San Francisco November 15, 2001 If you've had children anytime in the past decade, chances are that at some point they have nagged you to buy a product put out by HIT Entertainment. The British company produces a variety of children's videos, including Barney and Bob the Builder.
Keeping all those dinosaurs and construction workers moving into the hands of harried parents at national retailers such as Kmart, Wal-Mart and Target means maintaining optimum stock levels on the shelves at those chain stores' outlets.
Now HIT, which had 2000 sales of $30 million, is using software from NONSTOP Solutions to implement a vendor-managed inventory (VMI) program for its videos.
HIT is currently implementing NONSTOP's Demand Network suite for VMI, forecasting and replenishment of all of its products. NONSTOP says its software optimizes the key business factors that influence and manage demand for finished goods, resulting in increased sales, lower costs and maximized profitability for its customers.
HIT has stegosaurus-sized expectations for the VMI project. "We will be able to accurately forecast replenishment needs at our customers' retail outlets, which will reduce total inventories in the supply chain while at the same time optimizing the inventory levels at each individual store," predicts Robert Boss, senior vice president of operations at HIT.
Jeff Galt, president and CEO of NONSTOP, says that his company's software is particularly applicable in the entertainment industry, where the solution provider has invested resources to help companies address specific forecasting and replenishment challenges.
