TSI built to win

Bobbin, Jan, 1999 by Kathleen Desmarteau

"Some of our competitors come in and change styles on the contractors fairly often, and the learning curve can be very tough," observes executive vice president of finance and operations Larry McPherson. "We promise a steady flow of work in a particular style so that they can get very good at it, and that's what sets us apart."

Moreover, 90 percent of the goods flowing into TSI's 190,000-square-foot Tampa warehousing and distribution center are unlabeled, which provides the company great flexibility in terms of selling slacks from a common inventory to a vast array of different customers and across multiple distribution channels. Extensive employee training and quality control procedures, combined with the latest in Paxar Corp. and Avery Dennison label printing equipment and software, are instrumental in assuring products are labeled properly with customer-specific care labels, hangtags, pocket flashers, UPC-coded price tags, etc.

Staying on Top of Systems

Information systems, of course, also play a vital role in TSI's masterful orchestration of its inventory. While it currently uses proprietary systems to manage its operations, it is in the process of implementing SAP America Inc.'s integrated, enterprise-wide Apparel and Footwear Solution (AFS), to the tune of $5 million-plus, to enhance its ability to service its customers.

The SAP system, which will be fully implemented across TSI's private label operation in May, will work in conjunction with a new PkMS warehouse management system from Manhattan Associates and Gerber Technology's PDM (Product Data Management) software, which is critical in managing the front end of TSI's operations. The Savane subsidiary, which is in the process of implementing Computer Generated Solutions' ACS Optima system in order to become year 2000 compliant, will begin implementing the same SAP system during the year 2000.

Elaborating on TSI's information technology approach, executive vice president and chief information officer Brent Pulsipher explains: "You have to build a solid technology infrastructure, and that means you have an architecture for hardware, software, telecommunications, desktop computing and business functionality. ... Our objective is to get a common infrastructure that is reasonably uniform, which gives us better leverage to do two things: 1. Get the cost of ownership down because we don't have to maintain a lot of different systems; and 2. Put us in a better position to do acquisitions and integrate them more quickly."

While the SAP solution will be the core of TSI's systems, that's not to say other software won't be utilized, says Pulsipher, who came to TSI less than a year ago from the wholesale distribution industry. TSI's emphasis on using its data to its fullest potential is what enables the company to achieve "as close to just-in-time manufacturing as you can get in the apparel industry," Pulsipher continues. For example, the firm is in the process of rolling out an inventory management program, developed collaboratively by Savane in conjunction with a retailer, whereby, he explains: "The customer tells us the beginning inventory, we keep track of the movement of our products through the retailer's point-of-sale system, and we keep track of what we're shipping so that at any given time, we should know the assortment of our products on the retailer's floor."