Lands’ End: Streamlining Custom Orders with IoT

Technology Category

Wearables - Smart Clothing

Applicable Industries

Apparel
Retail

Applicable Functions

Procurement
Product Research & Development

Use Cases

Personnel Tracking & Monitoring
Time Sensitive Networking

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services

The Challenge

Lands’ End, a renowned international retailer, was facing a significant challenge in managing custom orders for logoed apparel. The process was manual, time-consuming, and prone to errors, leading to delays in delivering orders to customers and increased costs. The company had to handle individual custom orders as quickly and reliably as it handled standard orders to keep corporate customers satisfied. The custom order process involved communicating instructions for special orders within the company and to international suppliers and customers via email and phone. This resulted in a six-to-eight-week process to deliver customers’ orders. If the order wasn't right, the process had to start over, leading to 100% rework, 100% more cost, and a 100% delay.

About The Customer

Lands’ End is an international retailer known for its high-quality, comfortable, and value-for-money casual clothing and related products. To businesses, from single entrepreneurs to Fortune 500 companies, Lands’ End is known for its tailored and business-casual logoed apparel for office wear, trade shows, and company events. More than 100,000 airline personnel wear uniforms provided by Lands’ End. The company also provides outerwear and related clothing to meteorologists at a major network. However, the company had to handle individual custom orders as quickly and reliably as it handled standard orders to keep corporate customers satisfied.

The Solution

To address this challenge, Lands’ End turned to Nintex and Nintex solution provider Boost Strategy Partners. They used Nintex Workflow and Nintex Forms for SharePoint and Nintex Workflow Cloud, along with Six Sigma principles, to create a streamlined, end-to-end process that was faster, more accurate, and more cost-effective. The new workflow began with a customer call to the Lands’ End service center. The Customer Care Consultant recorded the customer’s order using Nintex Forms, which initiated the transmission of a custom order sizing form to the customer via Nintex Workflow Cloud. The completed form was sent back to Lands’ End, approved by staff, and routed to a vendor for manufacturing, along with a due date assigned by the solution. The vendor sent the completed order to Lands’ End, which approved it and sent it to the customer. Every step of the process was time-stamped for monitoring and analysis.

Operational Impact

The implementation of the Nintex-based custom order process had a significant impact on Lands’ End’s operations. The company's most crucial KPIs—time-to-benefit, productivity, and accuracy—all improved. The solution completely eliminated manual work from operations and merchandising teams. The data collected by the solution enabled the sourcing team to gain better insights into vendor performance on meeting deadlines, completing orders accurately, and ensuring customers were satisfied with every interaction they had with the company. Lands’ End used these insights to provide vendors with constructive feedback to improve their performance. The company acknowledged the significant role of Boost’s expertise in the success of its Nintex projects.

Quantitative Benefit