Meet Sleep Number, Innovation Award Winner
This year’s Customer Excellence Award for Innovation goes to Sleep Number – for taking their supply chain to a whole new level with help from Bristlecone Labs.
“We are a digital company. Our supply chain was not,” said John Brine, Sleep Number’s Director of Network Optimization & Digitization, during a presentation at Bristlecone Pulse at MIT 2019. “Our product was not getting through at the consistency and the quality we wanted,” he said.
But digital supply chain innovation has greatly enhanced the Sleep Number brand experience. With the help of Bristlecone Labs, Sleep Number was able to pair its innovative product and premium retail experience with a superior fulfillment and delivery customer experience.
“We worked with our suppliers in the entirety of the value chain,” he said, “to be able to take the customer’s order, schedule them at the point of sale and snap the supply chain into action.”
Sleep Number’s supply chain innovation involved a layered system approach that created flexibility at the point of customer but stability at the core. Central to the initiative was a core ERP driving a common data platform and the connectivity Sleep Number needed to fuel its systems of engagement and experience – and achieve end-to-end supply chain visibility.
A robust platform and mobile app were the answer to Sleep Number’s visibility challenges. Sleep Number partnered with Bristlecone to create and curate the “INVision” app, which now provides data points in what were previously dark spots in Sleep Number’s supply chain. This innovation has enabled Sleep Number to make a leap from darkness to digital transparency.
Thanks to a seamless retail flow and access to data, Sleep Number is no longer data rich but insight poor. Today, Sleep Number taps into relevant, timely and actionable insights to deliver a brand experience that continues to result in lifelong customer relationships.
Sleep Number’s Supply Chain Innovation Outcomes
- Improved Inventory Collection
- Improved Reliability
- Structural Lower Cost
- Enhanced Employee Experience
- Enhanced Customer Experience
What’s next for Sleep Number? More innovation. They’re currently working on an initiative with Bristlecone to bring IoT into the supply chain as a means for automating visibility.
Congratulations to Sleep Number, this year’s award winner for Innovation!
Watch John Brine’s Pulse 2019 Presentation.
