A Step in the Right Direction

Since its start in 1905, the Red Wing Shoe Company has held a solid commitment to four basic principles: "We are dedicated to quality, durability, comfort and providing a great value to our customers," says Rick Bawek, CFO, Red Wing Shoe Company. "We strive each and everyday to deliver on the promise that we've maintained for 100 years."

The company's premier boot and shoe product lines -- Red Wing Shoe, Irish Setter, Vasque and WORX -- are sold in more than 4,000 dealers nationally, including company-owned and dealership Red Wing Shoe stores. The company also operates a headquarters, manufacturing facility and leather tanning site in Red Wing, Minnesota; two footwear factories in Kentucky and Missouri, and six other warehouses worldwide.

A Worn Out Platform

As competition grew in the relatively mature work boot market, Red Wing Shoe found that its revenue was flat-lining. What was the problem? For the past 12 years, the company was depending on a somewhat antiquated platform that resided on its mainframe. "With the mainframe, you are batch processing overnight, which doesn't deliver a finite planning capacity," says Bawek. That finite scheduling capability is the key to gaining an advantage over competitors, which have significantly longer lead times, continues Bawek.

The firm sought an enterprise system that would provide its more than 2,000 employees with ready access to timely and accurate information to better serve customer needs. What it found is an end-to-end solution that can nail down everything within its supply chain from forecasting, planning and procurement to production, distribution and after-sales support.

If the Shoe Fits

In a broad sense, Bawek wanted an end-to-end solution that could act as an enabler for the employees. "Once you put something that is fully integrated in place," says Bawek, "you can really enable your employees to be more effective, and provide better service and products to the full spectrum of customers."

In December 2003, Red Wing Shoe signed a contract to license and implement Intentia's Movex Fashion, an integrated suite of collaborative enterprise applications designed specifically for the fashion, apparel, footwear and other sewn products industries.

"The key in separating Intentia apart from a pool of eight other vendors was its focus on the garment industry," says Bawek. Red Wing Shoe prides itself on offering a great variety of sizes and widths, touting more than 20,000 SKUs. Movex Fashion was a perfect fit considering it is designed to handle large volumes of items with short life cycles as well as items that remain from season to season.

Trying On For Size

Ultimately, Red Wing Shoe plans to implement the entire Movex suite, including Intentia's Corporate Portal, Workplace, e-Business, Advanced Production Planning, Supply Chain Planning & Execution and Business Performance Warehouse applications. For now, however, Red Wing Shoe is working on implementing a core set of functionality needed to meet its immediate and near term business requirements, which were identified during the project's first phase Ñ the positioning phase.

Through a five-phase, proprietary process termed Intentia's Implex methodology, the software company provides a clear framework for Red Wing Shoe to keep the project focused and results-oriented. The five-phases of this methodology are collectively: 1) Positioning 2) Design 3) Configuration, 4) Implementation and 5) Start-up. Red Wing Shoe is currently working on the design phase of its implementation project.

"A secondary reason for choosing Intentia is that it implements its own software," says Bawek. "Its consultants work right alongside of the people that sell the software. They work right alongside of the people who hold the keys to the technical applications, and they work side-by-side with our own project manager." The system runs on an IBM iSeries and will ultimately serve more than 250 users.

A Solution to Boot

With Movex, Red Wing Shoe will be able to provide its customers with products and information when and how they want to receive it. "Right now, there is a disconnect in terms of how data is collected and what is most meaningful," says Bawek. "Intentia will allow Red Wing Shoe to use data more effectively in decision making."

With synchronized demand and production, Red Wing Shoe expects to reduce or eliminate redundancies in processes and systems, shorten cycle times and access and analyze information to support decision making.

With its previous system, Red Wing was building product that wasn't necessarily the right product. As a result, it would end up with a warehouse full of product worth tens of millions of dollars. Now, with the finite planning capabilities in Movex Fashion, Red Wing can remove a great deal of investment lying in redundant inventory. "The scheduling and planning won't change the process of how we build shoes," says Bawek. "But it is going to enhance our ability to manufacture the right product at the right time."