Bangladesh's Tusuka improves OTDP with Coats Digital's FastReactPlan

Located in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Tusuka is a key production partner for top fashion brands such as H&M, Zara, M&S, WE, LPP and Group Dynamite. The company has a total workforce of 10,000 and a garment production capacity of 22,000,000 per annum. Tusuka has a sewing capacity of 100,000 garments per day, with 67 lines dedicated to denim garment production. It also has a specialist R&D department that researches advanced and sustainable washing techniques to meet brand requirements and the latest fashion trends. Tusuka has won a variety of awards, including a National Export Award and most recently, Premium Brands’ ‘Most Innovative Supplier of 2021’ award, as a result of its strong partnership with H&M – which it has won for two years in succession.

Prior to implementing FastReactPlan, Tusuka’s planning teams did not have the business intelligence they needed to navigate the volatile industry changes at the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Chaotic supply chain factors and an unexpected fluctuation of demand and capacity allocation, meant that it was difficult to optimise all factory facilities, keep staff overtime low and effectively maintain customer satisfaction with regards OTDP and quality.

Without the data insights it needed to plan successfully for an increase in varying style changes and small order requests, Tusuka found it was spending far too much time – especially senior management time – on initial start planning, which had a negative effect on overall productivity. The demand for shorter lead times also meant opening more lines than were necessary for the same product, which resulted in a significant rise in operational costs.

Limited visibility of forward load capacity and pre-production planning meant no accurate data was available to provide meaningful lead-time projections, or a true cost of production. Tusuka consequently was unable to respond quickly to customer demands for agile order confirmations, which resulted in lost business.

However, following the implementation of Coats Digital’s FastReactPlan, Tusuka’s planning and merchandising teams no longer need to cross-refer a myriad of spreadsheets, email messages, telephone conversations or meeting logs, to make important decisions about order planning and fulfilment. With all information now in one place, Tusuka’s employees are given the full visibility they need to update and respond to new information in an agile way, so they can progress orders within minutes, thanks to accurate plan-based capacity reports. 

“FastReactPlan supports significant operational process improvements by providing clear visibility and highlighting potential problems quickly. Accurate data is also informing more realistic business targets that our subsidiary businesses are consistently able to exceed. The highly visual and easy to use capabilities of FastReactPlan enable us to reschedule activities at speed, enabling us to offer advanced shipments which in turn reduces our storage costs and in-transit or WIP liabilities; eliminates costly airfreight and avoids other delivery flaws,” said Sheikh Shariful Islam, General Manager-Merchandising, Tusuka.

Improved visibility and transparency have consequently proved instrumental in boosting staff morale and reducing absenteeism by 7 per cent, at Tusuka, with staff able to perform significantly more efficiently, without having to resort to time-consuming and repetitive manual tasks to find and update critical information, across multiple sources.

“Ultimately, FastReactPlan has created a truly happy, contented and harmonious working environment for us all. This benefit is positively impacting our customers as we have more time to deliver an outstanding customer service every time,” Islam added.

FastReactPlan has additionally enabled Tusuka to reduce overtime costs, introduce faster order feeding processes and benefit from an overall efficiency increase of 5 per cent, and an improvement in OTDP of 9 per cent. This has meant that Tusuka can now increase orders and manage smaller and more varied style orders effectively and profitably.

Fayzur Rahman Badal, Managing Director, Tusuka, said: “Since adopting FastReactPlan, Tusuka has seen significant top-line growth thanks to greatly improved planning and decision making. It is such a user-friendly tool. I can easily access a snapshot of our entire business at any time, including visibility into micro levels where required.”

Ahtashamul Khan, Customer Success Manager, Coats Digital, Bangladesh, said: “Tusuka’s FRP implementation was one of the fastest FRP implementations in Bangladesh. From the beginning, Tusuka users took the project seriously. The senior management team, as well as all other stakeholders involved in the project, were absolutely determined to complete this project on time. After receiving astounding benefits as a result of the FastReactPlan implementation, the partnership between Tusuka and Coats Digital has strengthened, and FRP usage has now been extended to high level planning, where it has been integrated into Tusuka’s ERP and PowerBI systems. We look forward to seeing Tusuka enjoy continued success and rapid growth in the years to come.”

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (RKS)