California Apparel News

At the millennium, corporate America was scampering to get its computer systems in shape for fear of the notorious Y2K bug.

Those millennium problems never seemed to materialize. But six years later, there’s a renewed urgency from global-intensive industries, such as apparel and textile companies, to get their IT houses in order again.

With the abolition of quotas for World Trade Organization member countries and more intensive sourcing in general, a lot has changed. Technology has taken on a more important meaning for companies vying to enhance their cycle times.

Enterprise computer-system installations have slowed in recent years, but technology companies are stressing their importance to a lagging apparel industry.

“The apparel industry has been notoriously known as standing behind other industries when it comes to adopting technology,” said Paul Magel, senior vice president of New York–based Computer Generated Solutions, which provides supply-chain management systems for the soft-goods industry.

Many apparel companies are still on homemade systems or are using older ones they installed pre-Y2K. And some smaller firms are still on spreadsheets.

Magel and others are trying to show the industry what can be done through high-performance computer ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems that help manage business, from pre-production (sourcing, specs, materials, etc.) to order management, EDI (electronic data interchange) through to the shipping process.

While some of these systems can cost tens of thousands of dollars, many companies are realizing returns-on-investment. ERP systems alone can save thousands of dollars just in the area of chargebacks.

CGS’ Blue Cherry is developing a chargeback module to add to the company’s suite of warehouse management, financial, PLM (product lifecycle management) and inventory-management tools. Its EDI tools already address chargebacks, but a more refined module is expected to tackle the issue in more depth.

Another area being enhanced is PLM, which manages product development, particularly specifications management, costing, event tracking and image management via the Internet. Blue Cherry developed a new PLM package last year and refined it with an image-enriched platform to carry the application a step further so users can develop online B2B showrooms for retailers. In addition, the company last year acquired Connectrix Systems Inc., which added merchandise line management, merchandise planning and forecasting tools to CGS’ product mix.

PLM is hot because it can shave weeks off the development cycle. Using the Internet as its window, PLM allows designers, agents and product managers to see how materials and fabrics are secured, where they are in the color-dipping process, and so on. Companies are investing in it as a stand-alone, or, in Blue Cherry’s case, as part of a suite.

Magel said he thinks investing in end-to-end systems is a preferred way to go for many because of the headaches it can save from using various systems. End-to-end systems require little or no rekeying of data and work in synchrony with warehousing and inventory management systems.

In developing these products, CGS uses information gathered from its own R&D team as well as its users. It hosts an annual User’s Conference in Las Vegas to gather feedback as well as to provide clients with updates and new tools. The company has also enlisted a roundtable of industry executives to discuss such industry issues as RFID (radio frequency identification), among other topics.

CGS last year also became a Microsoft Certified Gold partner, which allows CGS to test and help develop new tools from Microsoft Corp., which in turn helps CGS improve its own products.

“We’re delivering to the customer 99 percent of the things they ask for,” said Magel. The company is targeting the West Coast with its base of upstart companies that can go from small to giant in a few years.

New West Coast clients include Commerce, Calif.–based Blue Holdings, which markets Antik Denim among several other brands, and Girl Skateboard Company, based in Torrance, Calif. As more West Coast companies adopt these technologies, others are more likely to take a look at their investments as well, Magel said.

—Robert McAllister