Jollein comes of age

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Text Cees Steijger ~ Photography Jollein and Marcel R. Bakker

BUSINESS INTEGRATION

The South China Morning Post recently praised Jollein Smits Assens Oeko-Tex environmental policy. The Italian press has written flattering reviews. And this opinion has been shared by customers from Norway to New Caledonia and all countries between, not to mention trade fairs in Hong Kong, Cologne and Tokyo. Were talking about Smits Assen, a company that has occupied a leading position in nursery textiles and accessories for 35 years

mits Assen started in 1973, literally in Wim Smits seniors attic. The inventor of the successful Jollein formula sourced quality fabrics from the textiles industry in Twente and had the finished baby-bed textiles made by contractors in Friesland. The Jollein brand name rapidly acquired a strong national position and, in recent years, has also become a household name throughout the world. And to serve their customers worldwide even better, Smits Assen has recently opened an office in Hong Kong under the name Smits Hong Kong Ltd. duTch The Dutch provincial capital of Assen, which in 2009 drew international attention as the starting-point of the Spanish Vuelta cycling race (literally from the front door of Smits Assen) and is known from the Grand Prix TT Assen motorsports event, supplies the latest collections of nursery textiles to retail partners throughout the world. We have a 5,000m2 warehouse where we have about 1,500 different products in stock, says Wim Smits, the son of the founder. We spoke to him in his trendy office. Minimalistic, functional, with art upon the walls and quiet save for the hum of the air-conditioning, everything in his office exudes the atmosphere of a multinational company. On a table lies the latest brochure for the 2010 collections. Its in French and Dutch but its also available in Spanish and Portuguese and in German and English. This colourful brochure affords us a preview of the Jollein collections that will soon find their way to the consumer. Dutch is a product line that catches our eye straight away, with its simple Dutch design based on the Delft Blue theme, with red accents. This does very well abroad, says Smits. We get orders from Tokyo. In fact we even got orders from Tirol recently. Its caught on in a big way and I expect it to become an evergreen that well enjoy for a long time to come.

Pick iT Last year, Smits Assen opted for TIEs EDI approach. Smits Assen started to automate in a big way in 2004, says Karen Woud, who manages the ICT department at Smits Assen. We use Exacts Pick IT to automate our goods flow. We work with a barcode system for the storage and order picking processes. Articles are scanned on entry, the data is fed straight into the system and is sent on to the warehouse via an RF system. We follow developments in RFID very closely. In time were also going to adapt the labels to the articles and introduce central scanning to get a better view of the logistics. Some of our customers in the Far East are doing this already and, of course, were going to follow the demand.

Hofwegen have succeeded in obtaining EDI certification for SSCC labelling, implementing everything at Smits Assen, and integrating it into the Pick IT environment. This usually takes much longer. Speed is the winner everywhere, says Wim Smits, and this has shown itself to be true once again. Anyhow, its nice to be able to progress in such a positive way, adds Karen. Were simply doing great work, at every level. Were young, dynamic and innovative. And then you get things done quickly. Smits Assen has now made a start on electronic SPeed Ideally wed like to have all of our messaging with large retail customers on the TIE Kinetix EDI system, chains in the Netherlands says Wim Smits, because that provides the greatest efand Austria. Are they ficiency. But in practice it appears that its mostly the major satisfied? If everything players who are making the switch with us. At any rate, is well synchronised and they are progressing at a rapid pace because in the pretty TIE sees to the translation, short time of only 2 months, Karin and her team and conit will work just fine, sultant Gosling Mast from the Dutch IT consultancy firm says Karen.

Speed is the winner everywhere.

Wim Smits jr.

TIE ~ 2/2010 ~ P15