PLM Mission Impossible: How to Manage Product Development More Efficiently

Last year I wrote a blog post inspired by the Hollywood movie titled ‘How to Avoid Being a "Minion" Using A Proper ERP System.’ A few months later, I wrote another post titled "Mission Impossible: Finding the Right ERP System." In the latter post, I tried to describe the mind-bending amount of minutia that must be handled by an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to run and apparel or footwear business. In keeping with the movie motif, I humbly submit these thoughts as a sequel – and this time I will focus on the details and efforts that must be dealt with in the product development world.

Product Development Management

When computer software was written to track all the details that go into a new product design more than a decade ago, it was referred to as Product Development Management (PDM) software. At some point in the last 5 to 10 years, some people decided that "lifecycle" is the buzzword du jour and so this category of software is now referred to as Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). However, with few exceptions, it's really all about maintaining the data and calendars for the design and development teams.

Fundamentally, there are two critical aspects of PLM software and one crucial output. The critical purpose of PDM software is to:

1. Become a repository for all the detailed data about a given new product, from measurement points to bills of material to manufacturing instructions, and
2. Provide a mechanism, typically referred to as a calendar with workflow, which tracks the activities of all the stakeholders and ensures the product is developed in a timely manner

How PLM streamlines product development and the product lifecycle

While a PLM system might be used to issue purchase orders for samples, the primary output from a PLM system is what is commonly known as a tech pack - typically a multipage report sent to vendors containing all of that stored detail such that the vendor can estimate the cost. When a design is promoted to becoming a style in an ERP system, details like the measurement of an armhole are less of a priority, but remain critical data to maintain during the design and development process.

That PLM software should allow unlimited numbers of images to be stored, and interface with popular design tools like Adobe illustrator, should go without saying. Likewise, the output (in the form of the tech pack) should be customizable by the user, since depending on the product and the vendor a tech pack could be anywhere from 3 to 30 pages in length. If the system allows for the tracking of multiple RFQs (requests for quotation) and the management of multiple iterations of samples with notes and measurements against tolerance, all the better. As well, the workflow calendar must allow for the assignment of various tasks to individual users or groups as well as tracking estimated versus actual completion dates, and notifications when things are past due.

True lifecycle management

Earlier, I pointed out that by and large, most PLM software is little more than PDM software with the new name. However in some cases, like in the case of BlueCherry^®, the software solution allows for true "lifecycle management" because the PLM side is essentially an extension of the ERP system and thus is intimately intertwined. All the data is available for comprehensive reporting that can potentially show everything from the ideation stage to sell through at the retail level.

For example, if Pat, Chris and Bobby are all designers who each produce 20 designs for the season, it is a simple matter with any PLM system to determine which designer’s products had the highest percentage of adoption to the line. However, when that PLM system is integrated as part of an ERP system as well, then one could additionally report on production issues, sales to customers, and perhaps most importantly even sell through at the store level since the ERP system could pull in 852 POS sales data from the larger retailers. This is what makes a true lifecycle management system; the ability to capture the data to track a product from its inception to the time it is dropped from the line is all in one place.

At first, the number of details to maintain make product development seem almost impossible, but it is something done on a daily basis with systems like BlueCherry PLM.