© Coats Digital.

Coats Digital, a leading technology provider in international fashion supply chains has announced that Bangladesh’s Panam Group has been able to increase its forward plan visibility from 3 to 12 months with the Coats Digital solution, FastReactPlan. Panam Group was established in Dhaka, in 2001 and is now considered a world-class knit garment manufacturer.

FastReactPlan is a market leading production planning solution, designed and developed specifically for apparel and footwear manufacturers and used successfully in over 2000 factories and 40 countries around the world.

According to Coats Digital, it is fast to implement, intuitive to use and proven to deliver significant and measurable improvements in delivery, productivity, inventory, speed and cost, driving a return on investment of less than 12 months. Nice Group, Esquire Knit, and Epyllion are some of the top manufacturers using FastReactPlan to optimise, connect and accelerate their production planning, Coats Digital says.

Impressed with the efficiency Mr. Balaram Roy Chowdhury, Executive Director, Panam Group commented: “It has become much easier to understand buyer trends, factory loading, plan versus actual and overall production status. We have managed to increase our capacity utilisation by as much as 50% and improve efficiency by 3% as FastReactPlan is giving us the required visibility. This means we have reduced our order confirmation process too by being able to consider open capacity much quicker. “

Using the pull system principle, FastReactPlan automatically creates detailed schedules for Panam Group, from yarn dyeing to finished goods packing, considering style and colour variations, and generates accurate T&A target dates based on the production plan.

“The planners at Panam Group now have clear visibility of the load versus capacity for each machine group/production process well in advance so they can ensure that sewing demand is achievable and any potential problems can be reviewed during weekly production meetings to ensure staff are proactive rather than reactive,” Coats Digital adds.

After successful implementation Mr. Rubel Kanta Deb, Senior Manager (Central Planning) Panam Group added: “Using FastReactPlan’s high level capacity planning board we were able to plan all projection and confirmed orders to the relevant units based on customer, product type and material availability.”

“We can now forecast more accurately for the next 6 to 12 months whereas earlier on Excel, we were able to manage a maximum 3 month’s loading. FastReactPlan’s detailed sewing line level planning board gave us the visibility of continuing planning similar product types which drastically improved efficiency.”

Coats Digital is the fashion technology arm of the leading industrial thread manufacturer Coats PLC. With over 5000+ customers across 65 countries, Coats Digital aims to transform the apparel supply chain through a ‘connected digital ecosystem’. “These connected intelligent applications optimise end to end processes, connect people and accelerate design, development, costing, sourcing and manufacturing,” the company says.

Metro Knitting & Dyeing Mills Ltd. Unit-1, Metro Knitting & Dyeing Mills Ltd. Unit-2, Beacon Knitwear Ltd. Unit-1 & Beacon Knitwear Ltd. Unit-2, are part of the Panam Group. With over 20,000 employees across five production sites, Panam Group has grown into a successful vertical, world-class knit garment manufacturer covering yarn dyeing, knitting, fabric dyeing and finishing, sewing and garments dyeing. Panam’s main customers include H&M, GU, S Oliver, Tom Tailor and Next Sourcing.

www.coatsdigital.com