Project Scheduling

The Tommy Hilfiger company consists of plenty of different departments that each obtain their own projects and assignments to fulfill. Take for example, the company’s most recent project to create a new design for the company outlet and specialty store bags. The initial task in which they will have to encounter will include establishing when the project will begin and when the job will be done. To answer these questions that the creative team will have to know, they adapt the use of the Gantt chart to assist them. The creative department as well as other departments within the company uses this chart to check the status, the duration, the end time, and completion date of a current project. Using the Gantt chart helps the Tommy Hilfiger company continue there success efficiently.

Supply Chain Management

Tommy Hilfiger receives most of their products from many different countries, such as China, India, and Japan. These countries produce products for Tommy Hilfiger which can be distributed worldwide. The suppliers are chosen very carefully in order to produce high quality products. After the suppliers are thoroughly chosen, the process of production begins. After the shipment has been reached the products are then inspected and delivered to Tommy Hilfiger’s distribution centers. The items are inspected again and sorted for quality. The role of the warehouse employees are to assure that the items delivered from the suppliers are received in a timely fashion to adapt for necessary changes in the fashion industry. Tommy Hilfiger sorts and groups the items allowing for delivery to designated stores. At the final stage the items are made available to potential customers.

Quality Control

Tommy Hilfiger manages its company as internal customers, working individually in departments but at the same time as a whole, this exceeds their quality control. Tommy uses the approval process on varies departments, which are management, customer services and production. All of the departments must comply with Tommy Hilfiger’s code of conduct. Continuous improvement is used in all areas management, customer service, production and design. Yes, Pareto analysis is used to define the weak areas and fish bone is used to help find solutions for the weak areas. Six Sigma (DMAIC) has been used through out the life of the company to ensure the process of improvement of the company is not lost over time.

Quality Control

Quality Management

The Quality of design that Tommy Hilfiger uses is aimed at targeting customer needs and wants. They do their best to accommodate the customers request and to provide them with what they want.

Quality of Conformance- Tommy offers products that met the company's specifications for their customer. The company provides high quality products that meets the standards obtain in the company objectives.

Availability- The Tommy Hilfiger company are very concerned about their customers' wants and needs. They do their best to help customers' find what they are looking for during their shopping experience. Whether it's an online or in- store shopping, if an item is not available sales associate or customer service reps are trained to assist with locating the right product for our valued customers'.

Reliability- The Tommy Hilfiger company's goal is to make quality a priority for the products. Tommy products are tested and examined prior to distributing to company, outlet, and specialty stores.

Maintainability - Tommy tries their best to accommodate unhappy customers, whether its the service or the products. They gladly accept returns for any product if a customer is not satisfied. They also accept products in original or damaged conditions.

Field Service -Customer and sales service is very important when it comes to Tommy's up most responsibility to ensure their customers that the highest level of customer service is reinforced. This quality system is currently in placed throughout the company. Customers' are aware that any issues will be resolved promptly, with a great measure of honesty and consideration.

Service Process Design

The three service-product bundles are the tangible service (explicit service), the psychological benefits of the service (implicit service), and the physical goods (facilitating goods). For Tommy Hilfiger, the tangible service would be the clothes, shoes, and accessories that they sell. The implicit service would be the atmosphere of the store along with the customer service provided. The facilitating goods are the registers used by the sales associates for totalling purchases and the fitting rooms used by customers. Tommy Hilfiger operates on the co-routed service matrix because it offers a moderate number of choices to customers, using a moderately standardized service system. For example, customer choices are limited based on what the company makes and sells under its product line. In other words, customers can't demand products that the company doesn't make. Some types of customer contact that Tommy Hilfiger encounters are through a call center which is outsourced. There is a hotline that customers call if they have received a defective item due to manufacturing error. The hotline allows the people on our end to research the problem and promptly replace the item. Tommy Hilfiger uses IBM and Linux for its e-business infrastructure, as the company works to expand its presence among specialty retailers, as well as for its worldwide manufacturing facilities and employees.The company used the IBM technology to create a software called TommyB2B (TommyB2B.com).This portal allows specialty retailers and sales force to view selected core and seasonal apparel products, such as jeans and other basic, available inventory, as well as place, track and ship orders. Tommy Hilfiger does not use self-service; everything is outsourced. The type of service recovery and guarantees that Tommy Hilfigers offers is resolved by the accounts receivable department to obtain funds for chargebacks. For instance, if a company places a specific order through the company and does not receive what was ordered, they have the right to deduct the cost of the items.

Process Selection

Tommy Hilfiger companys uses the type of product flow called batch flow. This product flow is characterized by production of the product in batches. The customer order process that Tommy chose to adapt is the make -to -stock order process. With this type of process there is a standard product line specified by the producer, not the customer. Products are fit to fulfill the customers needs and every operation is keyed to producing inventory in advance of actual demand in order to have proper products in stock. Tommy Hilfiger falls into the batch flow cell while in the process of characteristics matrix. This type of product flow allows the company to meet their customer’s needs.The factors influencing their process selection are the batch process in market condition, competition wise most of Tommy’s competitors are neck to neck in prices and trends but Tommy with its own signature style. Since Tommy uses the batch flow process capital is important as to financing their operations and their availability and cost of labor. Also technology plays a big part when producing product. In order to satisfy their customer’s need Tommy Hilfiger can adopt postponement into their mass customization method by allowing them to customize specific detailing for their customers’.

All About Tommy

Tommy Hilfiger is universal lifestyle brand, that covers a range of different major product lines and categories organized by various divisions: Menswear, Womenswear, Childrenswear, Denim, Sport, bodywear and other various licensed products such as fragrance, accessories and home furnishings. The Tommy Hilfiger brand combines American style with unique details to give time-honored classics an updated look for customers who desire high quality, designer apparel at competitive prices under the following labels or collections: Tommy (flag) Hilfiger, Hilfiger Denim, and Hilfiger Sport.

Inventory Management

Tommy Hilfiger Inc, a multi- billion dollar global apparel brand that is widely recognized remains the strongest in the industry. The company's apparel products are recognized throughout the world for their classics and timeless design. To keep pace with this expansion, TH USA’s distribution operations have undergone significant transformations. By 2004, distribution had grown from its humble beginnings from the trunk of Tommy Hilfiger’s car, to three distribution centers totaling almost one million square feet of space. One facility supported the Retail business unit, which includes the company’s own stores. The other two served the wholesale business unit, whose customers are mostly department-store and specialty-store chains.
With three buildings located within a three-mile radius, problems began to crop up. Functions were being duplicated, and inefficiencies were growing more evident.The Retail and Wholesale DCs were not only physically separate, but they also had separate Warehouse Management Systems. In addition, the fact that there was little room for expansion in the Retail DC to accommodate the robust sales growth of the retail stores led key personnel in operations, facilities, IT, and logistics to rethink the existing distribution plan. The plan to consolidate all the warehouses took affect which allowed production to follow as planned. Different types of procedures are used to keep the flow of a warehouse going, a system called the sortation systems, which is used to automatically route items to their next destination through a conveyor network, with little or no human intervention is constantly used throughout the warehouse. A combined receiving/shipping system to receive, sort, and palletize inbound cartons while simultaneously sorting and loading outbound orders picking sortation system to route replenishment totes through pick zones in multilevel pick modules linked to a network of packing stations; and a shipping-carton sortation system supported by a two-level-high, pallet flow-rack pick module to process and sort wholesale shipments. An automated unit sorter is also used to address the need for more retail picking capacity.TH USA’s host computer communicates the quantity of each stock-keeping unit (SKU) required for each store to the unit sorter’s control system. Meanwhile, the WMS directs cartons with the required items to the sorter’s induction station. An inductor scans the cartons’ bar codes and places individual items on passing trays perforated with tiny holes. Next, photo eyes look down through the holes at reflectors. If any reflectors are not seen (because something is covering the holes), the system knows that it has detected an item. Based on the scan at the induction station, it also knows what is on the tray and assigns it for delivery to the appropriate store’s drop station.With its projected capacity of 10,000-plus units per hour and an average of just 12 workers required to induct and pack orders, the unit sorter was a perfect fit for a high-throughput operation confined to a limited space.