates a kit to order scenario. The kit to order process is automatically performed in conjunction with the process of picking and shipping the specific order.
"Being able to tailor orders to specific clients gives companies like Timex a unique opportunity to offer higher levels of customer service," said Provia president and CEO Ken Lewis. "Combining that with being able to lower inventory carrying costs at the same time is a strong value proposition that's hard to beat."
