How Digitizing Quality Control Helped Boardriders Enhance Supply Chain Efficiency

Business Situation

The apparel industry is in constant evolution, looking for innovative ways to get the best ways to get the best products to market faster than the competition.

The top brands work hard to keep their top spot despite the millions of competitors that are constantly fighting to become one of the industry’s top leaders. Boardriders is one of the hot brands that is in the spotlight, leading by example.

In 2015, Boardriders started a new quality initiative by implementing a vendor certification program at their vendor sites worldwide. Their goal was to move completely towards supplier self-inspection and put more trust in their suppliers while continuing to uphold their exceptional quality products and respected name in the apparel industry.

To achieve this, they had to explore new paths to combat their top challenges in regard to quality and supplier relationships.

Their top three challenges were:

• Lack of visibility in their supply chain and quality processes

• Insufficient supplier collaboration and involvement

• Shortage of employee engagement and responsibility

Solution

Boardriders met TradeBeyond in June 2016. At the time, about 70% of the vendors were already certified, and the introduction of TradeBeyond allowed to bring the certification and trust one step further. In fact, TradeBeyond permitted Boardriders to have broader visibility on the process, and to become vendor developers instead of quality auditors, dedicating more resources to process control rather than focusing on the inspection only.

Compliance plays a huge part in vendor development, and knowing the performance of suppliers is key. Identifying and addressing any non-compliances was a major challenge for Boardriders in the past, and using TradeBeyond allowed complete visibility and easy access to information in real-time.

Within 6 months Boardriders and TradeBeyond did a rapid implementation of over 40 factories, in 13 countries with users of multiple languages. From the very beginning, suppliers agreed that TradeBeyond is simple to use, fast, and much less than the manual processes.

Results

After the fast deployment and quickly getting their team on board, Boardriders instantly saw significant results:

• Monitoring Activities: Supplier activities can be easily monitored in the system since everything is time and user stamped and statuses are updated in real-time

• Compliance Follow-Ups: The team can monitor the completion of tasks and manage compliance of suppliers more effectively from anywhere

• Analytics: Rich information available that can be analyzed and provide insights on compliance, quality data, inspection efficiency and measurements

• Visibility: The whole process can be monitored in order to take more objective decisions in real time

• Structured Process: The same process can be followed throughout the supply chain, across suppliers

For me, the main benefit comes with the reporting tools. The Inspection Booking Compliance analytics chart is one of the most powerful features of the tool. It s the core of the information and if the booking compliance is not complete and accurate, then the rest of the performance will be affected. I now have insight on how many bookings have been made for the total PO Lines and how many of those bookings have been inspected. It has a good story to tell.

Amando Cuntapay
Head of Quality Management, Quiksilver Asia Sourcing

About Boardriders

Boardriders Inc is a world-renowned company specializing in apparel, swimwear, footwear and accessories.

Their products are sold in over 90 countries and inspire passion and adventure in young minded people across the planet. Their brand epitomizes quality, innovation and style. Their passionate team also share these qualities and continue to lead the expansion of Boardriders in new and existing markets all over the world.

To uphold their mission of delivering top quality products to all their customers around the globe, Boardriders applies unique strategies and uses for innovative technologies to stay ahead of the game.