BY JAMES A. COOKE, EDITOR AT LARGE
TRACK AND TRACE
technologyreview
A decade ago, apparel maker Jones
Group installed a visibility system to keep
tabs on shipments. No one ever
imagined the system would also become
its solution to regulatory compliance.
double duty
WHEN THE JONES GROUP (FORMERLY JONES APPAREL GROUP) INSTALLED A
visibility system a decade ago, it had just one goal in mind—to get a better handle on its
sprawling international supply chain. With suppliers scattered across the world, track-
ing orders and goods in transit had become a task of monumental proportions. “We
needed to know the whereabouts of all our shipments,” says Jodie Mendoza, the com-
pany’s senior vice president of corporate logistics, “and trying to keep up with it on a
manual basis was just impossible.”
What the company could not have foreseen was that the same visibility system would
become the linchpin of its regulatory compliance program. Not long after Jones Group
started rolling out the system, the nation was rocked by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. That
led the U.S. government to step up its cargo screening efforts, with the result that
importers today face a host of new data collection requirements. Although it had to
make some minor operational adjustments, Jones Group has found compliance to be a
breeze. Its visibility system provides all the data it needs to meet the new requirements
and keep its merchandise flowing smoothly through the supply chain.
Coming into the country
Headquartered in Bristol, Pa., The Jones Group is a designer, marketer, and wholesaler
of branded clothing, shoes, and accessories for women, men, and children. Its well-known brands include Anne Klein, Jones New York, Nine West, and Easy Spirit. The
company reported about $3.3 billion in total revenue for 2009 from sales through specialty retail stores, outlets, and e-commerce sites.
Most of the company’s merchandise is made overseas by contract manufacturers in
Asia, the Middle East, and Africa (Kenya), and shipped to the United States by ocean.
(Although Jones Group does use air freight on occasion, close to 95 percent of its products move via steamship.) While ocean has the advantage over air when it comes to cost,
it also has a downside: lengthy and unpredictable transit times. That makes it difficult
for importers like Jones Group to keep tabs on merchandise while it’s in transit from the
factory to North America.
About 10 years ago, those visibility problems came to a head, prompting the apparel
company to take the software route. “At that time, we were having so many shipments
that could drop in a black hole,” says Mendoza. “So it was a top priority for us, because
we needed to know when the goods were going to hit [U.S. shores], so we could pull out
the correct goods to ship to our stores.”
Today, all of the Jones Group divisions as well as their vendors and trading partners
