Kolotex Australia Pty Ltd is a privately owned manufacturer of hosiery. It is one of the largest suppliers of hosiery in Australia and stands out as one of Australia's major clothing manufacturers. The Company is recognised as an industry leader in the use of e-Business in the clothing industry and in 1999 implemented a Business Improvement Process that involved a new information system to drive business decision making including planning, marketing, demand management and total supply chain management.

In the area of Supply Chain, Kolotex built on its relationships with its suppliers and customers to reduce cost and improve service along the entire supply chain. In doing so it identified a number of opportunities for savings within its own production chain.

Changes in retailing, particularly of fashion items, are compelling manufacturers and retailers to reduce inventory at all levels, but while e-business and new data analysis tools can provide better forecasting, point of sale data collection was not yet universally available. The project at Kolotex involved improving forecasting performance so as to minimise inventory holdings of raw material, work in process and finished goods levels. It included a review of existing internal forecasting systems and a review of the external supply chain from one of its major packaging suppliers through Kolotex to a major department store. The forecasting analysis showed that the accuracy of the system needed upgrading to improve Kolotex's ability to plan production to meet demand.

The result involved integrating customer information with Kolotex's internal data and passing this on to the packaging supplier so as to minimise stock levels throughout the whole supply chain while improving service. The targets included reducing the cost of production, reducing the cost of packaging and improving on-time-in-full performance.