When Involution Ltd Met The Supply Chain Programme : Local workwear & merchandise company celebrate ‘game-changing’ project.

In 2020, Involution Ltd began their journey with the Leeds City Region Supply Chain Programme, to provide support and guidance on an area relating to their IT infrastructure.

Involution recognised the need for a fully integrated system, to provide improved controls and information, across several areas of the business. This included stock management, purchasing, production, costing, planning, loading, delivery, and finances.

The project consisted of several meetings with the programmes, senior advisor, Ian Rhodes, who executed a range of diagnostic tools, action plan, and supported Involution with their specification development, to find a custom solution and bespoke package. Ian Rhodes also supported Involution in the sourcing of an external IT systems expert, and the work was part-funded through a grant from the programme.

“The grant gave us the opportunity to fund our largest ever development project. By receiving the grant, we were able to set the foundations to develop our own unique internal software solution.” – Nathan Cookson, Operations Director & project lead at Involution.

The database scheme allows a seamless integration of product feeds from Involution’s suppliers with real-time stock levels and information. It displays the full options of colours and sizes with endless options of decorations methods and varying prices based on the user. In addition to this, for customers that have their own uniform and merchandise portals with Involution, the software must also fully incorporate and communicate their approved products, pricing, currencies, and languages. All data must function and be able to work alongside all departments, providing a holistic view of their customers and service, whilst providing the customers with a user-friendly interface and front-end experience.

“The work completed in this project is going to outline Involution’s transformation, innovating the personalisation and workwear industry, and we can’t wait to have it officially up and running.” Nathan Cookson.

Involution have embarked 2022 with 2 new full-time recruits, welcoming in-house developers to work on this continuous project. Not only is it currently in testing stages, but Involution are also seeing internal benefits in timesaving. On the back of the successful testing, they are recruiting 3 further developers to enhance the software further. Shortly, following developments and testing of the software, the system will be launched.

Thanks to the smart engineering of the data and processes, Involution estimate the software to save around 50% admin time and improve lead time from their already competitive 3-5 days to 2-4 days, positively impacting both business and customer, allowing for more efficient production and service speed.

“This project has and will continue to be critical to the growth and future of Involution and our industry. This is a total game-changer, and we are very thankful for the support we have received”. – Nathan Cookson.

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