PLM in the Fashion Industry: Strike a Pose!

In a recent blog post I talked about the NRF Show in New York City. I mentioned a couple of the big PLM vendors that attended. However, what I did not mention were the many other PLM vendors that are squarely positioned in the fashion industry. This industry has some similarities to other traditional PLM industries, but there are many things to be learned from pure fashion PLM vendors.

Of course, there are many things that traditional PLM vendors have in common with those in the fashion industry. Managing data, searching, viewing, sharing, collaborating, and other areas are generally supported in some way by most PLM solutions. However, there are many areas where the fashion industry has unique requirements for PLM. That is why there are a host of niche vendors that provide PLM solutions to the fashion and retail industries.

Some of the PLM vendors that specifically serve the fashion industry are: Yunique PLM, Lectra Fashion, Visual 2000, WFX Cloud PLM, BlueCherry by CGS, and more. One might wonder what larger PLM vendors are doing to support this dynamic industry. Larger vendors such as PTC and Dassault have also built solutions to support the unique needs of users in the fashion industry. However, there are certain aspects of the fashion industry that are very different from the traditional automotive and aerospace industries that make it challenging to use traditional methods.

Speed/Lifetime

The fashion industry, and many other retail industries require a level of speed that traditional PLM solutions do not necessarily support. Think of the minimum level of speed you need to deliver fashion, and you will have some idea of what this requires: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter. All of these seasons require new and unique fashions that the public can buy during a very short time-frame. No one buys new cars or lawnmowers for every season (unless you are Jay Leno); we expect these products to last many years.

3D Legacy

Most large PLM vendors come from a legacy of supporting large 3D CAD models. PTC, Dassault Systemes, Siemens PLM, and Autodesk, all provide comprehensive 3D CAD solutions. Pro/Engineer, or Wildfire, or Creo from PTC; CATIA, or Solidworks from Dassault Systemes; NX, or SolidEdge from SiemensPLM; and AutoCAD, or Fusion, or Inventor from Autodesk. Supporting complex 3D CAD model assemblies with a PDM system during extended product design is not exactly the same as supporting a group of people using Adobe Illustrator that must coordinate very quickly with sales, retail, materials, stores and others around 2D information.

PDM BOM Legacy

Another key feature of fashion PLM is the technical specification package (Tech Pack). This can be considered a BOM for the creation of fashion items (sort of), but it is much more. The Tech Pack must include illustrations, measurements, target specs, sample materials/fabrics, shrinkage and other tests, plus many more details. This file is used as the garment proceeds through the design process, and people will potentially add/change information all along the way: the pattern maker, the designer, during fitting, potential manufacturer, and so forth. This file must be put through a change control process like any complex BOM, and a very flexible workflow must be supported. Traditional PDM systems do not always support this kind of file or processes out of the box.

Cost

Traditionally, the larger PLM providers have provided expensive solutions with many features that are often overkill for the small fashion shop. Today there are many lower priced solutions that support fashion without providing too many features at too high cost. There continues to be a high level of interest in replacing inefficient Excel files with a good solid PLM system in the fashion industry. The future for PLM is strong in the fashion industry, with 63% of apparel companies saying they plan to further invest in PLM technology this year.

Today we see many of the traditional CAD/PLM vendors providing strong solutions to fill gaps in their solution mix to support the fashion industry. PTC, for example, has a solution called Windchill FlexPLM that does an excellent job of supporting this industry. We will likely see many traditional vendors follow this example in the future as they seek to provide solutions that can support the fashion industry.

Those are just a few of the differences as I see it with PLM for the fashion industry. What have you seen in your experience. Let me know and we can have a fun discussion.

Cheers,

Jim

Get off Your Butt and Get in the Scrum

Have you heard of scrum? Scrum is an agile development methodology often used to develop software. You can read the Wikipedia definition HERE, since they say it better than I could. I also read an interesting post about this called: Agile PM is not Just for Software Projects Anymore.

It has been shown that the scrum methodology promotes transparency and provides greater accountability so that projects get done faster with greater innovation. It sounds a little unnerving, but those who use it in their software development environments have a flexible process that readily supports change. The image below attempts to show this more clearly.

I don’t have time to explain the whole process, but let me try. Tasks are broken up into things called “sprints” that usually last a few weeks. The sprint has a very specific goal that is to be accomplished. During the sprint, there is a daily standup meeting called the “daily scrum”. The daily scrum usually lasts around 15 minutes. In this meeting everyone says what they are doing, and what they plan to do. During this meeting it is not ok to say that you plan to “sit around, take a few office supplies, take a long lunch, then clock out early.” Accountability and transperancy is a large part of the scrum approach.

Once the sprint is complete there are more meetings and more scrums until everyone is happy. When you add in multiple sprints, the process continues until a new innovative software deliverable is ejected out the other end. The whole process makes developing software a much more transparent and flexible activity. The approach assures that what needs to get done is getting done, that changes are accommodated, and that those in charge always know the status of work in process.

The reason I bring this up is that I have recently heard of several engineering product development companies using scrum principles for engineering. In one case they started it as a test, and as more groups saw how successful it was, other groups started using it. I think there is a lot of potential using this type of methodology for product development.

The standard engineering product development process is often filled with long meetings that don’t really accomplish anything. Engineers do not like to explain what they are doing to people, and often do not want to display their activities until late in the design process. Once they finally release something, it requires a prolonged change process. Wouldn’t it be nice to skip some of those late changes by talking them out early in the design process?

I think some of these agile development methodologies could have a very good impact on product development. I am in favor of improving transparency and collaboration in support of more innovative products. I think this would potentially lead to better products with higher quality that get to  market faster.

What do you think?

-Jim