TIE Magazine #2: Jollein comes of age

Jollein comes of age

TIE ~ 2/2010 ~ P15

BUSINESS INTEGRATIONText Cees Steijger ~ Photography Jollein and Marcel R. Bakker

Pick iT Last year, Smits Assen opted for TIE’s EDI approach. “Smits Assen started to auto-mate in a big way in 2004,” says Karen Woud, who manages the ICT department at Smits As-sen. “We use Exact’s 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 devel-opments in RFID very closely. In time we’re 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, we’re going to follow the demand.”

SPeed “Ideally we’d like to have all of our customers on the TIE Kinetix EDI system,”

shown itself to be true once again.” “Anyhow, it’s nice to be able to progress in such a positive way,” adds Karen. “We’re simply doing great work, at every level. We’re young, dynamic and innovative. And then you get things done quickly.” Smits Assen has now made a start on electronic messaging with large retail chains in the Netherlands and Austria. Are they satisfied? “If everything is well synchronised and TIE sees to the translation, it will work just fine,” says Karen.

“Speed is the

winner every-

where.”

Hofwegen have succeeded in obtaining EDI certification for SSCC labelling, implementing everything at Smits Assen, and integrating it into the Pick IT environment. This usu-ally takes much longer. “Speed is the winner everywhere,” says Wim Smits, “and this has

Smits Assen started in 1973, literally in Wim Smits senior’s 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 Span-ish 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 through-out the world. “We have a 5,000m2 ware-house 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 multi-national company. On a table lies the latest brochure for the 2010 collections. It’s in French and Dutch but it’s 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. It’s caught on in a big way and I expect it to become an evergreen that we’ll enjoy for a long time to come.”

The South China Morning Post recently praised Jollein Smits Assen’s Oeko-Tex environmen-tal 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. We’re talking about Smits Assen, a company that has occupied a leading position in nursery textiles and accessories for 35 years

Jollein comes of age

says Wim Smits, “because that provides the greatest ef-ficiency. But in practice it appears that it’s mostly the major players who are making the switch with us.” At any rate, they are progressing at a rapid pace because in the pretty short time of only 2 months, Karin and her team and con-sultant Gosling Mast from the Dutch IT consultancy firm

Wim Smits jr.