The “hummelbee” has truly learned to fly. Hummel grows with 30% a year and is expanding around most of the world - this is in the fashion industry where the frequency of collections has reached more or less six collections a year. High speed, massive growth and increasing globalization are three of hummel’s primary challenges. The answer to these challenges is among other things to digitize as many work routines as possible. In order to do so hummel has chosen Microsoft Dynamics NAV (formerly Navision) TRIMIT Fashion to be the platform which enhances hummel’s future growth.

Automation, flexibility and self service. These are three of the aims for hummel’s IT-strategy, that are supposed to support an aus-picious commercial development in the years to come. Hummel has succeeded in making sports wear fashionable, and the com-pany has had success in both sportswear, fashion wear and leisure wear. Furthermore, hummel has won fashion awards and interna-tional superstars like Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, Bono, Eminem and Robbie Williams have all worn hummel clothes. The result of the last account year was a turnover at about DKK 600 million and a profit of DKK 12 million. At the moment, hummel employs just over 100 employees, it has its own companies in Scandinavia, England, the U.S.A., Spain and China – and is furthermore represented by agents in another 25 countries.

The production is divided between own production and sub-con-tractors in China, Turkey and a number of other places, because ”sometimes the delivery time is very crucial. It is a transitory market we operate in, and fashion changes very rapidly; “sometimes we just can’t wait the 4-6 weeks it takes to move a container full of textiles from China to Europe,” says IT-manager Brian Kofoed.

ADJUSTMENT AND STANDARD AT THE SAME TIME

Since 2003 hummel´s IT has based on the Fashion version of TRIMIT. ”We needed a more contemporary IT-solution, which could support the specific demands we had in virtue of being a textile company in international growth,” Brian Kofoed explains and adds: ”we chose TRIMIT Fashion because the system contains the right balance between standardization and adjustments to satisfy the needs of textile companies. This means that we can make our own upgrades and it is easy to buy and add extra modules.”

IT FOR TEXTILE NEEDS

He explains that the system’s matrix for the sales department´s registration of orders is an example of how a textile company saves a lot of input time using TRIMIT Fashion. The system includes a matrix for each item, with colors marked on one axis and sizes on another. The sales person only has to click the right combination of color and size to register the order.

Brian Kofoed points out three other factors about TRIMIT Fashion which hummel benefit´s from. The first one is the complaints-module which is great at generating statistics and gathering knowledge, which helps hummel understand where possibilities for improvements can be found.

Industry: FashionCustomer: hummel

CASESTORY

Sold, implemented and supported by CORNATOR A/S

Another factor is the system’s language layers which make it very easy to expand internationally. ”Three months ago our German company started using the system and this process has been without any complica-tions. The language layers ensure that we can easily use either Danish or English without losing data or dou-bling our work,” says Brian Kofoed.

The last factor is the system’s extremely dynamic product-structure and product-establishment. In TRIMIT Fashion you establish each single item on the foundation of models/styles. This makes the complex manage-ment very simple and – using automation of manual routines – it ensures speed and reduces possibilities of errors.

GEOPRAPHICALLY INDEPENDENT

Hummel was originally founded in 1923 in Germany, but in 1974 it moved to Denmark when the two former handball internationals, Jørgen Vodsgaard and Max Nielsen, bought the then unknown company and moved

to Århus. However, the name hummel – German for bumble-bee – stayed. Today, hummel is 100 % owned by Thor and Christian Stadil. Germany is an important market for hummel and the German sales management is now using TRIMIT Fashion

The TRIMIT Fashion solution strenghtens hummel’s efficiency and com-petitive performance in the German market. Hummel’s German sales people can see what is available in different countries online, and they can plan and dispose regardless of their geographical position. This - of course - saves time, reduces unnecessary duplication and wrong deci-sions and, furthermore, it contributes to a better usage of the stock.

IT WILL INCREASE FUTURE GROWTH IN THE FUTURE

”We definitely aim at digitizing as many work routines as possible. The textile industry competes on marginals and speed, and IT is one of the factors which will set us apart from our competition in the future,” Brian Kofoed says.

Hummel will work with web shops and digitization of order flows, collection of customer data, as many self service possibilities as possible, automatic generation of Business Intelligence reports, electronic conveyance of business communication to customer chains, etc, etc. All this save the ex-panding textile company lots of time and valuable work force, which instead can be spent on valuable work in de-sign and strategy. And not least, it will make hummel faster, which is crucial in an industry where fashion seasons changes 4-6 times a year.

ABOUT CORNATOR

CORNATOR is a Danish Partner of TRIMIT A/S and since 1990 it has implemented TRIMIT into more than 250 companies in Denmark. Furthermore, CORNATOR is a Gold Certified Microsoft Business Solutions Partner specializes in Microsoft Dynamics NAV solutions to manufacturing and trading companies within:

- Wood & Furniture - Textiles, Shoes & Fashion - Iron & Metal - Machinery & Electronics - Plastics and Rubber

Learn more about the company at www.cornator.com

ABOUT TRIMIT A/S

TRIMIT is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner with both the Microsoft Business Solutions, and the ISV competency.

Our goal is to extend, optimize and improve the use of Microsoft Dynamics NAV in a manufacturing or trading company. This includes a web portal solution with seeming less integration to Microsoft Dynamics Nav and a complete CMS (Content Management) system.

The overall concept is the idea of a Standard system

The objective is that Microsoft Dynamics NAV and the TRIMIT solutions cover all requirements of the com-pany thereby ensuring customizing to be minimized. Each company adapts the system to the company by adjusting parameters - not by programming customizations!

TRIMIT is developed as a standard component fully integrated with Microsoft Dynamics NAV and the devel-opment of TRIMIT is following the development of Microsoft Business Solution. The objective is that TRIMIT does not replace any functionality from Microsoft Business Solution, but extend and/or improve existing functionality.

Any Microsoft Dynamics NAV TRIMIT customer is kept up-to-date by frequent updates. Each update also provides the latest in functionality from Microsoft Business Solution.

All our customers are working on the exact same version of TRIMIT. New functionality is developed in close dialog with the Partners based on the needs of their customers and then distributed to all customers by the next update. This way TRIMIT is always matching the market demands and ensures that your company al-ways will be up-to-date.

Learn more about the company at www.trimit.com