prioritizing plm initiatives & spends
TRANSCRIPT
W
HI
TE
P
AP
ER
Prioritizing your PLM initiatives
& spends
How Fashion brands and retailers can leverage
benefits from PLM through a phased and
measured approach
Version 1.0
September 2008
2
Getting ready for PLM
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Getting ready for PLM
Contents
Abstract................................................................................................................... 4
PLM in Fashion gaining wide acceptance ......................................................................................... 4
Typical issues in PLM adoption faced by organizations.................................................................... 4
The typical issues to address during a PLM implementation ........................................................... 5
PLM vision......................................................................................................................................... 5
Quantify a business case and define success measures ................................................................... 5
Right product & vendor selection..................................................................................................... 6
Implementation roadmap................................................................................................................. 6
Managing migrations & integrations ................................................................................................ 6
End user training & user acceptance issues...................................................................................... 6
Minimizing Risk through Phased Implementation............................................................................ 7
Planning a phased implementation .................................................................................................. 8
Phase 1: Planning a strategy ............................................................................................................. 8
Phase 2: Go Live with the implementation of the out of the box (OOTB) functions ...................... 10
Phase 3: Identifying customization requirements for propagating PLM ........................................ 10
Phase 4: Integrating the PLM Enterprise ........................................................................................ 10
Phase 5: Managing change requests .............................................................................................. 11
Summary ............................................................................................................... 12
The Author ............................................................................................................ 13
About Geometric .................................................................................................. 13
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Getting ready for PLM
Abstract
There is an increasing acceptance among apparel brands and retailers of the fact that PLM
applications can significantly streamline the product development process. Although the benefits
are apparent, there is ambiguity about the apt approach and investments to drive PLM across
the organization.
This white paper discusses a phased approach for accelerated PLM adoption in an enterprise to
help organizations prioritize their PLM initiatives and spends.
PLM in Fashion gaining wide acceptance
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is a business strategy that is steadily gaining wide
acceptance amongst fashion brands and retailers. Companies that took initial approach to PLM
are beginning to see significant reductions in new product introduction lead times, and are
enjoying more profits. PLM is not just a set of technologies, but a strategic business approach
that integrates people, processes, business systems and information.
PLM has proven to be an effective tool for getting products to market faster with reduced cost
and higher quality. It enables organizations to manage all information about their products, from
initial concept through commercialization, by integrating all areas of the company including the
extended supply chain in a collaborative forum. PLM provides a solid foundation of best practices
that can minimize time-to-market, reduce costs, mitigate supply risks and ensure compliance.
A unique advantage of a fashion-centric PLM solution is in providing a collaborative design
environment with streamlined workflows and extensive re-usability. Line planning and product
development applications can allow for the successive development and sharing of sketches,
product line storyboards, patterns and 3D virtual samples. Designers, brand or line managers,
technical developers, pattern designers and finally manufacturing partners can continue to share
the same updated true-to-life visual representations of the product at all times and can interact
at different stages of the design and development processes to simulate, specify and finally
validate all collection items.
Fashion brands and retailers are thus investing in PLM applications to deliver more styles in less
time and improve time-to-market.
Typical issues in PLM adoption faced by organizations
While there has been increased interest in PLM applications across the industry, each PLM
implementation poses unique challenges. Apprehensions like where do I start?, how do I
prioritize, which process goes first?, what will be the minimum time required to reap benefits
from the PLM investment? are common.
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Getting ready for PLM
The typical issues to address during a PLM implementation
PLM vision
PLM Vision is all about defining where you are today and where you want to be tomorrow,
enabled by PLM. It is important for an organization to articulate a PLM Vision. It can be arrived at
by tapping into the knowledge of a cross-functional team across different functions within the
organization like design, development, sourcing as well as core IT. Inputs can also be taken from
the external ecosystem that collaborates to ensure success of your strategy.
Quantify a business case and define success measures
Once the vision is laid out, it becomes the basis for the corporate strategy including the initiatives
in PLM that the organization defines. It is important to quantify the initiatives as a business case
containing financial analysis of impacts of the PLM investments. The business case, if well
qualified can serve as a detailed map for your implementation.
It is also important to qualify what success would mean at different stages of the PLM
implementation. Defining this upfront and informing all stakeholders about this definition
improves transparency and sets the right expectations. Stakeholders can then track the PLM
initiative knowing fully well what to expect from the system at different stages.
Implementation
Roadmap
Right Product &
Vendor selection
Quantify a business
case and define
success measures
PLM Vision
End-user
training & user
acceptance
issues
Implementation
challenges
� Define where you are today and
where you want to be tomorrow,
enabled by PLM
� Take inputs from cross-functional
teams
� Take inputs from integrated external
ecosystem
� Understand what is going to be
available OOTB and what needs to be
customized
� For complex customizations, engage
in POCs
� Manage the migrations and
integrations strategy
� Involve the users in generating business
requirements
� Demonstrate to the users the features
and gain acceptance for the new system
� Encourage extensive use of the new
system by making it easy for the users
� Quantify a business case with
financial analysis of impacts with
PLM investments
� Define success measures
� Take stakeholders into
confidence
� Identify broad level functionality that will be needed
by your organization
� Rate short-listed products on both functionality as
well as non-functionality parameters
� Engage with a partner with significant experience, working with apparel brands and retailers
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Getting ready for PLM
Right product & vendor selection
Each company has different requirements and may have different priorities. It is important to
understand the key elements driving the PLM strategy at a particular organization. Based on
these parameters, business requirements can be defined to a more granular level. This can help
identify the functionality that a particular organization is looking to implement and also the
prioritization in terms of what needs to go first. A robust product selection based on functionality
as well as non-functionality parameters (like integrations availability, openness of development
environment, vendor stability, ease of migrations, etc.) goes a long way in ensuring success of the
PLM strategy.
Having identified a PLM platform, it is also important to engage with a partner that has
considerable experience, working with apparel brands and retailers.
Implementation roadmap
Before launching into the implementation, it is important to lay-down the entire implementation
roadmap. It is also important to know before hand, what functionality is going to be available out
of the box and what will need to be customized to meet the business requirements. Where there
are complex customization requirements, it is best to validate the same by running some proof of
concepts.
Managing migrations & integrations
While the PLM investments promise to make a significant change, there is always a requirement
to refer past data and carry forward some of it into the new system. An application and data
migrations strategy must be laid out to ensure that information and knowledge generated over
the years is leveraged, while using the new system.
Also for specialized requirements, users will still prefer to work in some prevalent local
environments or disparate applications. PLM may not be able to replace all disparate systems, so
it is important that data generated in specialized disparate applications is leveraged and is
integrated with the main PLM system.
End user training & user acceptance issues
It is important to take the end-users into confidence while defining the business requirements. If
user inputs are not taken into account, then usage of the system will be minimal and it will be
difficult to ensure success of your PLM initiatives.
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Getting ready for PLM
While implementing PLM some companies take the big bang approach to implement PLM, while
others take a phased approach to PLM, investing in more focused projects with achievable high
value returns.
A number of organizations follow the Big Bang approach, completely revamping their current
practices and going live with the new PLM systems. This approach means that organizations can
avoid the drag of working with two different systems simultaneously thereby averting
duplication and confusion. However, the biggest challenge in doing this is to manage change.
Also, this requires organizations to commit to significant investments with high stakes involved.
Most organizations may not be geared up for this change and risk.
Organizations are therefore now approaching PLM through a phased strategy. This incremental
approach has not only been used for PLM initiatives but also across other information technology
tools. This rational approach is been adopted by organizations to ensure they are achieving value
from their IT and process improvement initiatives.
Minimizing Risk through Phased Implementation
A PLM roadmap should be developed based on the organization’s PLM vision and objectives
focusing on maximum returns at minimal risk. While dividing the entire PLM roadmap into
phases, organizations need to make sure these phases form a strategic program. When
combined together, these phases should provide the organization with high value benefits with
small initial investments.
Best-In-Class companies are increasingly adopting this approach and have started seeing results
with phased implementation. A leading footwear company in US has implemented PLM for
managing their activities in the product development process. The system tracks milestones and
configuration of the products. The next step they would like to incorporate is bills of materials in
PLM which will enable them to have standardized materials available for their developers. Rather
than developing new materials all the time, developers can pull existing materials and create new
designs. Currently they end up reworking specs for each product.
For now the organization uses PLM to manage specifications which has meant a big improvement
in managing clerical work and controlling data. Looking forward the company plans to expand
their PLM solution in other departments. They plan to extend PLM in integrating their calendar
systems. “As we go further in the development stages we want the system to trigger alerts on
what needs to be done, set timelines and get guidelines” says one of their PLM managers. The
phased implementations have helped the organization in measuring the metrics of their PLM
implementation and reaping benefits from their phased approach.
Implementing PLM in phases breaks up the decision making process as well as investments in
better manageable sizes. These phases help keep the focus intact so that end objective is
successfully achieved.
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Getting ready for PLM
Salient features of phased implementations
• PLM can be deployed across a single department initially
• Apply lessons learnt in initial projects to future projects
• Minimize risks & user reluctance / acceptance issues
• Dynamic re-scheduling of PLM implementation roadmap possible based on inputs from
implementations done in initial phases
One of the major risks in implementing an enterprise wide application is to manage change and
closely monitor impact on the end users and the business. A phased approach clubbed with
proper mechanics to handle reluctance helps to manage change gradually across the
organization. User acceptance is a major factor in any PLM implementation and phased approach
definitely helps in eliminating this risk efficiently.
Right identification and definition of the phases of the PLM roadmap can help organization
achieve their PLM goals and receive returns on their PLM investments. Phased PLM
implementation should be viewed as part of the entire PLM implementation plan to ensure these
phases lead to strategic results.
Planning a phased implementation
Defining phases for your PLM implementation can be based on organization’s business
improvement priorities, or on the basis of stated requirements of specific departments.
If PLM implementations are planned initially for specific business unit, location or department it
becomes easy for an organization to apply the lessons learnt to the future projects. This
approach helps in seeing benefits right away rather than waiting for months or years for PLM to
be implemented across the entire organization.
Phases identified in the PLM roadmap should be prioritized based on the ability of the phase to
achieve result in short span and support the later steps in the PLM program.
Phase 1: Planning a strategy
Define what your company needs and how its success will be measured. PLM will mean different
things to different companies because they differ in how they manufacture, distribute, sell and
support products.
For example, a company making women’s apparel might want to shorten delivery times through
better design reuse and automating bills of materials (BOM). A company designing sports wear,
on the other hand, might need a way to document quality and improve traceability while cutting
the administrative overhead of regulatory compliance.
Firms can begin by identifying gaps in current processes. Requirements should also include areas
that will help gain and maintain a competitive edge. These might include getting to market
quicker and collaborating across vendors and suppliers spread across continents. Thus,
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Getting ready for PLM
requirements might include: giving design personnel access to up-to-date drawings; letting
design teams/merchandisers view design change processes; and adding drawing information to
existing sketches, providing suppliers with a heads-up on what needs to be produced without
sacrificing IP and without making significant financial commitments.
Crystal-clear requirements help companies identify key benchmarks they will use in measuring
their PLM system's performance. For example, a company's primary goal might be to reduce the
new product introduction time to market by 25%. This provides the metrics to measure success.
The level of detail to which a company describes its requirements controls the effectiveness of
PLM.
While selecting a PLM package it is necessary for companies to ensure they choose packages that
allow them reach their goals. For example, a company might need PLM software that will work
with upstream technology components such as Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Photoshop. The
chosen PLM package should have an architecture which will enable the company to integrate
these systems with its PLM package. While selecting the right PLM platform it is necessary to
ensure that your service provider understands your requirements and can support your complex
customizations and integrations across the enterprise applications.
The management vision towards PLM needs to be properly defined and the objectives of PLM
implementation need to be percolated through the ranks of the organization.
Geometric recommends a phased, measurable roadmap to successful PLM implementation
• PLM need assessment and define business requirements
• Prioritizing functions and processes that need to be implemented first
• PLM benefits to be percolated across the organization
• Select right PLM product
• Implement PLM with its OOTB functionalities
• Implementation across location/BU/user set/modules
• Work on additional requirements
• Collaborate Internally & externally
• Automate the tracking mechanism
• Execution of Pilot projects
• Feasibility study to test integration
possibilities
Go Live with OOTB
functionalities
Identifying
Customization
Requirements
Integrating PLM
enterprise
Managing Change
Plan a Strategy
• Plan Data consolidation
• Identify additional configurations, interfaces needed
• Identify customizations needed & prioritize them
• Feasibility analysis, POC’s to test the requirements
• Identify workflows to be
defined for change requests
• Identify agents and
concerned people who will
manage change requests
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Getting ready for PLM
Phase 2: Go Live with the implementation of the out of the box (OOTB)
functions
While taking the first steps to implement PLM across a business/department/functionality for an
organization, achieving success and acceptance and demonstrating measurable benefits are
critical.
Spend time to map your processes/functionality to available OOTB functions from the PLM
package. Define scenarios, dependencies and configure the PLM platform to support business
requirements. Make use of configurations to OOTB functionality as much as possible to speed up
the implementation and achieve a Go-Live.
While doing the implementation, the users will typically come up with newer requirements.
Make sure you document all of those and factor them at an appropriate time. Also document all
the issues faced during this pilot phase, so that these issues can be well-addressed during the full
lifecycle implementation at the site.
Phase 3: Identifying customization requirements for propagating PLM
Once you go live with OOTB functionality and users are active on the system, start factoring in all
the new requirements that you have been gathering through the pilot implementation phase.
Start consolidating the organization’s data repositories, so that they can derive maximum benefit
from the implementation. Make an assessment of the client’s additional business requirements
and understand the impact of implementing the same. Some of this additional functionality/
requirements may not be configurable OOTB and may need additional customizations specific to
the customer.
Complex customizations can be tested using Proof of Concepts so that feasibility is tested
upfront before committing to the project in entirety. Maintaining transparency and taking the
users into confidence about the changes that are needed with their cost implications will help in
making this phase successful.
Phase 4: Integrating the PLM Enterprise
Data consolidation takes care of a lot of versioning issues and makes sure that everyone in the
extended product development team is referring to the same single version of the truth. While
specialized disparate applications may continue to be used, it is important that data generated
from these systems feeds into the global dashboard, and is available at an enterprise level.
One of the important goals of PLM is to enable collaboration and data sharing with the other
enterprise applications like ERP, SCM, and CRM. Organizations need to define their priorities in
terms of the level of collaboration that is required; projects should be initiated to enable this
collaboration, both internal and external.
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Getting ready for PLM
Phase 5: Managing change requests
Change management is one of the important steps in the PLM initiative that enables companies
to manage formal and informal aspects of change from design modifications to supplier and
sourcing-related changes. Change management is necessary for external and internal colleagues
who want to report an issue. The process should be able to easily collect organize, analyze and
authorize proposed changes and identify all affected elements. Planning the change request in
such a way that built in workflow automatically assigns change request to appropriate personnel
for review and authorization thus ensuring effects of change are thoroughly considered before
implementation.
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Getting ready for PLM
Summary
Identify the company’s strategic objectives and process improvement initiatives that drive
organizational functions. Perform a gap analysis to identify the problem areas needing
immediate attention.
• Identify and prioritize specific functions/ processes to go-live with PLM to help define phases
for your PLM implementation.
• Include tangible and small projects which have relatively shorter payback time. This will help
in ensuring early success in the PLM program
• Understand OOTB functions and conduct feasibility studies to test the added functionalities
that are needed, but are not available in the OOTB.
• Understand budget limitations, if any and map PLM priorities against the budgets.
Organizations which map out their PLM strategies and break them down in phases have been
able to quickly adopt new and more effective practices that provide return to the business faster.
These returns can be invested in further projects that will provide incremental value and help
companies realize their PLM goals and their associated PLM benefits.
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Getting ready for PLM
The Author
Atul Dhakappa
Practice Head – Fashion Lifecycle Solutions
Atul heads the Fashion Lifecycle Solutions Practice at Geometric. He is responsible for
conceptualizing and taking to market innovative solutions and service offerings in the fashion
domain by leveraging Geometric’s IP assets and capabilities in the extended PLM space. He also
manages key customer relationships in the space.
Atul has over 10 years of industry experience. His areas of specialization include Marketing of
software services and products, Corporate Strategy and Planning, and Relationship Management.
He has been with Geometric since Jan 2003, and has played different roles in Corporate
Marketing, Business Development, Pre-Sales, Product Marketing and Event Management. Atul
has been actively involved with the development of the offerings in the fashion domain.
Atul holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering from University of Mumbai and an MBA,
with a specialization in Marketing, from Welingkar’s Institute of Management, Mumbai.
About Geometric
Geometric is a specialist in the domain of engineering solutions, services and technologies. Its
portfolio of Global Engineering services and Digital Technology solutions for Product Lifecycle
Management (PLM) enables companies to formulate, implement, and execute global engineering
and manufacturing strategies aimed at achieving greater efficiencies in the product realization
lifecycle.
Headquartered in Mumbai, India, Geometric was incorporated in 1994 and is listed on the
Bombay and National Stock Exchanges. The company recorded consolidated revenues of Rupees
4.86 billion (US Dollars 121.6 million) for the year ended March 2008. It employs close to 3000
people across 10 global delivery locations in the US, France, Romania, India, and China.
Geometric is assessed at SEI CMMI Level 5 for its software services and ISO 9001:2000 certified
for engineering operations. For further details, please visit www.geometricglobal.com.