Knitwear powerhouse Tunicotex Group selects Coats Digital’s FastReactPlan to transform production planning and target post-pandemic growth.
As a critical component of its digitization strategy, Tunicotex Group turned to Coats Digital for a technology solution to design agility into its operations through accurate pre-production planning, optimised material ordering, and seamless collaboration.
Coats Digital, which leads the market in production, capacity, and material planning through its FastReactPlan solution, will support Tunisian knitwear manufacturer Tunicotex throughout its 40,000m2 facilities in Soliman, Tunisia. By placing Coats Digital’s solutions at the heart of its digitization strategy, Tunicotex aims to transform its efficiency, data accuracy, and inter-departmental collaboration across its full capacity of 190,000 pieces per month.
Established in 1993, Tunicotex has built a reputation as a sought-after supplier of a wide range of knitted products, including cardigans, blazers, and hoodies, which it produces for international brands such as Hugo Boss, Armani, Tommy Hilfiger, and Calvin Klein. To cater to the needs of these high-profile brand customers, the Tunicotex Group has invested heavily in sustainability – adopting multiple industry certifications and standards, including GOTS and the Higg Index.
After the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Tunicotex began to re-evaluate its processes, systems and technologies and identified several roadblocks to its ambitions for post-pandemic growth. Before implementing FastReactPlan, key factory departments relied on data housed in disconnected spreadsheets, and manual communication via email to orchestrate planning and pre-production.
This had a profound effect on business visibility and coordination, making it difficult for Tunicotex to measure work in progress and plan capacity, which in turn led to bottlenecks and left manufacturing lines idle at unpredictable times. Similarly, without a consistent time and action calendar or clear visibility into raw materials, the Tunicotex team was limited in its ability to coordinate pre-production and delivery timelines, which led to miscommunication and affected the group’s ability to deliver against the expectations of its brand customers.
Compounded by shorter deadlines, more complex orders, and growing consumer demand, Tunicotex recognised a clear need to digitise its pre-production planning processes and to adopt best practices. After evaluating the market, Tunicotex selected Coats Digital’s FastReactPlan solution in March 2021, confident that its proven capabilities – used successfully in more than 2,000 factories in 40 countries worldwide – would be a cornerstone of a more efficient, collaborative process and the ability to both meet and exceed brand expectations.
“Selecting Coats Digital as a critical digital transformation partner was an obvious choice thanks to numerous glowing recommendations,” said Haithem Bouagila, Managing Director of Tunicotex. “Their expert team are passionate and knowledgeable, and they have been providing business-critical solutions to fashion manufacturers for decades. FastReactPlan is a trusted solution, proven thousands of times over across the garment and textile industry, and after the great training workshops we received from the Coats Digital team, we are confident that we will see a significant return on our investment in the next 2-3 years.”
To achieve that ROI, Tunicotex will make use of FastReactPlan’s visual, intuitive planning board to overhaul its planning process for greater efficiency and closer alignment with delivery deadlines. The detailed MRP (Material Supply & Demand) built into FastReactPlan, integrated to Tunicotex’s ERP system, will enable Tunicotex’s teams to dynamically calculate their material supply and demand from an accurate, up-to-date sewing plan.
“Tunicotex is a beacon of manufacturing excellence in Tunisia, and we’re proud to have been chosen as their critical technology partner for their ongoing pursuit of digital innovation,” said Stuart McCready-Stocks, Sales Director, EMEA for Coats Digital. “As well as representing Coats Digital’s first strategic partnership in Tunisia, this project also sets the bar for the implementation of technology by manufacturers who are looking to move beyond the COVID-19 pandemic and to prepare their businesses for the future. With the implementation of FastReactPlan, Tunicotex and Coats Digital have already begun working together to build a lean, agile model for the future – one that unlocks valuable data insights and runs on digital cross-team collaboration to improve decision-making.”
About Tunicotex Group
Established in 1993, Tunicotex Group is a leading knitwear manufacturing company spread across over 40,000 m2 area of land in Soliman, Tunisia. With a production capacity of 190,000 pieces per month, Tunicotex manufactures a wide range of products such as cardigans, blazers and hoodies and works with international brands including Hugo Boss, Lacoste, Armani, Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein.
About Coats Digital
Coats Digital is the leading digital transformation partner for the fashion supply chain, powering sustainable processes and high value insights through connected technologies. We leverage deep industry and technology expertise to help brands and manufacturers optimise, connect and accelerate business critical processes from design and development to method-time-cost optimisation, production planning and control, fabric optimisation and shop floor execution. Used in over 3,000 factories globally, our unmatched end-to-end apparel, footwear and textile software and SaaS solutions improve agility, speed to market, efficiency, transparency and sustainability.
About FastReactPlan
FastReactPlan is the market-leading apparel production planning software solution, supporting a faster, more reliable order confirmation process and production plan which is optimised for delivery, speed and efficiency.
The highly visual, flexible ‘drag and drop’ approach to planning allows effective master planning across multiple factories, as well as fast, detailed and accurate scheduling of manufacturing lines/machines. Critical pre-production activities and material requirements are dynamically driven by the latest plan on a LEAN ‘just in time’ basis, supporting the reduction of inventory and lead time.
