Outdoor Industry
Bend, Oregon
Founded 1994
33 Employees
Ruffwear’s Journey with OMEP
Ruffwear, the Bend-based maker of innovative outdoor gear for dogs, partnered with OMEP to tackle supply chain challenges and reduce long lead times with overseas partners. Their top-selling Front Range harness had a 60-day lead time, limiting responsiveness and tying up inventory. OMEP guided Ruffwear’s leadership team through lean enterprise implementation, focusing on creating flow, reducing waste, and improving throughput. Together, they worked directly with suppliers in Vietnam, training owners and employees on lean principles and stabilizing systems to sustain long-term improvements. The results were impressive: lead time was cut in half to 30 days, a precedent-setting achievement in the outdoor goods industry. This change delivered $200,000 in supply chain cost savings, $50,000 in new sales due to fewer stockouts, and increased supplier capacity to support future growth. With a stronger, leaner supply chain, Ruffwear is now better equipped to deliver high-quality gear quickly to outdoor adventurers and their canine companions.
$50,000
New Sales due to fewer stock outs and increased response time
$200,000
Supply Chain Cost Reduction
30
Day Lead Time Implemented
Background
Located in Bend, Oregon, Ruffwear’s mission is to build dog gear to enhance and inspire exploration for outdoor adventurers and their human companions. Ruffwear continually strives to design and build gear for dogs that allows their customer’s four-legged friends to accompany them on shared adventures, while providing a level of safety and comfort in the great outdoors. Ruffwear has been on a Continuous Improvement Journey for many years and is always striving to improve. As they have been in operation, Ruffwear has expanded their product line from a dog bowl to include dog harnesses, booties, collars, lifejackets, travel gear, and much more.
The Situation
Ruffwear contacted OMEP with a specific goal in mind. They wanted to reduce their lead time with their Vietnam partner. At the time, their lead time was 60 days for the Front Range harness.
The Solution
Through Lean Enterprise technical implementation, the Ruffwear leadership team worked with OMEP to reduce lead time, increase throughput and reduce inventory. They reduced lead time to 30 days on their largest selling product.
To stabilize and improve operational effectiveness, business processes and systems were put in place to sustain the Lean implementation for the long term. As part of the project, Ruff Wear and OMEP conducted owner and employee training on creating flow at their suppliers in Vietnam. Implementing a 30 day lead time in Vietnam is precedent setting, as few other outdoor goods company have achieved this. Read more about this achievement here.
The Results
- Cost Savings: $200,000 in supply chain cost reduction
- New Sales: $50,000 due to fewer stock outs and the ability to respond to actual sales
- Investments in plant / training equipment: $50,000 in raw material inventory and training of suppliers
- Capacity increase: By implementing flow, we obtained more capacity with our supplier which will be critical with our growth.
“OMEP’s systematic, step by step approach to problem solving and Lean implementation has been critical success factor in Ruffwear’s supply chain management.”
Will Blount
President