PTC Brings its PLM Knowledge Westward
The apparel industry is starting to embrace PLM (product lifecycle management) technology, and that has a bandwagon of vendors courting West Coast manufacturers, retailers and importers.
One of the market leaders, Needham, Mass.–based PTC, held a “knowledge forum” Dec. 11 at the Viceroy Hotel in Santa Monica, Calif., to help potential users understand PLM better. While PTC is based near Boston, it does have three West Coast offices.
PTC’s vice president of vertical product strategy, Kathleen Mitford, and Kurt Salmon Associates Senior Manager Jeremy Rubman presented the daylong presentation, which was attended by company representatives from Liz Claiborne and Patagonia, among others.
PLM helps manage pre-production processes from design to shipping via the Internet and a central database that keeps designers on the same page with factories, agents and others within the supply chain.
The technology is helping companies speed up production and save time and money. But finding a vendor at a time when companies are lining up to present their pitches is a challenge. In most cases, PLM also requires companies to change portions of their business methodologies, and that has also been a big challenge.
PTC executives tried to allay some of the fears. First, Mitford emphasized that the benefits outweigh any initial hardships but warned that companies should use PLM to support objectives, including line planning, design or vendor collaboration.
PLM does work, said Mitford. It’s not another pie-in-the-sky technology that companies have come across in the past. The latest PLM maxim is that it offers a single version of the truth. In line planning, for example, everyone sees the same history of sales performance and trend analysis. As a result, redundancies are avoided and more time can be spent on new lines.
The same works for design. There’s one line plan with clear direction. When changes are made, the system automatically updates line sheets and spec sheets so the designer doesn’t have to do it manually. PTC’s system also feeds directly into Adobe Illustrator so designers can work with a tool they are familiar with.
“Sophisticated companies open up their systems to the supply chain and create and collaborate as a result,” Mitford said, adding that more apparel companies have their design teams spread across different offices.
Rubman went on to explain the paradox of the apparel industry, using a simple Beijing Olympics T-shirtfrom one of PTC’s clients as an example.A T-shirt appears simple to produce, but in actuality it could have more than 1,000 variations of product specs made up of multiple colorways, sizes, size categories, factories and distribution regions.
Rubman said PTC has an Excel-based user interface to give users familiarity when creating the tech packs required for the T-shirt example as well as all garments.
“PLM’s broad configuration can snowball. You have to lay a road map and align your strategy with what PLM can do,” Rubman said.
At the same time, he said, PLM can go beyond expectations.
“Look beyond product justification. Leverage what your suppliers know,” he said.
In addition, Rubman emphasized that PLM is a process-based system.
“Everybody cuts an order the same way. You have to focus your requirements on how you are different. PLM can support your business and become a tool kit to build around your organization.”
Avenue.com Overhauls E-Tail Platform
Pleasanton, Calif.–based Mercado Software has installed a new navigation engine for Rochelle Park, N.J.–based Avenue.com, which markets plus-size apparel for women through its e-commerce site and about 400 bricks-and-mortar stores.
Avenue.com is using Mercado’s On Demand platform, a hosted system intended for small- to medium-sized companies. It’s the same one that Mercado clients Macy’s and Guess? Inc. use, but it’s configured for smaller operations and has a lower price tag.
It features relevant and merchandised search and navigation results and rankings, linguistic support (synonyms, spelling correction and stemming), more than 20 industry domain dictionaries, metrics-driven merchandising tools, a rules engine managed by business users and reports with integrated data and metrics.
Julie Daly, president of the Avenue’s “Shop at Home” division, said the company has experienced an increase in sales conversions, which is the ratio of browsers who make a purchase.
“We monitor the search terms used by our customers and then generate special promotions to fulfill those needs. For example, our Web analytics indicated that a large number of customers were searching for bras, so we used Mercado to quickly develop and present campaigns to meet these customer interests,” Daly said.
For more information, visit www.mercado.com.
