The PDMA Handbook of New Product Development

31.6. A Lean Launch Illustration: Benetton

Apparel manufacturer Benetton has enhanced its competitiveness in a highly competitive market through lean launch application. Benetton's agents in various countries utilize electronic data interchange (EDI) to transmit orders to Italy on a daily basis. Based on this market information, Benetton is able to precisely track sales and react to demand by manufacturing only those garment styles, colors, and sizes being sold. Computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) make their manufacturing operation fast and flexible. From the time a garment is designed to when it is actually manufactured can take as little as a few hours. State-of-the-art software allows designs to be created in-house and be quickly fed to computer-controlled garment cutters and knitting machines.

Benetton utilizes form postponement to apply dyes. Traditionally, manufacturing of clothing starts with dyeing of the yarn, followed by knitting into garments. Because of the short cycle associated with seasonal clothing sales, it is difficult to restock retailers with the right color and size assortment. The traditional anticipatory process potentially yields excess inventories of unpopular colors, while at the same time increasing the risk of out-of-stocks on popular colors, historically resulting in lost sales opportunities or overstocks that require extensive markdown. Benetton, however, manufactures garments from bleached yarn and delays dyeing until ...