Ingenuity Insights - Carhartt

Situation:
The retail planner for Carhartt, the most recognizable brand of premium work clothing, was experiencing unacceptably long lead times for their client’s retail fixtures. Their quest for faster delivery brought them to Tusco, where the challenge was expanded to find a way to reduce material lead times, and reduce installation time as well as overall costs, too.

Ingenuity
We made our retail planner client a hero in several ways. The first step was to value engineer the structure without compromising the appearance. The four-week lead time for steel tubing was reduced to two days by replacing it with C-channel, which Tusco formed from steel sheet, then laser-cut slots in, and powder coated to better match Carhartt’s corporate colors. A bolt-together system replaced a turnbuckle support system, speeding installation. Both of these ingenious solutions dramatically cut costs and delivery time. And they allowed Carhartt to place their orders quarterly instead of annually, which lowered their inventory and warehousing costs as well as taking much of the guesstimating out of the fixture ordering process.  Tusco didn’t stop there. In-field research by Tusco showed more ways to improve the fixtures. First, the center lines were changed to better balance product weight distribution, allowing retailers to put more Carhartt work clothing on the fixture. Second, we semi-assembled some of the fixtures before packaging, then created an installation manual to speed installation. Finally, Tusco load tested the fixtures and provided retailers with a guide to the maximum number of product to put on the fixture to prevent failure and maximize shopper safety.

Results:
We love the collaboration of working with retail planners and their clients. Based on the feedback and close working relationship with both companies we know that both were very happy with Tusco’s recommendations and performance. We worked together as a team for over nine years.

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