W H I T E P A P E R. Prioritizing your PLM initiatives & spends

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1 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 W H I T E P A P E R

2 Copyright Notice Geometric Limited. All rights reserved. No part of this document (whether in hardcopy or electronic form) may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, to any third party without the written permission of Geometric Limited. Geometric Limited reserves the right to change the information contained in this document without prior notice. The names or trademarks or registered trademarks used in this document are the sole property of the respective owners and are governed/ protected by the relevant trademark and copyright laws. This document is provided by Geometric Limited for informational purposes only, without representation or warranty of any kind, and Geometric Limited shall not be liable for errors or omissions with respect to the document. The information contained herein is provided on an AS-IS basis and to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Geometric Limited hereby disclaims all other warranties and conditions, either express, implied or statutory, including but not limited to, any (if any) implied warranties, duties or conditions of merchantability, of fitness for a particular purpose, of accuracy or completeness of responses, of results, of workmanlike effort, of lack of viruses, and of lack of negligence, all with regard to the document. THERE IS NO WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF NON-INFRINGEMENT OF ANY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS WITH REGARD TO THE DOCUMENT. IN NO EVENT WILL GEOMETRIC LIMITED BE LIABLE TO ANY OTHER PARTY FOR LOST PROFITS, LOSS OF USE, LOSS OF DATA, OR ANY INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR SPECIAL DAMAGES WHETHER UNDER CONTRACT, TORT, WARRANTY, OR OTHERWISE, ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THIS DOCUMENT, WHETHER OR NOT SUCH PARTY HAD ADVANCE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. Confidentiality Notice This document is disclosed only to the recipient pursuant to a confidentiality relationship under which the recipient has confidentiality obligations defined herein after. This document constitutes confidential information and contains proprietary information belonging to Geometric Limited, and the recipient, by its receipt of this document, acknowledges the same. The recipient shall use the confidential information only for the purpose defined above for which this document is supplied. The recipient must obtain Geometric Limited s written consent before the recipient discloses any information on the contents or subject matter of this document or part thereof to any third party which may include an individual, firm or company or an employee or employees of such a firm or company. The recipient acknowledges its obligation to comply with the provisions of this confidentiality notice. 2

3 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

4 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. 4

5 The typical issues to address during a PLM implementation 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 End-user training & user acceptance issues PLM Vision 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 Implementation Roadmap Implementation challenges Right Product & Vendor selection Quantify a business case and define success measures 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 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. 5

6 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. 6

7 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. 7

8 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, 8

9 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. Managing Change Identify workflows to be defined for change requests Identify agents and concerned people who will manage change requests Integrating PLM enterprise Collaborate Internally & externally Automate the tracking mechanism Execution of Pilot projects Feasibility study to test integration possibilities Identifying Customization Requirements Plan Data consolidation Identify additional configurations, interfaces needed Identify customizations needed & prioritize them Feasibility analysis, POC s to test the requirements Go Live with OOTB functionalities Implement PLM with its OOTB functionalities Implementation across location/bu/user set/modules Work on additional requirements Plan a Strategy 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 Geometric recommends a phased, measurable roadmap to successful PLM implementation 9

10 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. 10

11 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. 11

12 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. 12

13 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 million) for the year ended March 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 13