ERP Buyer's Guide for Fashion and Apparel Manufacturers (UK)

For Fashion and Apparel

Businesses

Table of Contents

› What Is ERP Software for Apparel?

› Benefits of Apparel ERP

› What to Look for in an Apparel ERP Solution

› Supply Chain Management

› Warehouse Logistics and Management

› Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)

› Advanced Financials

› Time-Phased Stock Planning

› Material Requirements Planning (MRP)

› Reporting and Analytics

› Other Integrations to Consider

› Why Aptean?

About This Guide

Are you on a digital advancement journey and re-evaluating your software needs? Robust, industry-specific ERP can help you take operational efficiency and strategic visibility to the next level.

An ERP solution can help fashion and apparel businesses improve efficiency. Aptean’s 2023 survey of Europe fashion and apparel manufactures found that 41% are currently using an ERP solution, with another 45% planning to implement an ERP in the next 12-24 months. 1

Apparel ERP can help you manage costs and inventory, meet production schedules, improve customer and vendor relationships and scale your business. The right ERP can aid in compliance issues related to traceability and sustainability.

We developed this buyer’s guide to help fashion and apparel decision-makers quickly identify vital features and give you the insight you need to choose the best ERP for your company. The guide explains the benefits of adopting an industry-specific solution, and identifies key functionality needed to enhance various areas of your business operations.

What is Apparel ERP Software?

To stay ahead of shifting consumer demand and supply chain challenges, fashion and apparel companies need technology solutions that enable innovation to meet consumer demands.

An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system brings all the information apparel manufacturers need to operate and grow their business into one unified interface, providing internal and external stakeholders a single source of truth. ERP software provides access to real-time data across the company—enhancing visibility into your operations in a centralised solution.

In your search for an ERP solution, it’s critical that you select a system with features and functionality that meets your organisation’s needs today and well into the future. An apparel-specific ERP provides industry-fitted automation that can help companies streamline crucial business processes, making it a strategic investment as well as an economic one.

Benefits of an Industry-Specific Apparel ERP System

A purpose-built ERP created for the fashion and apparel industry has all the key functionality expected in an ERP system, but it doesn’t stop there. Apparelspecific features like a style-based matrix, multi-dimensional product and pack management can give your company a competitive edge. As a result, an industry-specific ERP system not only saves your business time and money—it also simplifies the order process, provides superior inventory control and improves vendor and supplier relationships.

In addition, an industry-specific ERP solution offers more out-of-the-box functionality to meet the unique needs of the industry. Generic ERP solutions require special customisations from the developers to make the system work for apparel companies—and often, even those measures don’t solve the problem entirely. Apparel-specific ERPs can require less extensive customisations and do not need third-party bolt-ons or costly add-ons. Your ERP solution should be designed to manage style, color and size with data at any level and the ability to handle the product through omni-channel fulfillment.

Companies using an apparelspecific ERP solution grew revenue by 7%, compared with only 1.4% growth among those using a non-industry-specific ERP solution.1

1 Aptean 2023 Fashion and Apparel

Manufacturing Report for North America

Features to Look for in an Apparel ERP Solution

The right apparel ERP will deliver features and functionality that streamline business processes across your organisation. Companies can benefit from efficiency and time-savings across their organisation, from supply chain management to production to financial operations.

Apparel ERPs have specific features designed by industry professionals to help you manage challenges that might come your way. Having the right ERP can help apparel manufactures make the difference between growth and stagnation.

In this section, we will overview the following critical functionality for apparel ERP solutions:

› Supply Chain Management

› Warehouse Management System (WMS)

› Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)

› Integrated Financials

› Time-Phased Stock Planning

› Material Requirements Planning (MRP)

› Reporting and Analytics

Let’s dig deeper into each area of functionality for the features to look for as you compare your ERP options

Supply Chain Management

The apparel supply chain is complex and comprised of a broad network of designers, textile producers, finished apparel manufacturers, wholesalers and retail trading partners. With an apparel ERP, you can stay ahead of supply chain disruptions and delays so you can pivot and change suppliers to meet your order deadlines. ERP helps enhance the flow of information between your procurement team, suppliers, production team and warehouse and delivers these two key supply chain benefits:

› Superior planning: Your ERP can deliver accurate analytics and forecasting, so you can purchase the right quantity of materials at the right time to meet your production needs.

› Enhanced purchasing automation: When inventory falls below predefined thresholds or there is an uptick in demand, your ERP can trigger the automatic generation of purchase orders (POs).

Aptean Apparel ERP can help you generate accurate forecasts, manage inventory, track supply chain stages and centralise vendor communications, so you can reduce costs and proactively navigate issues to keep your supply chain moving.

Warehouse Management System (WMS) Functionalities

An apparel-specific ERP with warehouse management tools can track items based on your chosen parameters. The WMS features are scalable and seamlessly integrate with your ERP.

Key benefits an apparel ERP can deliver to your warehouse include:

› Improved inventory visibility: You can drill down into your warehouse inventory to manage styles or filter SKUs based on colors, sizes, features, images, pricing and costs. WMS functionality can provide real-time, accurate stock information aligned with what’s in the warehouse, what’s still on order, what’s in production and what’s going out to your trading partners.

› Optimised warehouse utilisation: Automated functionality for receiving and storing inventory can keep your warehouse organised and helps workers find items quickly. Configurable putaway functionality can maximise storage space, which is imperative because order-picking travel accounts for about 50% of warehouse workers’ time.

› Faster picking: Using the WMS tools in your ERP, along with barcode scanners, can speed up picking and processing. The ERP’s WMS functions can automatically allocate inventory to sales orders, then guide warehouse workers directly to the right bin locations, utilising directed pick-and-pack, wave picking and cross-picking functionalities. Inquiry reporting tools can improve visibility into the exact status of current and promised orders.

› Enhanced trading partner communication: The shipping management feature can create packing lists and invoices for shipments, then sends advanced ship notices (ASNs) and bills of lading to your trading partners to notify them a shipment is pending.

Beyond these benefits, WMS functionality within an apparel ERP can help ensure greater accuracy with advanced capabilities like EAN-13 label compliance, shipping integration, returns management, raw materials management and warehouse transfer functions. Organisations can further reduce data entry errors by using wireless RF scanning and automatic replenishment.

An apparel ERP solution with WMS functionalities can help you better control and oversee warehouse operations from the time raw materials and finished goods enter your warehouse to the moment they leave.

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)

An electronic data interchange (EDI) module facilitates the automated exchange of business information between manufacturers and their retail trading partners. Today, many large retailers will no longer purchase from brands lacking this critical data communication technology.

Choosing an ERP solution with built-in EDI module affords brands these benefits:

› Enhanced visibility into customer and supplier transactions: You can manage incoming and outgoing orders, order confirmations, ship notices, inventory status and availability, all with a few clicks of a mouse.

› Decreased data entry errors: Purchasing information automatically flows through the supply chain, so you reducing the errors associated with manual rekeying of data.

› Reduced chargebacks: When EDI notifies you of an error, you can take action immediately to remedy transaction problems and ensure customers receive accurate orders on time.

› Improved relationships with trading partners: With data flowing easily up and down the supply chain, you can keep your suppliers and customers better informed.

Aptean Apparel ERP features built-in EDI that is already connected to an extensive set of retailers, so you can save time setting up your trading partners and eliminate integrating with another solution. The built-in EDI translator can help you save time and minimise errors while giving you improved visibility and control over transactions.

Integrated Financials

ERP systems were initially built to help synchronise accounting and financial data across an enterprise, and this remains a primary strength of these solutions today. An ERP system enables apparel manufacturers to track, analyse and gather financial data from every department, delivering valuable insights while eliminating duplication and reducing errors.

Your apparel ERP should have a robust financial and accounting module with task automation. Here are the top benefits ERP delivers to finance and accounting departments:

› Decreased duplicate data entry: A single source of truth from a centralised database saves data entry time and improves data accuracy throughout your organisation.

› Streamlined order-to-cash cycle: Reduced data entry helps shorten the time required for sales forecasting, order processing and invoicing.

› Better process automation for vendor invoices: Three-way matching lets you compare purchase order quantity against the invoice quantity and the amount actually received in the receiving department. If everything matches, you can release payment to the vendor. If not, you can address discrepancies quickly.

A purpose-built ERP can give you better financial control over your business because you can make more informed decisions in real-time and better assess the fiscal impact of those actions. Aptean Apparel ERP helps you manage accounting and financials and allocate costs accurately.

Apparel-specific ERP software can help you make data-driven decisions by integrating information throughout the organisation. You can get a 360-degree view of financial data for a more complete picture of your company’s financial health.

Time-Phased Stock Planning

Effective demand planning is crucial in the fast-paced fashion industry. Apparel businesses must anticipate and respond to highly variable demand. To remain agile, decision-makers need accurate, real-time data on the current sales cycle. With the right insights, companies gain the agility to increase production quickly when demand accelerates.

The right industry-specific ERP solution can offer the demand forecasting tools your business needs to gain insight and make smarter decisions faster. That’s crucial, considering an overly optimistic forecast might lead to overstock and higher carrying costs, but a pessimistic estimate may lead to shortages and problems with production.

An apparel ERP can help you identify optimal demand levels to reduce operational costs. With accurate, time-phased demand planning tools, you’ll be able to plan and execute production based on data, rather than assumptions.

Inventory management tools within Aptean Apparel ERP can create purchase orders for raw materials and finished goods based on real-time, accurate stock information. Then, the ERP aligns this information with current warehouse stock, order allocations and lead times. With optimised purchasing functionality, you can reduce excess inventory and related carrying costs. This gives you more cash to invest in growing your business.

Material Requirements Planning (MRP)

MRP functionality within an Apparel ERP centers on inventory planning and production schedules to help manufacturers maintain the balance between available materials and costs while avoiding excess inventory. The right ERP solution can help you schedule inventory replenishment precisely, so you’ll receive exactly what you need when you need it.

Here are some of the benefits you can achieve with the MRP tools of an industry-specific ERP:

› Less over- or under-stocking of materials: MRP tools can enable precise ordering of finished goods and/or raw materials using your existing production schedule. The software analyses the amounts needed based on current demand schedules and calculates upcoming requirements.

› Reduced inventory costs: MRP can determine the specific amounts of raw materials required and allocate that inventory as needed. This can keep excess materials inventory in check and production costs lower.

› Greater control over materials inventory: With native, built-in MRP functionalities in your apparel ERP, you can have clear visibility into what supplies are in stock, which are on back order and what you’ll need for the next production run. The procurement team can better align stock levels to manufacturing order requirements.

The seasonal nature of the apparel industry means that demand can fluctuate rapidly. With MRP functionality within your ERP, you’ll have the flexibility and agility necessary to adjust as circumstances change.

Aptean Apparel ERP delivers advanced MRP features that can provide insight on demand with forecasts based on seasonal fluctuations and historical data. You can improve margins by reducing inventory costs and avoiding production delays.

Reporting and Analytics

Today’s businesses must filter through infinite amounts of data and translate that into meaningful insights. You need to know how the company is doing, but sorting through information from spreadsheets could take hours, even days, without the proper tools.

Apparel ERP software with built-in analytics and reporting functionality provides accurate, real-time visibility using its centralised data warehouseto help you make strategic decisions. The analytics and reporting tools in the apparel ERP system enable a birds-eye view of labour, costs and inventory.

When selecting an apparel ERP solution, look for one that provides customisable analytics dashboards and a report builder that enables you to create reports with meaningful KPIs in just a few mouse clicks. Your team spends less time looking for pertinent data and more time isolating, calculating and tracking the business metrics that matter to your operation. Everyone works from one data set and one version of the truth.

The right ERP solution provides you with the agility and information needed to make timely operational, tactical and strategic decisions. Execute on faster, deeper insights to grow your business.

Aptean Apparel ERP provides 100+ out of the box reports, with an easy-to-use report builder that enables you to customise existing reports or build from scratch. Our customisable dashboard empowers leaders to make better decisions faster.

Go Beyond ERP: Integrations to Consider

1. Product lifecycle management (PLM): Speed time-to-market when you supplement your ERP with product lifecycle management technology. PLM can help accelerate development cycles by improving collaboration between designers, product managers and supply chain partners while helping you track and manage calendars. It also collects quotes and bid information, so you can reduce costs and overruns.

2. Production Control: Improve factory productivity and quality levels when you combine production control with ERP. Production control delivers accurate information, reduces stock of materials and identifies bottlenecks in production to ensure greater factory efficiency. You’ll be able to identify production issues as they happen to keep production moving to meet consumer demand. The solution empowers workers, supervisors and managers with up-to-the-minute production visibility and control. Companies that adopted this software saw 44% gains in quality and a 37% uptick in productivity.

3. Vendor portals: Streamline vendor communication with a web-based vendor management portal that seamlessly tracks essential product information, tech packs, sample requests and requests for quotes as well as production orders, supply chain movement and import tracking shipment information in a central location. When integrated with your apparel ERP, vendor portals can improve the accuracy of samples, eliminate data-entry errors, enhance communication with supply chain partners and help boost profit margins.

“We saw a cultural fit with Aptean and continue to have a shared understanding our objectives and how we best achieve them. As the world constantly changes, our systems and processes obviously need to adapt accordingly. Working hand in hand with Aptean allows us to keep up with our ever-changing environment.”

Finance Director, Paul Smith

Read their story

“We have been committed to maintaining the highest standards of traditional craftsmanship, quality and service for over 130 years, so it was important for us to collaborate with a partner who understood our heritage and values but had the experience and expertise to take our business forward; Aptean met all of our criteria and more.”

Managing Director, Crockett & Jones

Read their story

Why Aptean?

Fashion and apparel companies need purpose-built tools to navigate complicated supply chains, manage costs and inventory, meet production schedules, improve customer and vendor relationships and scale your business. But there are so many ERP vendors out there—why choose Aptean?

A Partner for Your Success

Aptean employs people who have decades of experience working in the fashion and apparel industry. At Aptean, our people speak your language, understand your operational challenges and share your goals. Aptean’s customer success and support team brings years of experience supporting apparel businesses. They can provide a wealth of knowledge and best practices to help you succeed with your ERP and our suite of apparel solutions. Aptean also offers regular trainings to ensure you get the most out of your investment in technology.

Additional Resources for the Fashion and Apparel Industry from Aptean: