DALLAS--Coats North America, a division of Coats, PLC – the world’s largest manufacturer of industrial sewing thread and consumer needlecraft products – selected new-generation inventory optimization solutions from i2 Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:ITWO) in the fourth quarter of 2006. The company already successfully leverages i2 solutions to help optimize its demand and supply planning operations.
Using i2 planning solutions over the years, Coats North America has effectively managed its stock levels to maintain high service standards and has optimized the use of manufacturing assets to maintain an effective return on capital investment. With the selection of new-generation inventory optimization solutions from i2, Coats will look to gain a better understanding of how to maximize sales availability while minimizing inventory across its North American distribution network. Gaining visibility to the company’s inventory holdings will enable Coats to enhance customer service by better understanding customer buying behavior and will allow them to maintain less inventory leading to reduced costs.
“In today’s competitive environment where cost is a key constraint, yet quality can never be compromised, we are continuing to utilize our resources more efficiently,” said Vice President of Supply Chain for Coats North America, Michael Schofer. “Better returns on our inventory investments enable the agility that our executives demand and our customers expect. With this selection, it is our goal to compliment the work we have already started by working to further streamline our inventory operations. We are excited about the company’s future vision and feel that the inventory optimization solution will meet our strategic objectives.”
i2 New-Generation Inventory Optimization is designed to help companies adjust inventory to changing market conditions and supply chain constraints. The solution can help companies manage inventory policies more efficiently to improve customer service, reduce costs and gain market share. i2 New-Generation Inventory Optimization helps companies manage their supply chains while simultaneously having the ability to tune their supply chain configuration and policies based on performance.
“i2 works closely with industry leaders such as Coats to deliver solutions to the most pressing business challenges,” said i2 Senior Vice President of Consumer Industries, Steve Estrada. “Supply chain excellence requires striking the most profitable balance among service levels, lead times, budgets, risks, and inventory costs. Our new-generation solutions allow i2 customers to mitigate supply chain risk by continuously adjusting business processes to respond to market fluctuations. This delivers enhanced business agility, better customer service and bottom line value.”
i2 new generation solutions are built on the i2 Agile Business Process Platform, a unique service-oriented architecture (SOA) that includes a layer of technology services and a business process workflow engine. The platform is business process management (BPM) compliant and interoperates with legacy, ERP and other enterprise architectures.
About i2
i2 helps business leaders make better supply chain decisions. i2's flexible new-generation solutions are designed to synchronize demand and supply across ever-changing global business networks. i2's innovative supply chain management tools and services are pervasive in a wide cross-section of industries; 20 of the AMR Research Top 25 Global Supply Chains belong to i2 customers. Learn more at www.i2.com.
i2 is a registered trademark of i2 Technologies US, Inc. and i2 Technologies, Inc.
