Case Study: Simpli Home Gains Supply Chain Visibility

Case study

Simpli Home's mission is to provide affordable furniture without sacrificing style or quality. They bridge the gap between fast furniture retailers whose products fall apart quickly and the fancy stores that charge a premium. Their approach is focused on high-value essentials built with solid materials in quality designs, priced at as much as 40% below competitors' prices for similar furniture.

One strategy that helps Simpli Home keep overhead low is an agile supply chain — efficient distribution that lets them pass savings on to consumers, without compromising on quality. Because the company sources materials and goods across Asia, supply chain visibility and management are core to its business model's success. It wasn't always easy, though.

Supply chain challenges

Simpli Home struggled with outdated inspection processes. They flew members of their Quality Control team to factory sites to perform manual, off-line inspections. This practice created three major pain points in how they collected and used quality data.

1. The QC team had to manage a huge volume of defect photos — not just snapping pictures, but organizing and assembling them afterward. The process was so unwieldy that inspectors spent more time sorting image files than actually hunting defects.

2. Assembling the data inspectors gathered was its own struggle. Old software meant spreadsheets that were hard to update, use, and read, and images had to be copied and pasted into documents by hand — a slow, inefficient workflow that again pulled inspectors away from actually inspecting.

3. Inspection reports were hard to share between the QC team and managers — images were blurry, files were too large to transfer easily, and the manual process meant reports came in a mix of formats and file types. All that effort produced reports that still couldn't drive production decisions.

All told, Simpli Home's old practices weren't giving it the supply chain visibility it needed to succeed.

The QIMAone solution

Simpli Home addressed all these challenges and more when it started using QIMAone to execute and manage its quality inspections.

• Automated reporting: one of the features they most appreciate is how quickly and easily reports are produced. No more fumbling with images and files — the reports are made in real time as inspectors do their work.

• Analytics you can act on: data flows into standardized dashboards Simpli Home customized itself, putting the quality data that matters most right at management's fingertips.

• More informed decisions: the reports let managers make swift, proactive decisions about their goods — an edge over competitors still relying on old QC practices.

• Premium onboarding: managers can build checklists and workflows in inspectors' local language, and the QIMAone customer care team kept onboarding on track with weekly meetings.

Making the switch to QIMAone

Simpli Home's workflows across all three offices — India, China, and Vietnam — improved quickly. The QIMAone customer care team has stayed proactive and accessible well after go-live, with Simpli Home's inspectors and managers now using the software with confidence.

How QIMA can help

With our 20 years of experience conducting on-site audits and inspections, QIMA is ready to be your worldwide global Quality Excellence partner.

Our SaaS platform, QIMAone, is the first in its class, and includes all the features discussed in this article. We were the first QA service provider to establish an online reservation process, so we have digital in our DNA. QIMAone includes our QIMA Academy to provide your team with the best training possible.

QIMAone can also be used to check non-conformities and unauthorized subcontracting through GPS tagging that triggers inspections and audits.

We’d love to show you how QIMA and QIMAone can help your business thrive.

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