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As Mexico continues to grapple with the human and economic effects of COVID-19, and businesses adopt different strategies for mitigating the impact of the virus and resetting for the new norm, vertically integrated knitted garments manufacturer Inova Textiles has acted quickly and decisively to put digital transformation at the heart of a strategy to respond to changing customer demands and win the recovery. 

Inova has prioritized the digitisation of best practice planning and control processes with FastreactPlan from Coats Digital, which aims to deliver rapid and significant improvements in capacity utilisation, speed to market and agility, while reducing excess costs.

Established in 2003, and with a long family history of producing a wide range of textile products, Inova Textile has three facilities in Estado de México, covering knitting, finishing, cutting, printing and sewing.  Inova’s passionate commitment to customer service excellence and fast turn-around, has been at the heart of the business’s success and underpinned a strong export business to the USA and Canada, with customers including Target, Wal-Mart, and Disney. 

As Coronavirus has taken a grip in Mexico, Inova has reviewed and updated its business strategy and believes passionately that digitisation of key business processes is critical to emerging stronger from this crisis and coping with future challenges. This has resulted in the decision to prioritize and move ahead with a project to improve production planning and control.

Carlos Aboumrad, CEO of Inova Textiles, commented: “In responding to the Coronavirus crisis, our priority has been to ensure the health and safety of our personnel, and then carefully prioritize initiatives which provide firm foundations for a faster, more efficient and agile business which continues to deliver excellent customer service.”

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“It was quickly clear to us that we could not afford to delay a project to embed best practice planning in our business with a connected, digital process.  After an extensive search we identified FastreactPlan as the only specialist apparel solution which meets 100% of our requirements. We are confident that the highly visual and intuitive solution, and the best practice industry expertise Coats Digital has, will ensure rapid adoption by our team and allow us to drive significant and sustainable improvements in performance.”

FastreactPlan will be implemented at Inova’s sewing and cutting facilities, to deliver a fast, detailed and accurate order confirmation process and production plan, which is optimised for delivery, efficiency and speed.

The FastStart project for Inova will include detailed planning of its sewing lines using the highly visual tools of the FastReactPlan planning board, as well as the scheduling and visualization of load on secondary processes such as cutting and printing.  Material requirements (MRP) and pre-production product development activities critical for on-time start of production, are dynamically driven by the latest plan on a LEAN pull basis, ensuring clear visibility and alignment of priorities across departments and with suppliers.

“As our industry faces up to the huge challenges of coronavirus, balancing the need to mitigate the impact on people and cash flow, while progressing key strategic initiatives critical to winning the recovery is very difficult.  We are delighted to be able to play a part in supporting our industry as it navigates though this period, with the FastStart initiative,” Oscar González, Coats Digital Agent for LATAM said. 

“Rapid, remote implementation of FastReactPlan on a subscription (SaaS) basis, means there is no need for additional hardware and IT expertise, significantly reduced upfront cost and accelerated business benefits.  We are proud to be working with the Inova team on the first FastStart project in Mexico and look forward to a successful implementation which provides the business with the tools to emerge stronger from the current difficult conditions our industry faces.”

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