Project Scheduling

One example of a project that Aeropostale does is called Jeans for Teens. Collecting jeans for homeless youth in theUS, Canada, and those affected by the Haiti earthquake, the initiative received over half a million jeans, more than doubling last year’s total of 200,000. Aéropostale supported the campaign by donating 100,000 brand new jeans, bringing the donations to over 625,000. The campaign’s success can be attributed to the amazing work of teens nationwide, who answered the call to action to help the homeless youth in their communities as well as those in Haiti affected by the disaster.

Managing Quality

The four dimensions apply to Aeropostale because the designs created are focused on the customers that the company brings in. They saw what products were most popular and then kept that in mind when creating new merchandise. The marketers see what products do not do well and try to make it better. Aeropostale has a warranty is 30 days after time of purchase.

Aeropostale should consider letting the public design a clothing line every quarter.  There are a lot of great designers out there and this would be a good opportunity to see first hand what the people want and like.  This also allow a fresh new look to be created. Also, Aeropostale can also give out free test items to the public see the end result in sales.

Quality Control

 

Aeorpostale provides customers with a selection of high-quality, active-oriented, fashion basics. 

Aéropostale maintains quality control over its own brands by designing, marketing and selling all of its own merchandise. Aéropostale products can only be purchased in its Aéropostale stores and online. Aeropostale uses the Pareto analysis of continuous improvement, by identifying the most important problems in the business and then incorporates the technique of quality improvement teams of the CE diagram(Fishbone Diagram) to execute or find solutions to the problems.

Service Process Design

                                                   

            Aeropostale provides the three elements of the service-product bundle. Their explicit service would be how the sales people interact with their customers. The attitude is very genuine and caring. The implicit service is making the customers shopping experience very enjoyable. They can have a very organized store making it easy for the customer to shop and pick out their clothing. The store can be very relaxed. There could be calming music playing and a perfect temperature. The prices of the clothing and accessories would be priced very reasonable. They operate in a provider-routed service. This entitles the customer to have options with the service and delivery.  Aero employees should treat customers with respect and be helpful.  The process of buying clothes offers limited ways of doing that differently.

              Some types of customer contact they encounter would be going around the store and picking out what type of clothing they would like. They then would be able to go and pay for them. The important technology would be the registers and the computers inventory tracker.           

                It is easy to return products purchased on www.aeropostale.com to any Aéropostale store. For an in store purchase, the product must be in good condition and have all the accessories to receive full credit. The purchase must have been made within 30 days.

Process Selection

Aeropostale uses batch flow because they make their products in groups. They will make the same shirt in groups with different sizes. Same with pants, sweaters, and shorts.  They customize mass of products and they fall into the batch made to stock cell in the process characteristics matrix. Some factors that influence the process selection are market conditions, capital requirements, available cost of labor, and state of technology. Aero can not adopt any of the mass customizations methods discussed because it would cost more money to specialize in filling orders.

Inventory Management

After seasonal planning, Merchants place purchase orders with vendors.  The merchandise is made, and shipped via container ship to one of the distribution centers on either the East or West Coast.  The purchase order is then received and allocated to stores.  (Planning and Allocation is a department in NY that uses sales models to determine how much of a particular item a store should receive.) Using the warehouse management systems, the items are put in boxes and loaded on trucks to be consolidated at pool points.  Pool points are centrally located terminals around the country that take multiple truckloads of cartons, separate them to stores, and create a shipment ID # to then be delivered to the store. The shipment ID# is fed to the stores, so they are able to see in advance how many cartons they will be receiving the following day. The delivery driver then arrives at the store with the cartons and the bill of lading.  Stores sign off that the cartons agree with the total. Store then unpacks the boxes, and releases the product to the selling floor.

A few times a year, stores will take a physical inventory.  The purpose of taking an inventory is to get an accurate picture of what product is physically in the store. This assists the allocation department with replenishment, and identifies stores with shrink issues. 

Aeropostale uses a 3rd party vendor that travels to each store and scan each barcode on the ticket. The files are then uploaded and the new on hands are posted to the system.

Company Info

Aéropostale , Inc. is a mall-based, specialty retailer of casual apparel and accessories, principally targeting 14 to 17 year-old young women and men through its Aéropostale ® stores and 7 to 12 year-old kids through its P.S. from Aéropostale (TM) stores. The Company provides customers with a focused selection of high-quality, active-oriented, fashion and fashion basic merchandise at compelling values. Aéropostale ® maintains control over its proprietary brands by designing, sourcing, marketing and selling all of its own merchandise. Aéropostale ® products can only be purchased in its Aéropostale stores and online atwww.aeropostale.com . P.S. from Aéropostale (TM) products can be purchased in P.S. from Aéropostale (TM) stores and online atwww.ps4u.com .

The Company currently operates over 900 Aéropostale stores across the United States and Puerto Rico, and Canada. The Company operates over 35 P.S. from Aéropostale stores.