This is a guest post written by our customer Mark Roche, Medco and partner Eva Pinter, YBO.

Medco is one of the largest medical workwear resellers in Ireland. It is a company that has been in existence for more than 30 years and has over time acquired a solid reputation, for the high quality of its goods, the variety of uniform styles offered along, and the personalised service the company provides.

The company had already been managing their sales and ordering processing channels using a cloud based ERP system, but they were keen to change to something that would be more flexible, adaptable, and scalable to accommodate the needs of the growing business.

Item management specifics in fashion industry

Product management for the fashion industry is a complex process due to the multitude of combinations that a single garment or product may offer depending on the choice of colors, sizes and any other combination that may be customizable for the product.

For each product offered, there are 12 sizes to choose from across a range of 40 colors. Further complicating the product generation process is the fact that each of the products can then be ordered with a choice of 35 different colored buttons and also an individual trim color on pockets and sleeves.

The possible number of variations per product is in the range of tens of thousands although only a couple of hundred are ever ordered.

Variable Attribute Solution

For the purposes of this workwear company which supplies special uniforms to the healthcare industry, we had to implement a solution based on light and modern Odoo ERP. The system was highly customized to suit the uniform product combinations as demanded by the healthcare industry.

We analyzed the case for the best solution and developed the concept of “variable attribute”. Basically, we decided to allow the user to define on each product which of the attribute will be varying when entering sales or purchase orders.

Next, we added a creation wizard in the sales/purchase order step that allowed the user to select all the fixed attributes and then enter the quantity for each value of the variable attribute.

The system was programmed so that you move from one attribute value to the other using only the tabulator so that you do not have to use the mouse.

Once the wizard has finished, it automatically creates all the single lines containing the proper quantity as well as the attributes. The wizard can be started as many times as there are models. But it will be deactivated as soon as the order has been confirmed. Of course the system also allows to enter single lines manually or to copy and paste.

Six times less time to process all the orders

Using our solution, the time to enter a sales order with one model, 5 attributes, and 12 sizes decreased from 12 minutes to 2 minutes.

Now Medco users spend six times less time to process all the orders.

Because the solution is flexible enough, it can be used in any way the customer desires. Many users working with models and sizes may choose the size as the variable attribute. But companies using another attribute, e.g. the color, as a variable attribute can also benefit from our solution.

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