GAINS Helps Stuller Settings “Discover a New Source of Profits”
Stuller Settings has come a long way since 1970, when Matthew Stuller first began providing local jewellers with findings (components) on a friendly, timely basis. Today, Stuller Settings is one of the world’s largest manufacturers and distributors of fine jewellry-related products, providing more than 300,000 different items to the trade. Stuller provides just-intime delivery to its account base of more than 50,000 jewellers throughout North America and the world. Stuller has been able to ensure a 99% line item fill rate by managing their operations with GAINS’ inventory planning and optimisation capabilities.
Through its innovative manufacturing and distribution techniques, Stuller has become known as the premier just-in-time supplier to the industry. The company operates in nearly 200,000 square feet of manufacturing and administrative facilities at its headquarters in Lafayette, Louisiana, with additional manufacturing facilities in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
To improve its sourcing of diamonds and coloured stones, Stuller has established buying offices in Tel Aviv, Israel, Bangkok, Thailand and a cooperative agreement in Bombay, India. Stuller has also opened Jewelry Service Centers in Houston, Los Angeles, Seattle, Miami, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Toronto to serve retail jewellers in those major metropolitan areas. To support this dynamic distribution network, they implemented GAINS (General Adaptive INventory Solution) throughout the company. “The implementation of GAINS was a quick and easy process.” states Stuller’s Vice President of Logistics, “It took about 10 weeks using the implementation templates provided by GAINSystems, the company behind the GAINS. By our third month we were tracking profit improvements to our bottom line.”
“Our industry reputation is based on next day delivery of virtually everything needed to supply your local jeweler. Being in stock is not just a financial decision, but a strategic one. ‘We carry the inventory so you don’t have to’ is more than a slogan — it’s who we are. Prior to installing GAINS, we tried to keep this promise through a system that generated large surpluses of slow moving items, without preventing high stock outs on the very best sellers. We had 50% of our inventory supporting the last 10% of sales. GAINS is making it easier to keep the promise to our customers by keeping its promise to us. This morning, we were 99.5% in stock and maintained an average of 98.5% during our peak holiday season. We are also learning that it is not necessary to maintain the huge safety stocks that resulted from our old ERP based system.”
“Our business is a very dynamic business that is driven by holidays and seasonal buying trends. One of the most amazing things is the responsiveness of the GAINS planning tools to automatically identify changes in our business,” explains the Executive Director of Manufactured Products. “Due to some product changes we had made, there was a significant change in demand, causing our service levels to drop to a low of 96% during our peak demand period. However, GAINS was so responsive that we only remained below 99% for 6 weeks and were then back on track with no unusual expediting. Prior to GAINS, it would have taken us at least 12 weeks to make a recovery like that.”
Several of the unique optimisation and inventory planning capabilities found in GAINS, that enabled Stuller Settings to achieve their results, are:
Through its innovative manufacturing and distribution techniques, Stuller has become known as the premier just-in-time supplier to the industry. The company operates in nearly 200,000 square feet of manufacturing and administrative facilities at its headquarters in Lafayette, Louisiana, with additional manufacturing facilities in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
To improve its sourcing of diamonds and coloured stones, Stuller has established buying offices in Tel Aviv, Israel, Bangkok, Thailand and a cooperative agreement in Bombay, India. Stuller has also opened Jewelry Service Centers in Houston, Los Angeles, Seattle, Miami, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Toronto to serve retail jewellers in those major metropolitan areas. To support this dynamic distribution network, they implemented GAINS (General Adaptive INventory Solution) throughout the company. “The implementation of GAINS was a quick and easy process.” states Stuller’s Vice President of Logistics, “It took about 10 weeks using the implementation templates provided by GAINSystems, the company behind the GAINS. By our third month we were tracking profit improvements to our bottom line.”
“Our industry reputation is based on next day delivery of virtually everything needed to supply your local jeweler. Being in stock is not just a financial decision, but a strategic one. ‘We carry the inventory so you don’t have to’ is more than a slogan — it’s who we are. Prior to installing GAINS, we tried to keep this promise through a system that generated large surpluses of slow moving items, without preventing high stock outs on the very best sellers. We had 50% of our inventory supporting the last 10% of sales. GAINS is making it easier to keep the promise to our customers by keeping its promise to us. This morning, we were 99.5% in stock and maintained an average of 98.5% during our peak holiday season. We are also learning that it is not necessary to maintain the huge safety stocks that resulted from our old ERP based system.”
“Our business is a very dynamic business that is driven by holidays and seasonal buying trends. One of the most amazing things is the responsiveness of the GAINS planning tools to automatically identify changes in our business,” explains the Executive Director of Manufactured Products. “Due to some product changes we had made, there was a significant change in demand, causing our service levels to drop to a low of 96% during our peak demand period. However, GAINS was so responsive that we only remained below 99% for 6 weeks and were then back on track with no unusual expediting. Prior to GAINS, it would have taken us at least 12 weeks to make a recovery like that.”
Several of the unique optimisation and inventory planning capabilities found in GAINS, that enabled Stuller Settings to achieve their results, are:
- Dynamic Forecast Model Selection that automatically tests for pattern plausibility and accuracy to provide an objective demand plan baseline and eliminate as much human bias as possible.
- Dynamic Analysis of Supply and Demand for every SKUL (SKU by Location) across the enterprise that consider all error sources including the variability in supply and user variance from plan. The goal is to achieve precisely the cost-minimising or profit-maximising Service Level (not more or less).
- Profit-Optimised Inventory Policies (e.g. Replenishment Order Sizing & Safety/Service Stock) calculated at the SKUL level, considering total annual cost (e.g. change-over versus carrying), comprehensive error, targeted service levels, BOM demand, and production constraints.
- Leading Indicator, Extrinsic Variable, and Viability Analysis to ensure forecasts and plans are not just ‘rearward-looking’ but incorporate trade partner data (e.g. customer forecasts, POS data) as well as macro data (e.g. housing starts, interest rates).
- Multi-Echelon Inventory Optimisation (MEIO) algorithms that determine whether to stock items and at what service level. These solve for interdependencies within the bill-of-materiel (BOM) & among locations to devise inventory & postponement strategies while meeting customer delivery expectations at minimum total cost.
- Dynamic Production Optimisation that automatically creates capacity and material-feasible Master Production Schedules that sequence SKU work order requirements optimally given change-over costs, inventory carrying costs, and on-time delivery goals; also provides strategic determination of target capacity, trade-offs of pre-build versus overtime, etc.
"I was amazed that after changing our inventory and customer service management over to GAINS, we not only consistently hit our 99% line item fill rate service targets but were able to achieve this with 27% less inventory and an operating cost reduction of 23%. It was like discovering a whole new source of profit for the company. GAINSystems’ quick implementation process enabled us to achieve corporate-wide implementation in about 10 weeks, so we were tracking profit improvements by our third month” – Vice President of Logistics, Stuller Settings