Building 45

BUILDING 45Analysis of Sourcing & Supply Chain Management

Practices of Building 45 Boutique

Juliana Shieun Kim Mireya Romero

Emily Andrade Jessica Guerrero

OBJECTIVE

Our objectives and focus is to understand the logistics of Building 45 Boutique. We are developing this case study to observe management, buying, operations and HR, marketing and public relations, merchandising and finances. Our goal is not only to understand the logistics of Building 45 Boutique, but also to form a better understanding of sourcing and supply chain management based on the knowledge our group has collected at the end of the quarter.

METHOD

Our method for obtaining information about Building 45 Boutique by interviewing Professor Tucker, Building 45 Boutique Manger(Melissa Campos), and Wearhouse Team (Juliana and Mireya).

COMPANY INFORMATION

Building 45 Boutique is a Boutique at Cal Poly Pomona for students, staff, and alumni.

Building 45 Boutique was established in 2001 and it is run by the students of the AMM department.

BUILDING 45 BOUTIQUE MISSION STATEMENT

“Provide a pleasant shopping experience to all our customers. This is done through appropriate merchandise

mix, prices, and atmosphere for the boutique’s target market.”

BUILDING 45

Building 45 carries a variety of products they carry: tops, bottoms, accessories (scarves, key chains, coffee mugs, jewelry) and miscellaneous products (stickers, scantrons, and pencils).

PRODUCT CATEGORIES

SKU Number Sequence

1.Quarter

2. Year

3. Vendor

4. Style

5. Color

6. Size

PRODUCT CATEGORIES

Building 45 uses the Functional Area Strategy; they focus on the marketing mix for their store. They determine the products and sizes of the merchandise that they will carry in the store. They evaluate the prices of the products and determine which merchandise needs to be markdown

LOGISTICS

Building 45 pricing and inventory is the Warehouse. Merchandise is checked in, inspected, imputed into the Intuit System, SKU numbers are created, merchandise is tagged and then the Building 45 manager is emailed to let her know that her merchandise is available for pick-up.

MAKE OR BUYBldg 45 Boutique make and buy merchandise for their store.

They carries basic, fashion forward, and school sprits apparel.

They buy their merchandise from trade show (MAGIC), local wholesale company (online), or Downtown LA.

Attend MAGIC (FEB/AUG).

Attend CMC during market week.

Planning to attend Agenda Show at Long Beach from next quarter.

MAGIC is better than CMC. MAGIC has broader assortment and price is lower than CMC.

They make school sprits apparel. For school sprits apparel, they buy their blanks (American Apparel, Next Level Apparel, Mission Imprintables) and get them screen printed.

They buy basics and fashion forward merchandise.

They buy all the merchandise from online and use local company to save time, get merchandise faster and support local economy.

MAGIC

MAGIC is the international network of apparel, accessories and footwear.

Each February and August, there is MAGIC trade show in Las Vegas. There is tens of thousands of attendees from over 80 countries.

Types of show area:

WWDMAGIC, FN PLATFORM, MENS/WEAR, STREET, S.L.A.T.E., POOLTRADESHOW, PROJECT, SOURCING.

CMCCMC (California Market Center) is located in downtown Fashion District. CMC have hundreds of wholesale showrooms for fashion, textiles, gifts and home decor.

CMC produce following trade events:

•The los Angeles Fashion Market

•Select/ Contemporary Tradeshow

•Los Angeles Kids Market

•Focus/ Apparel & Accessories Show

•Transit/ The LA Shoe Show

•The LA Int’l Textiles Show (LA Textile)

•Market Tuesday

•CMC Gift & Home Market

AGENDA SHOW

The Agenda Show’s focus in streetweear and action sports industries.

They have strong emphasis in style, art, music and culture.

BUILDING 45 B OUTIQUE VENDOR LIST

A Accessorize AlstyleAmerican ApparelBluebirdsGood Works Make a DifferenceHanesMilky Way JeansNext Level ApparelOctober SkyThe True LoveTrecisYA Los Angeles

RAW MATERIAL SUPPLIERS

Bldg 45 Boutique don’t have raw material suppliers. They buy either finished goods or half-finished goods.

Purpose of Building 45 Boutique is to practice of retail.

Their goal is price appropriate merchandise mix, prices, and environment for their target market.

PRODUCTION CONTRACTORS

Bldg 45 Boutique screen print school spirit apparel. They buy blanks from vendors and get screen printed. They use CAT Specialties and Meridian Products Inc as their vendors.

After they purchase their blanks from the vendors, students goes to the logo library to pick out the logo and arrange with the screen printed vendor.

Domestic souring:

CAT Specialties is located in Covina, CA

Meridian Production Inc is located in San Diego, CA

Building 45 Boutique prefer CAT Specialties because it reduce time and

transportation cost.

MERCHANDISE @ BLDG 45

MERCHANDISE @ BLDG 45

Uses a vendor matrix that is provided to them in their AMM 454A classBuilding 45 is a mixture of basics, school spirit apparel, and fashion forward garments they look to individual vendors to provide this for them such as Fashion Go for their fashion forward garments and their basics are provided from American Apparel.They must research what their market wants to buy, what will be in demand, and what will be in season

SUPPLIER IDENTIFICATION, EVALUATION, SELECTION,

NEGOTIATION & MANAGING

VENDOR MATRIX

Factors that must be considered when choosing a vendor is: price, product quality, service level, delivery schedules, technical support, and vendor compliance.

Price is the one thing that must be greatly considered because the retail price of their merchandise cannot be too expensive since the target market is mainly college students

Location is another factor that they must take into great consideration; they need to be able to receive their merchandise in a timely manner

SUPPLIER IDENTIFICATION, EVALUATION, SELECTION,

NEGOTIATION & MANAGING

They use the information that was provided to them from previous quarters to evaluate the suppliers and determine their vendor reliability.

Evaluate the vendor on how fast they would be able to provide them with merchandise.

American Apparel is one of the main sources that they use and they are in good standing with them, which allows them to get reasonable pricing.

They mainly keep in contact with vendors through email.

VENDOR RELATIONSHIPS

OPERATIONSThe browse the merchandise that they want to purchase from their vendors.

They then fill out a purchase order that states the quantity, color, and style they want.

Purchase order is then given to instructor who will place the order.

After order is place they are given a tracking number.

When merchandise arrives the Wearhouse notifies them of the arrival and inventory is taken.

PURCHASE ORDER FORM

TECHNOLOGY

The technologies used in Building 45 Boutique are very simple because they are limited in funds and space.

The software they utilize is Adobe Illustrator CS4, Intuit/Quick Books, Microsoft Excel sheets, which are most commonly by the students in the boutique.

The communication methods utilized by Building 45 Boutique are email, text messages and phone calls to contact one another.

TECHNOLOGYAdvertising is limited due to funds. Their main sales promotion tools are flyers that are posted throughout the Building 45 and BLDG 45 Boutique’s Facebook page .

The Building 45 Boutique procurement process is done mostly by internet.

Once the merchandise is selected the buyer fills out a purchase order form.

The purchase order form can be written up on Microsoft Word and sent to Professor Tucker via email or hard copy can be submitted.

Occasionally they will plan buying trips to the Fashion District in Los Angeles, and the California Market Center to supplement their merchandise mix.

SOURCING & SCM PERFORMANCE

Building 45 Boutique management changes every quarter, and so the direction also changes.

At the beginning of the fall quarter they started aggregate planning.

The boutique needed to ensure that their product pricing was not too high because their target market is college students who generally have limited funds.


Building 45 Boutique’s uses the cycle inventory system.

Every two weeks they have new products to meet product demand.

If the buyer does not do so this will delay the merchandise hitting the sales floor. If there is no product flowing through the boutique customers can lose interest.

The boutique does not source raw materials or skills to create products or services. They do complete garment sourcing. However, the Building 45 group design the screen prints for their purchase products.


If the boutique wants a screen printed product they need to plan in lead time.

Returns are very rare for the boutique. If any merchandise has defects the warehouse will notify Professor Tucker and the Building 45 manager. Professor Tucker has the ultimate decision on what to do with the defective merchandise.

HOW TO IMPROVE BLDG 45 BOUTIQUE

One suggestion for the Building 45 Boutique is to expand their target market and advertise on the main campus especially in the Bronco Student Center.

Implement more efficient technology would greatly benefit Building 45.

Implementing a 6-month buying plan for the store is another must.

THE END

Thank you !

Building 45

Documents