I probably don’t need to tell you that PLM is all the rage these days. New players are entering the game, stories in the industry trades and case studies abound. Ten, or even five years ago, most small to mid-sized apparel and footwear brands didn’t even know about PLM, let alone have the financial wherewithal to afford it. But that’s all changing. With SaaS and cloud-based being the hashtags of the moment, it’s now more achievable and practically imperative, that you consider PLM, or at least have it on your radar.
If you are eager to streamline your product development and production process, then having a PLM system in place can be a game changer. But changing your people’s habits of relying on old methodologies like excel and email, can be a tough nut to crack, especially if a potential new solution is cumbersome.
Here are few things to understand about the importance of a PLM and what it can do for you and your organization.
Who Will Benefit
In nutshell, everyone within your organization will be stoked once a system is up and running. Design, product development, production, sales, and of course, management, will all be on the same page and no longer have to rely on time-sucking spreadsheets and the ever-haunting black hole we call email.
Here’s a real-world scenario that should bring it home, as explained in an email by a VP of product for a mid-sized brand:
“We rely on excel and a template we created, but even though we’ve gotten everyone to use it, the designers continue to manipulate the spec differently. It really doesn’t prevent continued email correspondence between the design team and our overseas partners, clarifying details, etc. Additionally, there’s a lot of info that is just not included on these specs that causes us to lose control of the details (i.e. material thickness, sock & collar specs, lace-type, etc.) Without these details being specified, the final decisions end up being made by the sample room while trying to source the materials. In turn, samples come back wrong or not up to our standards. Without anything to fall back on, it’s hard for us to hold the sample room accountable. Spending hours sifting back through emails to decipher old from new, or simply to find out who said what, when, is costing us a lot of time and money.”
What You Should Expect a PLM to Do
A PLM system worth its weight, will solve the aforementioned problem, plus so much more. First and foremost, it should be easy to use. It should offer transparency and visibility into the entire process. A good PLM provides calendars by team that can be highly customized, cross-pollinate, and can take into account key milestones, actions and deliverables due. It should be event driven and adhere to your organization’s hierarchical structure. Updating a BOM (bill of material) should be easy and intuitive enough to recognize and adjust to even the most detailed of changes. You should be able to do mass updates for those changes that occur well into the production cycle. It should offer costing analysis and offer well-rounded tools for looking at historical data so that users can evaluate how changes might have an impact on the future. Merchandise planning tools should give teams tighter control so that performance targets are clear. In addition, it should be expandable with features related to materials management that allow you to link directly with your vendors and factories and eliminate excess and duplication.
Why You Should Care
In a world of social media, consumers are dictating the pace at which products are procured. Agility is pivotal and tracking the status of your product in order to hit key deadlines is a vital component to the design and production process.
Even the smallest mistakes caused by poor communication during any part of the process, can mean the difference between profit and loss. For you, a small to mid-sized brand, it could mean life or death. The ability to add of-the-moment product or adjust patterns or colors, well into the lifecycle, will provide you with the dexterity to stay at the forefront of emerging trends and present products proactively.
So the “Damn Daniel!” t-shirt that design came up with, doesn’t end up becoming “So 2016.”
About FAN PLM Software
FAN PLM is operationally intelligent, cloud-based product lifecycle management software that will empower your whole tribe with the right tools to communicate effectively, and consistently and bring absolute transparency to your entire process of product development. Designed to increase communication & collaboration, FAN PLM brings you legit forecasting tools, functional & easy-to-use line-planning & presentation builders, Adobe plug-ins, and seamless integration with all your enterprise-wide software systems.
For more information about how to positively impact your bottom line, connect with us to schedule a demo.
