FABRIX ABSOLUTELY VITAL TO NORSEWEAR

Based around the Wellington region, Norswear Ltd has forged an impressive name for itself in the outdoor and active apparel sectors since it first began manufacturing clothing in 1963.

Today, Norswear employs between 70 and 100 people across its operations in three separate locations and exports its premium brands – Norsetech and New Zealand Natural Clothing – to 12 countries.

Given the highly competitive environment that New Zealand clothing manufacturers are now operating in, Norswear CEO, Paul Spicer, says that having an effective computerized manufacturing and management system in place is “absolutely vital”.

The decision to have the FABRIX system installed four years ago, he says, was based on the fact that the software was developed specifically for the apparel industry by Wellington-based tecnology provider DDNC.

“We have a head office in Wellington, which handles accounts, marketing and design, and then we have our Wanganui factory doing all of our wovens – jackets and outerwear – and the Norsewood plant doing all our knitwear. Fabrix is great in that we have links in all of these locations and everyone is operating on the same system,” says Spicer.

Norsewear’s individual departments – ranging from production planning to accounts and stock control to sales – utilise different facets of the information that is generated by FABRIX, which Spicer describes as being “a very diverse system.”

“We just could not do without it. It makes everyone’s jobs so much simpler and removes a lot of the guess-work.” Being modular based, companies are able to continue building up the FABRIX system to achieve the level of reporting that they desire.”

“With a system like this, which is so comprehensive, I would guess that a lot of people who are using it never use it to its full capacity. We’re probably only using it at half throttle and we’re still generating a huge volume of information,” says Spicer.

“The wonderful thing is that DDNC offer such a good service in up-skilling and adding additional components as required. “We’d highly recommend it, because it’s designed specifically for our industry, the ragtrade, where it is a fantastic tool.”

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