Fristads

To stay ahead in a rapidly evolving industry, Swedish workwear manufacturer Fristads partnered with Slimstock to revolutionise its supply chain. By implementing Slimstock as planning tool and develop their S&OP process, Fristads has reduced inventory levels by  SEK 60–70 million, while maintaining availability.

Renowned for its high-quality workwear, Fristads has been a trusted partner for professionals across the building, construction, and industrial sectors for the last 100 years. Today, as customer expectations evolve and supply chain challenges grow, the Swedish manufacturer is taking bold steps to transform its operations and streamline its end-to-end business.

Challenges

Post-COVID, the landscape in the workwear industry shifted dramatically. With customer reducing stock levels to mitigate the impact of erratic demand, Fristads absorbed the supply chain pressure, struggling with their own stock management and delivery times.

“In this sector, customers need specific products to continue with their operations—there’s little room for delays,” explains Per Carlson, Head of Supply Chain at Fristads. “We didn’t have much visibility into our partners’ stock levels or sales volume to their customers, so our planners often had to estimate the future demand together with sales using raw historical data and sales info.”

Solution

To address its supply chain challenges, Fristads decided to partner with Slimstock. With the implementation of Slimtock’s AI-enabled supply planning platform, Slim4, and it’s powerful S&OP capabilities, the team is not only building robust forecasts based on historical trends and seasonality, but also enabling the comparison of planning figures across departments. With this improved approach, Fristads can now better streamline operations and facilitate communication between areas.

“When we compare the demand figures from our sales BI tool with the forecast from Slimstock, we’re essentially looking at the same truth from two angles. That creates great discussions—and better decisions.” says Pontus Larsson, Commercial Planner.

With Slimstock’s platform in place, Fristads can now:

• Respond more quickly to changes in market demand.
• Maintain availability without overstocking.
• Analyse trends across regions and customers with greater precision.
• Support more data-driven collaboration between departments.

Results

Since implementing Slim4, Fristads has achieved remarkable results across its operations:

• Inventory levels reduced by SEK 60–70 million, fulfilling the goals set in the initial feasibility study.
• Excess stock has been significantly reduced, freeing up working capital and improving efficiency.
• Backorders dropped below the 4% target.
• Enhanced inventory and budget expectations, showcasing regional success.

“Slimstock’s S&OP capabilities help us to visualise data we couldn’t access before, bringing clarity across teams and improving how we respond to changing customer behaviour.” Pontus Larsson, Commercial Planner at Fristads.

S&OP: A new way of working

Slimstock is helping Fristads go beyond intuition improving its demand, supply, and financial planning through advanced AI, enhancing its decision-making. “Previously, much of our planning was based on gut feeling or static spreadsheets using historical data,” says Per. “Now, we are moving towards a way of working where insights and evidence lead the way.”

Crucially, this transformation isn’t just about technology, it’s about cultural change. The team at Fristads is embracing the value of connected data-driven planning. “Having better data to show, and sharing it in a visual, accessible way, has been the key for a correct S&OP process,” Pontus reflects. “It aligns us all, whether we are looking at supply plans, sales forecasts, or market opportunities.”

Driving alignment and efficiency

At Fristads, the introduction of the redesigned S&OP process has helped create greater alignment across departments, strengthening cross-functional collaboration and improving overall efficiency. The shift toward higher-level conversations has made the process easier to manage and more focused on strategic outcomes.

“Combining our tools with Slim4 has made our monthly S&OP meetings much smoother, no more cutting and pasting. The core process stays the same, but the tool really streamlines the workflow and helps us focus on what matters.” Explains Henrik Lindblom, Supply Chain Analyst at Fristads.

Next steps

As Fristads targets a bold goal to double sales within the next five years, Slim4 offers the flexibility and transparency needed to support both catalogue growth and more complex, unique customer orders. With rising capital requirements on the horizon, the team sees Slimstock not just as a reliable solution today, but as a long-term partner for continuous improvement. “Ultimately, our customers rely on us to deliver. Slimstock helps us keep that promise, even when the market around us is changing fast,” concludes Per.