New York based fashion brand to adopt Infor CloudSuite Fashion to support current and future growth.
American Exchange Group (AXNY), a multi-division industry leader in accessories design, manufacturing and wholesale, has selected Infor CloudSuite Fashion, an ERP solution specifically designed for apparel, footwear, textile and fashion accessories companies, to standardize all divisions across the organization and support future growth.
Recently, AXNY acquired two footwear brands, AEROSOLES and White Mountain Footwear Group/Cliffs.
With the acquisitions adding to its portfolio, AXNY was faced with having to maintain multiple ERP systems to support multiple brands.
By consolidating to one ERP solution, AXNY will have better integration between systems, standardization across all business units and more modern capabilities. This new end-to-end solution includes Infor CloudSuite Fashion, Fashion PLM (product lifecycle management), Factory Track and Infor Birst analytics & reporting.
The multi-tenant cloud solution is powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and deployed by Infor partner Fortude with its strong focus in the fashion industry.
We asked Todd Emerson, CTO, AXNY, for more:
What system will AXNY migrate from?
As AXNY continues to expand this solution list will evolve. Over the next year we will migrate from A2000, BlueCherry and Momentis ERPs.
What were AEROSOLES, White Mountain and Cliffs using?
AEROSOLES is actively using BlueCherry.
White Mountain/Cliffs is using Momentis for ERP and PLM.
We plan to migrate White Mountain/Momentis after first migrating AXNY and AEROSOLES.
This ERP migration requires a thoughtful approach that keeps these businesses running smoothly while we plan, implement and enable the new Infor ERP and PLM for each business division/company.
What other solutions did AXNY consider?
AXNY looked at a broad range of solutions. Many of these claimed to be “cloud” solutions. While it is true that these solutions were hosted in the cloud, they were not multi-tenant solutions that enabled us to benefit from new features and services. Most of them served as a “hub” for multiple applications and services. This meant that once we implemented the ERP, we would then have to find and integrate multiple partners for the solution to provide us with the core functionality we needed.
Beyond technical integration, this would require multiple business and product agreements and licenses to manage.
The Infor multi-tenant Suite approach gives us a single core technology platform as well as single business relationship.
Even with third party integrations, such as EDI partners, Infor’s team is highly involved in vetting and recommending services that other Infor customers have used successfully.
What other systems will the Infor suite replace?
Infor will replace some internal proprietary processes and systems for PLM as well as replace our existing finance/accounting systems.
Company-wide finance, inventory and sales reporting will be provided by Infor Birst. We will also use Infor Factory Track for logistics and warehouse management. AXNY’s technology team will use Infor ION APIs to implement custom tools and services as needed.
With what other applications will Infor need to integrate as part of the project?
AXNY will need to integrate EDI and third-party systems for processing orders and logistics. For example, we integrate with logistics from AXNY’s warehouses and with ShipLogiq 3PL.
What are the timelines of the project (Start, Duration, Phasing, Go live)?
As we implement Infor ERP and PLM, we will migrate our footwear businesses first, then our other business units. We plan to go live with AXNY Footwear and AEROSOLES by early Q4 2023. Some smaller divisions may be implemented in-house sooner and other divisions will gradually be on-boarded through Q2 2024.
What most impressed about Infor compared to other solutions?
Infor’s solution takes a multi-tenant Enterprise Platform as a Service approach which exposes us to continuous improvements based on a solid core/foundation of products and services. Infor runs on top of AWS and uses AWS services aligning with our cloud strategy. All services have APIs that allow us to integrate with Infor as needed.
How many users and locations will the solution deploy to?
AXNY has offices and locations in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, California, Panama and China. Once fully deployed, around 250 employees across all these locations will be using the Infor CloudSuite solution.
What base metrics are AXNY looking to improve as a result of the implementation?
Right now, we have so many disparate systems and processes that prevent us from having reliable baseline metrics. Our bill of materials and landed costs are managed in different systems for different products, while billing, operating costs and capital expenditures are stored in different systems. The biggest immediate impact of adopting Infor CloudSuite will be that we have a single view of our business that allows us to establish and measure benchmark metrics for all the various AXNY businesses.
Some areas where we hope to make immediate improvements include:
- Time-to-Market: Measuring and Improving efficiencies from product concept to retailer’s shelf or customer’s doorstep. Today much of this information is not captured in a single system, making it practically impossible to establish baseline metrics.
- Inventory Planning and Management: Managing inventory to get closer to “just-in-time” levels using near real time data from internal and external sources. This should allow us to produce higher quality products at an overall lower cost.
- Order and Logistics Efficiency: With so many disparate systems and companies under the AXNY umbrella it is often difficult to track and manage orders across multiple systems and companies. Introducing a mature ERP such as Infor provides the appropriate support systems and processes as we grow and scale into a multibillion-dollar group of companies across a wide range of industries.
- RPE/NIPE: AXNY already has impressive Revenue Per Employee (RPE) metrics, but with new systems and processes in place we should be able to better understand and measure our Net Income Per Employee (NIPE) for each business and continue to improve both metrics.
