FAST™ Offers Benefits of Industry Standard Catalog Available Online Anytime, Anyplace
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, and WILMINGTON, DE, July 19, 2004 – Freeborders and INVISTA, formerly DuPont Textiles & Interiors, today launched FAST™, a global online catalog of fibers and fabrics – at www.FASTextile.com - that will immediately link 500 mills in 50 countries with over 1,600 brand and retail buyers. The new service, which is open to all textile producers and fiber types, will allow mills to increase their sales by quickly, easily and inexpensively providing online fabric catalogs directly to brand and retail decision-makers. Brands and retailers will be able to search, sample, and cost new fabrics as well as communicate with mills 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to cut lead times and speed innovation.
VF Corporation, a FAST design partner and owner of leading brands such as Lee, Wrangler, Vanity Fair, Jansport and North Face, will use the solution to drastically alter its processes for developing fabrics.
“FAST will help us streamline the processes we use to source fabrics for our brands,” said Jeff Streader, vice president of global sourcing at VF Corporation. “We see big advantages in being able to instantly initiate swatch and sample yardage requests and track status. FAST will help reduce costs and cycle time and ensure superior product quality.”
FAST will incorporate INVISTA’s existing On-Line Fabric Library, a current standard, as well fiber and fabric products from other suppliers.
“The INVISTA On-Line Fabric Library was a highly successful concept that grew to include over 27,000 mill products and was used regularly by buyers from many of the world’s foremost brands and retailers,” said Jon Penrice, INVISTA vice president of marketing, global apparel. “We knew this service would ultimately be of even greater value to retailers and brands if it included fabrics of all types. We’re confident about the appeal of our products and brands and believe that a one-stop open resource like FAST can be a powerful driver of the innovation the industry needs to revitalize its consumer connections. When that happens, we all win.”
Driven by the adoption of major players in the supply chain, FAST is rapidly becoming the industry standard online catalog for raw materials. Besides INVISTA and Freeborders, industry leaders such as VF Corporation, TAL Apparel Ltd, Fountain Set and Cone Mills have contributed to FAST’s conceptual development and are adopting the solution.
“The textile and apparel industry will see huge benefits from adopting standard methods of doing business,” said Dr. Harry Lee, managing director of TAL. “Other industries like toys and electronics have seen innovation rise through standardizing methods of communicating. We will require all of our mills to adopt FAST and help further establish this platform as the industry standard for raw materials.”
Gordon Yen, assistant to chairman of Fountain Set (Holdings) Limited, agrees. “As a leading textile producer, we see enormous value in adopting this common method of servicing our brand, retail and garment manufacturing customers. We believe noticeable communication accuracy and efficiency improvements could be achieved by the supply chain partners in working on product development and sampling. FAST would enable our supply chain to react more effectively to market needs.”
Registered buyers can access innovative fabrics and request swatches from the FAST online catalog around-the-clock, shaving four to five weeks off lead times and speeding new products to market. They can easily access all mill databases with one search by fabric type, construction, geography, and other parameters and then communicate directly with the mills, at no cost.
Registered sellers can display catalogs of fabrics online to thousands of brands and retailer decision-makers, resulting in increased sales and deeper customer relationships. Mills will be able to speed marketing of innovative designs and fibers via secure proprietary areas within the FAST solution and thereby accelerate their ability to meet retailers’ purchasing needs. These private channels allow textile producers the capability to choose the brands and retailers that can view and sample their fabrics.
“The work we’ve done with INVISTA for the past three years has established beyond doubt the value of a single industry standard,” said Mike Keating, Freeborders partner, “Besides increasing buyers’ reach, the FAST web catalog offers significant product life cycle cost savings and can cut fabric research and sampling lead times by as much as a month or more. This service, which is free to retailers and brands, helps fast track innovation and offers designers and buyers greater flexibility in product planning.”
About Freeborders
Freeborders (www.freeborders.com) provides Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software and services to leading retailers and their suppliers, enabling brands to more effectively manage the increasing complexity of their supply chains. Freeborders solutions help drive profitable revenue growth, speed products to market, improve inventory management and maintain control, consistency and quality. Freeborders software and services are used by over 350 brands and retailers globally, including Coach, DuPont, INVISTA, J. Crew, Lands’ End, Liz Claiborne, Marc Jacobs, Saks, Target and Pottery Barn. Freeborders is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices throughout North America, Europe and Asia.
About INVISTA
INVISTA is an integrated fiber and intermediates business with a global presence in more than 40 countries. Today, it is comprised of six businesses: Apparel; Performance Fibers; Interiors; Intermediates; Polymer and Resins; and Textile Fibers. INVISTA is committed to its customers’ growth through market insights and technology innovations combined with a powerful portfolio of the recognized global brands and trademarks in the fibers, apparel, and interiors industries including: LYCRA®, STAINMASTER®, ANTRON®, COOLMAX®, THERMOLITE®, CORDURA®, SUPPLEX®, TACTEL®, and in the specialty chemicals business: CORFREE, DYTEK, ADI-Pure and TERATHANE. Brands formerly marketed through the KoSa line include: Polarguard®, ESP® and Avora®FR. More information on INVISTA can be found at www.INVISTA.com.
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