Outsourcing shoe marking is the way out! AXA executives share their successful experiences

Now that labeling has become mandatory, most companies are wondering: what to do? To buy expensive equipment, hire additional employees, train them - all this carries a lot of investments and risks go into the red. Another thing is if someone is ready to take all the problems upon themselves and save them from unnecessary expenses. In previous issues of Shoes Report, we wrote about the company's plans. AXA for marking third-party shoes. When the plans came true, we decided to ask the company's experts about the progress and first successes. Dmitry Lavrukhin, general director of AXA, and Alexander Senko, director of information technology at AXA, answer in detail questions from the editorial office.

Dmitry Lavrukhin - AXA CEO

Alexander Senko - Director of IT at AXA

Shoes Report (SR): What labeling results have you achieved so far?

Dmitry Lavrukhin (D.L.): To date, we have developed our own IT-system for labeling, which is called ARME (Labeling Workstation - Ed.). In June 2019, it was successfully introduced in our Italian factory. We tested it thoroughly, it works efficiently and without interruptions. At the moment, we are in the stage of negotiations with several shoe companies on its implementation and further labeling on outsourcing.

Alexander Senko (A.S.): From a technical point of view, most of the necessary business processes have already been implemented, the functionality is ready from issue to put into circulation, and transfer of marking codes to other legal entities is possible.

Shoes Report (SR): Do you have experience integrating labeling systems with European companies and manufacturers?

D.L .: Some European companies did not agree to use the software we developed. In this regard, the exchange of marking codes between our systems was established. For example, it was possible to integrate with a program called Shoes Factory. The level of our software almost completely eliminates the human factor, which indicates its high quality.

Shoes Report (SR): Is your labeling system tailored for storage?

D.L .: The ARME system has been successfully adapted for marking in warehouses. The solution is completely ready, so we have already signed contracts with four companies to implement our system. These are European partners who have agreed to completely give us the labeling service. At the moment, we are negotiating with one of the partner warehouses in Germany. We are successfully developing in this direction.

Shoes Report (SR): Do you have plans to go beyond just labeling shoes?

D.L .: Yes, we are part of a pilot labeling project. Since it is almost completely identical with the shoe project, we plan to provide labeling services to manufacturing companies. Also, we are ready for negotiations with any companies that will be interested in our services.

Shoes Report (SR): Will you mark the leftovers?

D.L .: Yes, we have already received requests from companies that want to receive this service through outsourcing.

A.S .: For these tasks, the necessary equipment was purchased and a special algorithm was developed, with schemes of operation, printing and transmission of marking codes.

Interviewed by Ekaterina Sergeeva.