Important points
• Counselor Top 40 supplier S&S Activewear (asi/84358) deploys proprietary APIs, leverages new technology tools and invests $200 million in warehouse automation.
• ApparelSoft IQ uses machine learning and over 35 years of enterprise data to improve demand forecasting, inventory planning, and product availability.
• ZeroTouch technology is intended to reduce manual receiving and staging tasks for decorators, with early users reporting savings of over 50% in labor and time in receiving, inventory, and decorating preparation.
“Most people don’t know this, but we’re a technology company first and foremost. We just happen to sell a lot of T-shirts.”
These are the words of Rob Hamill, chief strategy officer at Counselor Top 40 supplier S&S Activewear (asi/84358). As the promotional industry continues to be transformed by digital technology, the Bolingbrook, Illinois-based company has made significant investments in automation, machine learning, and software solutions to reduce manual labor, improve inventory accuracy, and streamline fulfillment.
S&S Activewear (asi/84358) has invested heavily in automation solutions for its distribution centers, implementing technology to help its decorator customers reduce manual labor in their stores.
The supplier has an in-house development team of 40 software engineers and developers who “just help solve problems for our customers and find ways to innovate,” Hamill added.
The company says it was one of the first companies to create its own API for customers to enable efficient workflows. Over the past three years, S&S Activewear has invested $200 million in warehouse automation capabilities that enable order accuracy of over 99% for customers.
Last month, the company announced its proprietary “machine-driven intelligence layer” called ApparelSoft IQ. It is designed to predict customer demand, optimize inventory decisions and improve the way businesses operate at scale.
Developed by S&S Activewear’s data science team, ApparelSoft IQ leverages a comprehensive dataset that combines over 35 years of historical data from S&S Activewear and alphabroder acquired in 2024. The company uses machine learning on datasets across styles, colors, sizes, regions, and customer segments to generate purchasing recommendations and inventory placement decisions to reduce out-of-stock situations and improve how inventory is planned and deployed. Supplier network.
“From day one at S&S, inventory planning has been near and dear to my heart,” said CEO Frank Myers. He is a member of the Counselor Power 50 list of the most influential people in the promotional field. “Ensuring abundant and reliable inventory is the most fundamental thing we can do for our customers.”
Over time, ApparelSoft IQ will go beyond prediction to enhance intelligence and automation across internal operations and customer-facing functions, including enhanced product recommendations and insights that help customers grow, according to the company. “We’re not just responding to demand,” said Josh Clark, chief operating officer. “We’re anticipating that and positioning inventory in advance of that.”
“We’re a technology company first and foremost. We just happen to sell a lot of T-shirts.”Rob Hamill, S&S activewear (asi/84358)
Another key development, the company says, is its ZeroTouch technology, a workflow solution that enables decorator customers to operate more profitably, lower error rates and reduce waste.
After receiving a ZeroTouch order, all product-specific embellishment data is sent to the order-picking facility via S&S Activewear’s proprietary API, Hamill said. The decoration instructions provided by the customer are sent to a custom heat-resistant QR code sticker that is applied directly to the garment. An additional barcode is added to the shipping label, allowing the decorator’s receiving department to route orders directly to the decorating station without having to manually receive, review, sort, and store orders until they are ready to decorate.
Launched earlier this year, ZeroTouch was developed with feedback from S&S Activewear’s decorator partners to ensure it meets their needs. Hamill says the supplier already has more than 10 major apparel decorators currently using the technology. “We designed zero touch to be almost like flipping a switch,” he added. “These are 5 lines of code added to your custom API.”
So far, decorators are happy with the solution, Hamill said. “The biggest thing we’ve heard from several very large customers is that this saves them more than 50% in labor and time costs in the product receiving, staging, inventory, and decoration execution processes.”
While the solution seamlessly accommodates orders of all sizes, Hamill said it is particularly powerful for print-on-demand workflows. In fact, as part of the broader ZeroTouch launch, S&S Activewear says it is partnering with Stahls (asi/88984) Fulfill Engine, a platform known for production management and fulfillment technology that supports apparel decorators, e-commerce sellers, and fulfillment providers. According to S&S Activewear, the introduction of ZeroTouch capabilities to Fulfill Engine’s channels will expand access to production automation across the branded goods industry.
“While Fulfill Engine helps decorators create production-ready jobs with garment-level identification, it still requires manual work when a blank is received, such as applying stickers before the garment goes to production,” explains Jason Tompkins, Founder and Chief Digital Officer of Fulfill Engine at Stahls. “This step is time-consuming, tedious, and error-prone.”
By making ZeroTouch available through Fulfill Engine, decorators will be able to “reduce manual touchpoints by allowing eligible orders to arrive with scan IDs already configured, allowing garments to be scanned into the system and routed more efficiently,” adds Tompkins.
S&S Activewear ranks No. 2 on the latest list of Counselor’s top suppliers, with North American sales estimated at $3.6 billion in 2024. The new rankings will be announced in July.
