The South China Morning Post recently praised Jollein Smits Assen’s Oeko-Tex environmental 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. Last year, Smits Assen opted for TIE’s EDI approach.

1. Jollein
comes
of age

2. n
Text Cees Steijger ~ Photography Jollein and Marcel R. Bakker
BUSINESS INTEGRATION
s 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
e
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
S
mits Assen started in 1973, literally Pick IT Last year, Smits Assen opted for TIE’s Hofwegen have succeeded in obtaining EDI
in Wim Smits senior’s attic. The EDI approach. “Smits Assen started to auto- certification for SSCC labelling, implementing
inventor of the successful Jollein mate in a big way in 2004,” says Karen Woud, everything at Smits Assen, and integrating
formula sourced quality fabrics from who manages the ICT department at Smits As- it into the Pick IT environment. This usu-
the textiles industry in Twente and had sen. “We use Exact’s Pick IT to automate our ally takes much longer. “Speed is the winner
the finished baby-bed textiles made by goods flow. We work with a barcode system everywhere,” says Wim Smits, “and this has
contractors in Friesland. The Jollein brand for the storage and order picking processes. shown itself to be true once
name rapidly acquired a strong national Articles are scanned on entry, the data is fed again.” “Anyhow, it’s nice
position and, in recent years, has also
become a household name throughout
straight into the system and is sent on to the
warehouse via an RF system. We follow devel-
“Speed to be able to progress in
such a positive way,” adds
the world. And to serve their customers
worldwide even better, Smits Assen has
opments in RFID very closely. In time we’re
also going to adapt the labels to the articles and
is the Karen. “We’re simply doing
great work, at every level.
recently opened an office in Hong Kong
under the name Smits Hong Kong Ltd.
introduce central scanning to get a better view
of the logistics. Some of our customers in the
winner We’re young, dynamic and
innovative. And then you
Dutch The Dutch provincial capital of
Far East are doing this already and, of course,
we’re going to follow the demand.”
every- get things done quickly.”
Smits Assen has now
Assen, which in 2009 drew international
attention as the starting-point of the Span- Speed “Ideally we’d like to have all of our
where.” made a start on electronic
messaging with large retail
ish Vuelta cycling race (literally from the customers on the TIE Kinetix EDI system,” chains in the Netherlands
front door of Smits Assen) and is known says Wim Smits, “because that provides the greatest ef- and Austria. Are they
from the Grand Prix TT Assen motorsports ficiency. But in practice it appears that it’s mostly the major satisfied? “If everything
event, supplies the latest collections of players who are making the switch with us.” At any rate, is well synchronised and
nursery textiles to retail partners through- they are progressing at a rapid pace because in the pretty TIE sees to the translation,
out the world. “We have a 5,000m2 ware- short time of only 2 months, Karin and her team and con- it will work just fine,”
house where we have about 1,500 different sultant Gosling Mast from the Dutch IT consultancy firm says Karen.
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 Wim Smits jr.
long time to come.”
TIE ~ 2/2010 ~ P15