While at the conference, please be sure to check out our session “Advanced Visibility Solutions for the Retail Supply Chain,” which we are co-presenting with Abercrombie & Fitch:

Abercrombie & Fitch that once outfitted Ernest Hemingway and Teddy Roosevelt for safaris is now challenged to globally orchestrate product deliveries with carton level visibility according to precise schedules to over 1,100 stores in the US, Canada, and Europe. In this session A&F will present a case study that details the implementation and results of integrating a new supply chain visibility solution.

For more information or to register for CSCMP, please visit the conference homepage.

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Management Dynamics, a leading provider of Global Trade Management solutions, today announced that Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (NYSE: ANF), a specialty retailer of casual apparel for men, women, and kids, implemented its Supply Chain Visibility solution to provide real-time visibility into the status of orders, shipments and in-transit inventory. The global, multimode visibility solution will allow its logistics team to streamline its supply chain process from vendor to distribution center and collaborate with merchants and service providers to reduce costs, shipment delays and improve customer service.

Abercrombie & Fitch selected Management Dynamics for its industry experience in delivering supply chain visibility solutions as well as its advanced data quality management capabilities. With 30 trading partners and multiple international business units, Abercrombie & Fitch’s logistics team needed a single, detailed level view of shipments and orders in-transit to track, manage exceptions, proactively pinpoint in-transit delays and respond to any potential logistics crisis. Integrating with its Oracle Retail Merchandising System, Management Dynamics’ Supply Chin Visibility solution allows merchants to monitor the delivery status of key orders and for the logistics team to proactively manage inbound shipments by milestones. And, with accurate shipment information earlier in the supply chain, Abercrombie & Fitch is able to improve store-level inventory allocations to reduce cycle time and achieve higher levels of availability.

“We needed to create reliability in our global supply chain with the ability respond to actual and potential issues and tightly collaborate with our merchants, distribution centers and service providers,” said Lois Davis, Vice President Global Trade & Transportation, Abercrombie & Fitch. “We chose Management Dynamics for their supply chain experience, ability to ensure data quality and problem resolution focused approach. Their hosted solution saves valuable time and effort, provides meaningful cost reductions, optimizes our shipping options, and improves our customer service.”

Management Dynamics’ Supply Chain Visibility solution supports the key requirements of the logistics operations at Abercrombie & Fitch including:

• One central location for tracking critical shipment information across multiple sources, providing visibility to inventory in-transit and speeding the flow of goods from distribution to merchants.
• Advance notice of shipment information to improve cross-border logistics decisions.
• Proprietary Data Quality Management (DQM) technologies and business methodologies to ensure best-in-class information accuracy, completeness and timeliness for all messages exchanged between trading partners.
• Event alerting capabilities that anticipate potential inventory receipt and fulfillment issues and prompt rapid resolution before they impact availability.
• Robust functionality for measuring, analyzing and improving the performance of suppliers, carriers and service providers with user-defined reports, scorecards and KPIs based on frontline data.

“In high fashion with ever-changing seasons and consumer tastes by region, it is critical for specialty retailers to tightly manage the inbound supply chain from vendor to distribution center and ultimately to improve store-level fulfillment metrics,” said Jim Preuninger, CEO of Management Dynamics. “Abercrombie & Fitch understands the importance of building a strong infrastructure to support collaborative logistics processes and selected our Supply Chain Visibility solution based on a track record of delivery in this area. We look forward to helping this leading apparel retailer to establish transparency across its global supply chain and realize their operational objectives.”

About Abercrombie & Fitch

Abercrombie & Fitch Co., through its subsidiaries, operates as a specialty retailer of casual sportswear apparel for men, women, and kids. The company’s stores offer knit and woven shirts, graphic t-shirts, fleece, jeans and woven pants, shorts, sweaters, and outerwear, as well as personal care products and accessories under the Abercrombie & Fitch, abercrombie, and Hollister. It also offers bras, underwear, personal care products, sleepwear, and at-home products for women under the Gilly Hicks brand. As of December 16, 2009, Abercrombie & Fitch Co. operated over 1,100 stores in the United States, Canada, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom. It also sells its products through Web-based stores, as well as through a catalogue. The company was founded in 1892 and is headquartered in New Albany, Ohio

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