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Focus on sourcing
Headquartered in Knoxville, Tenn., Goody’s is a retailer of moderately priced family apparel with more than 380 department stores, primarily in strip malls in the Southeast and Midwest. Its own labels account for 25 to 30 percent of total sales.

The company recently was acquired and taken private, and the background of new CEO Charles Turlinski is in “sourcing and overseas product development,” says director of information systems development Joe Geist. “He wanted to make that part of our business better.”

With design offices in New York and factories overseas, “we found that we would need to be able to communicate and track production of our products better,” Geist says. “We had been managing product development on spreadsheets, but we found that with this method there are missed opportunities, problems are not visible early enough in the lifecycle, plus more staff and time would be needed.”

Timely product delivery – and the ability to identify and react to potential problems quickly – are essential for an ad-driven company like Goody’s, Geist says. Although still early in its implementation, things are “going great so far” with e-SPS, he says.

The best part of the NGC solution, Geist says, is its PLM. “I also like the dashboard and calendar on the desktop that let you know where everything is in the cycle and how things are going. We are able to collaborate more fluidly with our overseas vendors now. It’s a relatively seamless process; everyone is working off the same template.”

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