Manhattan Assoc And Semir Jointly Win Best IT Project 2012
By Anuja Abraham
Manhattan Associates, Inc. and its apparel brand customer Semir, have jointly won the award for ‘Best IT Project in 2012’ from the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing. This is the third year in succession that Manhattan has been a co-recipient of this prestigious award, having won the award previously for successful projects at leading Chinese pharmaceuticals distributor Sinopharm (2011) and pre-eminent Chinese 3PL operator Tingtong Logistics (2010).
The awards event is an opportunity to shine a spotlight on some of the most successful deployments of innovative technology in China and illustrate new ways in which the country’s supply chain industry is evolving. The 2012 awards event, which was hosted at the Shangri-La hotel in Wuhan, China, attracted nearly 1,000 participants.
The recent Manhattan Associates project at Semir was singled out for the way in which the Manhattan technology has helped Semir optimize its distribution infrastructure and given the leading Chinese apparel brand a competitive edge using a supply chain systems capability that effectively supports its multi-channel business operations.
Mr. Zhang Zhenlin, logistics director at Semir commented, “With Manhattan’s system, we now have a degree of agility in our supply chain that we could not have hoped to achieve previously. We are able to effectively manage our multi-channel operations and can react very quickly to changing demand patterns. The Manhattan WMS also allows us to closely monitor vendor compliance, has given us huge improvements in inventory accuracy and optimised the whole order fulfilment process which means higher customer satisfaction levels.”
Mr. Zhenlin continued, “Within the DC itself, we have seen picking efficiency improve by 60 percent, labour costs cut by 40 percent, space utilisation improve by 30 percent, and we’ve been able to accelerate goods flows meaning we are now able to process 350,000 individual pieces in a 7 hour order preparation window.”
Arnold Consengco, managing director, North Asia, at Manhattan Associates, commented, “We are delighted to have won this prestigious award and would like to dedicate it to the hard work of all members on the Manhattan and Semir teams that worked on this project together. With our supporting supply chain technology, we are helping organisations like Semir as well as many other retail organisations around the world to create agile and responsive supply chains. This is becoming critical, particularly in the context of the multichannel environment in which business is now conducted, and as consumers become increasingly discerning about what goods they want and when and how they want to receive them.”
