A quick peek into some research on how PLM is working outside of the metal benders. Who could be more different from the benders than the apparel, footwear, and fashion industry? I caught a peek of a TV show called "The Fashion Police" last night, and I can tell you that I haven't seen that cast of characters in the metal bending plants before!

Earlier I talked about the history of PLM coming from auto, aero, and industrial equipment oriented companies, collectively known as the metal benders. That is the world of CAD and engineering-centricity. Apparel is the world of design - fast, fresh, creative, and ... well, fast. A recent Aberdeen report on PLM for Apparel shows the top pressures and challenges these companies face have to do with speed (response to consumer demands, shorter lifecycles, rapid changes in fashion, constant order revisions). From what I have learned, if purple is selling you had better get purple on the shelf. If low necklines are working, you react or your products don't move until they are heavily discounted - if they sell at all. The other big challenge is globalization. With the disappearance of a lot of trade barriers, design and manufacturing are now spread across the globe (but admittedly most of the production is spread around Asia).

So with those pressures, does metal-bending PLM work for them? Of course not. But not all PLM was built for metal benders, and an honest look at those industries shows that they are increasingly struggling with "fast and global" as well. So PLM in these industries focuses more on the integration of communication between design and sourcing (internally) and between design and the supply chain (externally). The research shows those actions are exactly what Best-in-Class apparel companies have in common. To support this, they are using four key capabilities - supported by PLM:

• Centralized data
• Collaborative design
• Visibility across the team and the supply chain
• Integration of data with processes and calendars

Not too different than the enterprise-level PLM capabilities that the metal benders are looking for. The report goes on to detail how those Best-in-Class companies are in fact using PLM more frequently than others and reports that those apparel companies with PLM in place for greater than one year (a reasonable amount of time to start getting some payback) are showing some important improvements in the metrics that drive profitability in the retail market.

So that was a quick peek into some recent research, I hope you found it interesting.

So the Fashion Police may give a big "love it" to PLM for helping support fast (and profitable) fashion. Does the research reflect reality? Do you see it differently? Let us know what it looks like from your perspective.