Apparel Thing

MyZdesign – An Interview with Zweave’s Laura McCann

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 11:16:00 -0400

Zweave are already an established player in the enterprise apparel PLM market, offering a suite of products aimed at mid to enterprise sized businesses to streamline their product development processes. Their new offering to the market, My Z Design, however is one of the first lightweight PLMs in the apparel market, a hosted solution that costs less than $1 a day, aimed at small businesses and fashion students.

Apparel Thing caught up with Laura McCann, Founder and CEO of Zweave to find out more…

Apparel Thing: What are the key features if MyZdesign?
Laura McCann: The intention behind MyZdesign was to build something that was between PDM and PLM. A lot of product development in retail and apparel starts with the tech-pack. The tech-pack is usually the first problem organisations need to solve. Typically the tech-pack is done in a PDM system or with Excel, some people even do it in Photoshop and some don’t even have a real tech-pack. The idea behind MyZdesign is to cover everything that would go into a tech-pack. So there are construction guidelines, a size spec, and an area to store all the drawings. There’s also a Bill of Materials, which some PDM systems don’t actually have. Also covered are materials, graphics and inspirations, for example tear sheets. Those are the key features. It’s totally hosted and it’s a SAS PLM product so you just need a URL and your login information. It also has portals that help you organise all of your work and some workflow capabilities, such as collaboration and communication within each of these different templates that you’re working on. It’s a collaborative design automation tool that has the foundation of a PDM tech pack but it also has a little bit more as you can manage all your materials and colour palettes.

Apparel Thing: OK, so it’s a little more comprehensive than traditional PDM then?
Yes, it takes PDM and mixes it with some of the most important aspects of PLM such as the BOM, tying colour to the tech-pack and managing material libraries. So you can manage colours and materials inside the tech-pack but you can also manage them outside of the tech-pack.

Apparel Thing: How does MyZdesign differ to the Zdesign Suite in terms of features?
Laura McCann: When you take most companies whether they are a small business or a very large business, PLM is about taking your process and applying that process to the technology. So you’re going to have your forms, your templates, your data, then you’re going to have a lot of things around how you are going to automate the workflow and make sure the workflow works for how you do business. In MyZdesign there is no workflow of that nature. The idea is that it is really more of a point solution where there are forms that you can fill in that are going to help you with all the work that you are going to do but it’s not something that is going to be configured to your specific process. In addition, there are no configurations to databases that would be able to set up all your pick lists prior to starting. So you are going to build your pick lists using text fields – it simplifies how somebody can get to the foundation of PLM but it is not a fully robust collaboration PLM suite.

Apparel Thing: It sounds like a good bridge in between then
Yes, it’s a good bridge and the other thing is, it doesn’t today but there might be new versions in the future, today really focuses on product development and the design team and the technical design team. It doesn’t go into pre-production and sourcing and other things that are in the later part of the lifecycle.

Apparel Thing: What size/type of company is MyZdesign aimed at?
Laura McCann: So ideally when we are out in the PLM world as a PLM vendor we are speaking to any size company so the challenge with the typical size PLM is that with companies that are under around $10 million in revenue, traditional PLM is too robust and too much for them. So I would say it’s really key for companies that are under $10 million in revenue but it’s also perfect for students, freelance designers that are doing work for clients on the side and it can also be used by a small design team in any size company. So if you wanted 5 – 10 designers and technical designers to have PDM-like tools without the full PLM collaborating with everybody in the process, then it’s also a good solution for those companies.

Apparel Thing: What made you develop MyZdesign?
Laura McCann: I’m a big fan of software that doesn’t require a lot of implementation. The challenge with taking a very big footprint like Zdesign and implementing it with minimum implementation is that it’s quite hard as a software vendor to come up with every single version of what you would need to make everybody happy. So MyZdesign is really about taking the best of what our software solution in Zdesign offered and making it accessible to people that want to get a taste of PLM but their not ready to do a full PLM project. What that means is they may not be ready to do all there as-is/to-be process, they might not be ready to hire consultants to come in and do a full ROI but they really want to try and see what PLM brings to the table, specifically around the first part of the lifecycle which is the product development and design phase.

Apparel Thing: So this is a really good tool for them to test the water with?
Laura McCann: Yes, it’s a really good tool so they can get to know what happens to all this data that I use to get to my tech-pack and when they understand how the tech-pack data drives every other part of the business further down the line I think it makes them smarter in understanding how a more robust PLM system will need to be set up to do all the things they are really going to want to do. You know, what I found in a lot of the PLM implementations is when they start in sourcing or production or more of the ERP or line planning part of PLM and they do the product development piece last, a lot of the times the solution can’t be reverse engineered to handle everything that happens in the design process. So I’ve always been a big fan of start at the beginning, and the beginning is what are the first parts of getting product to market and it’s the research and development, the buying of samples, the inspirations, developing your colour card, getting all your materials together, doing all your sketches, creating your first tech-packs. The you go from your tech-pack and you can do sampling, you can do costing, you can do all the other things, but until you get to that first part where you get the tech-pack, you’re just starting kind of in the middle.

Apparel Thing: This sounds like it would also be useful for user adoption. Often Designers have this “beast” of PLM thrown at them and it’s daunting. By starting with the things they are used to doing like developing tech-packs and working with colour palettes, by just giving them a supporting tool, for me this sounds like it’s a good way to get them use to working with PLM before they progress to more complex functionality that PLM can offer.
Laura McCann: Yes, my background is as a Fashion Designer in the industry and then later on I went into private label sourcing and then into the manufacturing side and now 10 years in the technology side of the fashion industry. To me what differentiates all these companies are their product and the design, so I am a little bit of a design snob! I have always felt that PLM would be more successful if it was something that the Designers could fall in love with. Just like the difference between how Designers adopt MACS versus PCs. I think in PLM there needs to be like a MAC version that is more talking to the design side of the house so I aspire to fill that role. To me MyZdesign is a way of getting this in the hands of the Designer who says “you know what, maybe my company doesn’t want to pay for this, but I can use this to get my tech-pack, so I’ll use it”. They don’t have to wait for the company to make that decision, and I think that’s the idea. Most people today want to be empowered to use tools that help them in their jobs and sometimes the technology adoption is in the hands of people that are not the users and I’d like to bring the power back to the user, so to speak.

Apparel Thing: This sounds in line with a recent article on the Huffington Post by Karen Appleton, VP of Box.net, where she was discussing how we are now going to see commercial software uptake being driven by the users, as they are so use to using these really intuitive tools such as Facebook and Twitter; where user experience becomes the determining factor for technology adoption at work.
Laura McCann: Yes definitely, I’m a big adherent to that. I’m a fan of Salesforce.com and I look at them as having done some really innovative things around taking enterprise software and putting it on the Cloud and packaging it up into versions that can be as inexpensive as a couple of hundred dollars a year. So you don’t have to be GM or Sony and have a multi-million dollar CRM tool, you can have a couple of hundred dollars a month. In the case of Salesforce, you can also self implement, so they created a tremendous amount of resources and tools to allow you to customise their solution. The challenge is you still have to have some expertise and technical knowhow. We decided with MyZdesign in the first phase we would get rid of all of those choices and make it a little more simple and there I aspired to the philosophies of the guys who are the founders of 37 signals. So it’s really about make it simple, keep it simple and of course the users are going to want all the bells and whistles and you have to make a decision at some point that that is going to create a much more complex software. In this case we thought we are going to do the simplest things that will help them get what they want and we are not going to over complicate it. If they want to over complicate it, then you can go and use Zdesign and do an enterprise implementation. There are a lot of best practises in simple solutions that can help these companies and these designers be much more efficient and what you were discussing before, the whole idea of empowering users by giving them tools that look more like the tools they use in their personal lives and not these typical “Excelish” software tools.

Apparel Thing: Could a company initially start with MyZdesign then upgrade to Zdesign as they grew into PLM? If so, how seamless would the data migration be if they did more extensive configurations of even customisations in Zdesign?
Laura McCann: So that’s a great question. The answer is they can upgrade from MyZdesign to Zdesign. In MyZdesign we have taken several of the tabs that we have in Zdesign that are focused around design, fit and materials, a little bit of merchandising and trend and have flattened them out and simplified them. So all the data from that information can go back into Zdesign if somebody would like to go in that direction. If somebody just wants to get their data out of the system we also can export the data. Every point of data in the system can be printed out as a PDF. If they want the data in spreadsheets, we can download certain data to spreadsheets as well. So from a migration perspective it’s pretty seamless. The difference will be the migration into Zdesign will probably then involve an implementation of Zdesign. That’s still going to be requiring a scope of work; what do you want to do and how do you want to do it and the typical enterprise software implementation steps.

Apparel Thing: You mention that MyZdesign should challenge the concept of PLM needing a long implementation. How long would it typically take to implement MyZdesign?
Laura McCann: It doesn’t take anything. You will register online and within 24 – 48 hours you will receive a URL. If you are doing an implementation of MyZdesign for an individual, the user is registered as what we consider the admin, so they will be given a username and password. If somebody is subscribing on behalf of a small company like 5-10 users, then the person who registered will also be the admin. The admin will go in and set up all the other users; it will be preconfigured to the amount of users that they have paid for, if they want to add or delete users they will have to request that change. After that the only thing they are going to do is start putting their data in the system. That data will be the data that they use to develop their product, so there is no set up whatsoever. The only thing they have to do is put a header and footer in their tech-pack and their logo and they are ready to go.

Apparel Thing: How configurable is MyZdesign?
Laura McCann: Today, in this first release they are dealing with set fields. In future releases we are hoping to give them the ability to create custom fields. The reason we haven’t done a release with that option from day 1 is that everybody wants to start adding things without understanding what’s in there. So what will happen is they would make a mess of their data as they wouldn’t understand any of the interdependencies that are in between the data. We have taken many of the interdependencies out. In Zdesign we have many interdependencies that are very important and very robust and help you do things around workflow that a typically large organisation wants to do. But in MyZdesign we are giving you a much more adhoc type of environment where you’ll have to sync up with the other people that you work with on who does what and how you’ll do it. The forms are there and there are many fields that you can use if they aren’t fields you feel you need. Because each one of our templates lets you upload other files to it, you actually have the ability of using it as a document management tool, so you can use Excel and Word and other files to add to what you feel we may have not have given you out of the box.

Apparel Thing: If a company implements MyZdesign, is there a limit on many users they can have until you ask them to use Zdesign instead?
Laura McCann: We feel that if a company wants to go over 15-20 users then they probably need to upgrade to Zdesign. So today we have a 5 user package and a 10 user package and there is a slight increase in price when you add more than 10 users so instead of our $350 per year, per user it would be $600 per year, per user. And the reason for that is we are probably going to be storing much more data and there are much more administrative costs involved with supporting a larger group of people. It’s also a way to get people to look at the total ROI and say “you know what, maybe it’s time for me to migrate to a more enterprise PLM solution”.

Apparel Thing: If MyZdesign is like a web-based PDM, does this still include access for suppliers?
Laura McCann: In this scenario, because the process is developing a tech-pack, the collaboration with suppliers is probably going to be limited to sharing the tech-pack. They might be having suppliers come in and upload material information. We do have some roles in the system to set up different access. If you wanted a supplier or vendor to come in and work with you in your MyZdesign tool, they would be working like they were in your company. There probably wouldn’t be a finite separation of their information and your information as you would like. In Zdesign we have Vendor Studio, which specifically addresses outside vendors coming in and collaborating. One of the things we see as a potential out-growth of MyZdesign is that people will use MyZdesign for the whole design and tech-pack and then they may want to implement some of our other studios in Zdesign. There might be some hybrid implementations where they don’t do the full footprint of Zdesign but they want the collaboration piece.

Apparel Thing: Ok, so you could in theory take some of the studios from the Zdesign Suite and tack them on as you need them to MyZdesign, rather than completely upgrade to Zdesign?
Laura McCann: I think what we’ll do is as we start to see what people want to do with this and we have a dialog with the user community of what they think they want next, we’ll be taking other parts of the Zdesign Suite which has over 17 unique Studios, which are basically functional process areas. We might take some of those and add them to MyZdesign or add additional functional elements that are not just focused on the initial product development, so there might be like a sourcing version of MyZdesign that would deal with sampling and pricing. The idea is not to again cannibalise the enterprise software business but to really give people efficiency tools for the 10 or so tasks that they need to do day in day out that would benefit from a web based solution that is more collaborative and that is more modern.
As a software company it’s very hard to build a small footprint and then grow it, so we have benefited from having about 5 years of research and development because we started out as a consulting company building custom PLM applications for the department of defence. So by virtue of that we built a very big footprint and now we have the opportunity to take from that and build something that is a little bit more of a Cloud SAS type of point solution, still knowing that we can upgrade to some of the other parts of the solution if we want to. That’s been our strategy all along and we’re excited as we’re finally there. We have enough of the other enterprise software to be able to start to be able to compress it and come to this real clean SAS offering.

Apparel Thing: What would you say to those that are worried about security with a hosted solution?
Laura McCann: I think everybody is worried about hosting and they think that hosting is something they should take care of. But the reality is if you read any of the articles about hosting and the Cloud you find that a small company is probably going to do a poor job of hosting their own information than a company like us who have to perform on a hosting level like a best of breed hosting company. We are actually doing a webinar March 25th called “Zweave in the Cloud” and it addresses a lot of those concerns. Zdesign can be hosted by a client but MyZdesign will always be hosted in the Cloud at this point.

Apparel Thing: You say that MyZdesign can be used by students. As PLM is a collaboration tool between multiple parties, it is difficult for students who are working on their studies/projects as individuals to use PLM in a meaningful way. What benefits do you see for individual students signing up and how can they use it?
Laura McCann: This is a great question. You know you have absolutely described the challenge. Implementing PLM in an education environment would be fabulous but it’s all about creating and mimicking a real business and typically that’s not what’s going on in a school setting. So what this will do will let each person do the individual piece that they contribute to and this case its probably more in line with what the design students are using in the first place; merchandising, material development, colour development, trend development and the style development and the tech-pack. So here they can literally work alone or they can work with a group of people but there’s no challenge in kind of giving them a tool that’s robust enough to do the work of one but could also include others. The collaboration would probably look like “hey lets develop a product together and communicate about whose bringing each part of the product information to the table” but it wouldn’t be as challenging as it would be with PLM where you would be talking across multiple departments and multiple processes.

Apparel Thing: PLM is obviously very important in the fashion industry today, but due to the issue mentioned in the previous question about PLM being a collaboration tool, many students have no exposure to PLM until they reach the workplace. How can universities better educate student on PLM? If universities are to sign up to licenses, how can they make it relevant and usable for students, instead of just “lecturing” about PLM?
Laura McCann: You know I always had the same concern – how will PLM take off if there are no students trained in PLM? The workforce today that is using PLM is probably using very customised PLM to the organisation that they work for and if they leave that organisation and go and work on a different PLM system in a different organisation, they’ll probably have a little bit more of a skill set – there may be at least one PLM job in the bag. In the old days somebody could take some of these point solution classes and start out, then maybe they are interning or freelancing and learning the tools, then they go out into the workforce and everyone is looking for this particular CAD tool or PDM tool experience. I think MyZdesign could be a good tool to start these students out on understanding what PLM is and be a great foundation for them going into organisations with other PLM solutions so they are walking in with a better understanding of what that job will look like in the future. And you know what, that job is a much more digital job than is traditionally has been in the past, it’s probably less about the ‘touchy-feely’ of design, though there is always that element, it’s really more about being great at the paperwork around design.

Apparel Thing: As a fashion design graduate myself, many of the courses focus a lot on the design method, the inspiration and the creativity, they don’t really focus on the business process. Do you think it would be a good idea if the universities set up real-life working scenarios with the students using PLM to simulate the design department, the sourcing departments etc so that student have a better idea of how they will be expected to work as designers once they get into industry?
Laura McCann: Yes absolutely. I remember being a design student and it was very much about being good at drawing and understanding how to make a garment. If you look at shows such as Project Runway, they are very exciting to watch but it’s still very much about the creativity but the people who can make it to become winners are the people who can execute. In this case they are executing in terms of being able to sew and have a good understanding of style, but if you take the step after that it’s got nothing to do with any of that. Everything after that is the business of fashion. It’s all the paperwork and documentation, how to do a lot of work very fast and cost efficiently and if you go into these larger companies and ask the Designers what they want out of a solution most of the things they want, other than obvious “I want to do everything I can do in Excel”, is “I want to be able to do it fast”. They are not concerned with what the data is on the construction guidelines, they want to know they can access a library with 100’s of existing templates and they can quickly assemble something. So you go from the precious design to “how do we do this as fast as possible?” There are definitely better ways to work and I think our solution will be attractive to students wanting to learn this. Our individual pricing is probably the same amount or less than if they wanted to buy an Adobe product to start out. If schools want to be able to buy packages, then we will do discounts on multiple users.

Apparel Thing: Often when you are doing implementations of PLM, it’s often the Designers that cause the most issues with user adoption. I think if design students had a better grounding of what is expected of them once out in industry this may help with projects in the future.

Laura McCann: We would love to build a user community around this, one of our goals is to wrap a social media environment around MyZdesign and build a community of MyZdesign users that can share resources, not just about the product itself and how they can leverage it, but also to create more of a user community around how designers can learn from each other. Today shockingly, there is nowhere to really do that; Facebook maybe, but still that’s a very personal kind of interaction. Where do designers get to hang out and talk about the trade of what they do? We would love to see an extension of this tied to brining other products and services to the Designer community that really is left a little bit to the side.

Thanks to Laura for the great interview. If you would like to find out more about MyZdesign, check out the website http://www.zweave.com/myzdesign

Apparel PLM: User Rebellion?

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 11:15:15 -0400

Don’t you just love those moments where some other like-minded soul publicly advocates what you have been saying for years. Well I had one of those moments today after reading Karen Appleton’s “Workplace Rebellion: Savvy Workers Drive Technology Transformation” article for the Huffington Post.

“Why is it that consumer technologies make sharing so easy, while our workplace resources linger in the dark ages? With today’s user-friendly Web 2.0 technologies, consumers can connect, share and collaborate without storage concerns, hefty price tags, or costly maintenance. Today’s entrenched (and expensive) enterprise software offerings, however, emphasize IT control and top-down management, with a Web 1.0 (aka crappy) user experience. IT departments are bogged down by frequent product upgrades, regular maintenance, and heavy administration with little time to explore new technologies that would give their companies a competitive edge.
Why do we have it so much better as consumers? Because the applications we love — Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube — have all been designed with the end user in mind”
- Karen Appleton

Having spent many years working with enterprise PLM software it’s always amazed me the lack consideration for the end user these systems have. One of my favourite sayings whilst working for one software vendor that supplied apparel PLM was “designed by engineers for fashion designers, but actually only useable by IT people”. A few of my colleagues agreed we needed to improve usability but most of the time my protests fell on deaf ears as the general consensus was it had all the required business processes covered and it got the job done, even if you didn’t like the way it did it. It was selling and Mr End User didn’t hold the purse strings. Mr Holder Of The Purse Strings was mightily impressed with heroic tales of ROI, daring feats of R&D expenditure, architectural wizardry and the solid dependability of an established institution. Mr Software Vendor secretly didn’t mind that Mr End User was likely to face hard times, as hard times meant more service days.

You see the problem is that for too long many enterprise PLM providers have been working to a business model that is actually at loggerheads with the end user requirements. To give you a little analogy, purchasing enterprise PLM is a bit like buying a car from one of these big chains of car dealers. You think you’re purchasing a nice shiny new car, when in fact what you are actually purchasing is a finance agreement. There is more profit in the finance agreement than there is in the car. Well it’s the same with enterprise PLM – there is more profit in the service agreement, the software is like a by-product. This unfortunately means that it isn’t necessarily in the software vendor’s best interest to make the implementation super snappy and the system magnificently intuitive for poor Mr End User.

However all that could be about to change. The policy of paying little attention to the end user’s requirements worked well for many years as Mr End User unfortunately didn’t really know any better. But as more and more “Millennials” enter the workplace, the generation who grew up on the internet, Mr End User is suddenly becoming much more informed. And it’s not just the Millennials – they were just the first to catch on. Employees of all ages and demographics are now embracing the user-friendly Web 2.0 technologies and the disparity between the user-experience driven consumer technologies and the profit driven clunkiness of the enterprise applications has never been more apparent or recognised. Mr Holder Of The Purse Strings may find himself faced with a user revolt if he doesn’t pay attention to their demands.

So what does this mean for Apparel PLM vendors?

I would predict that those who now focus on user experience will have the competitive advantage and start to gain market share. It’s time to abandon the old model of “they’re stuck with it now”, and make systems that people want to use, and can more intuitively use – pay attention to the detail.

I was recently called back into a company to support users that had gone live with their PLM eight weeks previously as the users were still struggling to use PLM and mistakes in use were slowing up the product development process and also resulting in costly sampling and production mistakes. Next week I’m off to rescue another company who are trying to calm their disgruntled workforce and figure out if the problems they are facing are a result of users not using the system correctly or if it’s the system not doing what it’s supposed to be doing and an expensive upgrade is needed.

Whoever needed a consultant and a trainer for Facebook? You might think of this as a simplistic argument that isn’t comparing apples for apples. But think about it. PLM is about creating products and collections and communicating with the supply chain. They have done this for years. You are not trying to teach them rocket science (reminds me rather fondly of one exasperated customer who, mixed with a few profanities, shouted the words “we are trying to design garments, not send rockets into space!”); there should be a fair level of intuitiveness with using an application to support a process they know inside out. Of course PLM in its scope is larger than Facebook, and maybe even the company’s previous product development process, so there will always be a level of training required – but it should not be to the point where users are still pulling their hair out after training and weeks of practise and use.

Now to be fair, there are apparel PLM vendors paying more attention to user experience than others, so they are not all guilty, but there are precious few I would describe as being designed with the end user in mind. So I’m with Karen Appleton on this one – let the workplace rebellion begin.

The Impact of UI on UA

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 11:14:25 -0400

The very best technology is invisible. In a world where computer screens are littered with navigation bars, pull-down menus, icons and graphics, this has never been more true – but also more ignored by most software developers.

As with any other software implementation, one of the key contributing factors to a successful software project, and subsequent return on investment (ROI), is the ease with which the new technology is adopted by the user community. The new technology should be perceived by the day-to-day users to enhance their productivity, and specifically in our industry, be seen to lessen their administrative responsibilities, thus freeing up more time for creativity. Hence the need for user acceptance in the widest possible sense.

User acceptance

User acceptance comes in many forms. It can relate to accepting that the new system works technically or that it supports the business process as it should. Or, critically, that the new software is easy enough to use that it helps, rather than hinders, the users.

Without this user acceptance the software runs the risk of being seen as an ‘inhibiter’ rather than an ‘enhancer’. If the user community does not fully embrace the new software as a necessary part of their “normal” day’s work it may be shunned for more traditional means of collaboration and product management, thus making it redundant and ROI is significantly reduced – or eliminated altogether. Software vendors should never forget that users have day jobs that they need to continue with while the shiny new software is implemented. This is arguably even more important in European markets where the designer/buyer is the lifeblood of a fashion retailer and therefore has a greater say in the choice of software. In other regions of the world a more top-down approach is taken at a strategic level, with less input from the end users.

Thumbs up or down?

There are many ways to increase user acceptance levels, ranging from including users in the selection process to using dedicated in-house project management. Note that most of these solutions currently fall to the client rather the software supplier.

One of the simplest ways to ensure user acceptance is the “user-friendliness” of the application – an area often overlooked by vendors. Software vendors seem to get so caught up in the race to provide more and more, in-depth functionality and business process coverage than their competitors that they often forget the fact that someone eventually has to be able to intuitively use the system.

What they don’t tell you…..

The software vendor will tell you that the system is ‘useable’ and fulfils its purpose. What they may not tell you is that this is when it’s being used by their people. Their people know the software and their full-time job is just to use it, ie not use it AND develop next season’s range of products, check on the current season’s sales and look at potential mark-downs, keep ahead of trends, design products, produce collections and get their produce to market on time.

Most people only use a small portion of most software in their normal day jobs. Modular based systems with limited access rights – such as product lifecycle management (PLM) or enterprise resource planning (ERP) – combat this problem, but with “defined” roles often differing across organisations this is not always as clear cut as it is intended.

Add to the equation the need to join the dots of the supply chain. Foreign suppliers whose first language is not that of the master company, and who will no doubt be faced with multiple PLMs and ERPs from different clients, will be faced with a steeper learning curve still with systems that don’t have the necessary simplicity and intuitiveness that even native language speakers need.

So what’s the answer?

Well, I’ll give you a clue – it’s a very similar acronym to UA – it’s ‘UI’, or User Interface. It’s the way that the software looks and works for the user. Get the UI right and your UA is more likely.

Let’s look at one class of software that I know well – PLM. Vendors of PLM software are used to looking to other industries for inspiration but many seem to have overlooked the industry that supplies the platform of PLM – the Internet.

In the early days of the Internet there were many search engines ready to help you in your quest for information. Now there is one that dominates the market place thanks to its impossibly simple yet functional interface – Google. A simple white screen with a single search box. It is the epitome of intuitive functionality.

The rise of Facebook and other Web 2.0 applications, prove that the intuitiveness of a clean, simple UI, appeals to the widest audience and almost guarantees its use. But they also prove that if you want to add functionality to your system you shouldn’t just place it on top of what’s already there – you think about how the user would like to use the whole thing and add it in the right way, in the right place.

So good UI is one answer.

I’m too sexy for your PC

Some vendors of retail PLM market seem to have embraced the concept of intuitive and consistent UI better than others, mostly those with origins in the fashion/retail industry. Typically they understand that fashion consumers “get off” on things looking good (not to mention the fact that some of us creative types can also be prone to “technophobia”). Of course there are exceptions to the rule, but as a whole suppliers seem to underestimate the importance of applications that, to put it bluntly, look sexy and are a joy rather than a hindrance to use.

To illustrate my point, I recently spent time with an organisation that were evaluating a new system, deliberating between a choice of two that had made it to the final shortlist. One system was extremely powerful and more future proof, but unfortunately had been developed by “techies” with little regard for the UI. The other was a system that relied on an antiquated platform and method of use that limited the functionality and scope. However the UI was vastly superior to that of its competitor. So too, was the price. At over 50% more cost, it was not only the most expensive but also the most limited of the choices.

But who do you think the customer selected? That’s right, they choose the system with the most intuitive and best looking UI, which gave the illusion of being more modern and therefore superior. In short, a system that would be easily adopted by their user community. And do you know what the argument was, coming from the mouth of the project leader? – “I can’t possibly present the other solution to the board as the next generation and be taken seriously”

So…..

Not only does an enhanced UI improve the user acceptance within the investing company, but PLM providers (and other enterprise level software providers) need to recognise it as a crucial factor in gaining a competitive advantage, rather than a secondary that is swept under the proverbial rug in favour of a blinkered focus on functionality.

Adobe Illustrator – Best Fit CAD for the Design Community

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 11:11:29 -0400

A Brief History of Digital Garment Design

CAD (Computer Aided Design) has been used in the apparel industry for many years now and has evolved over time to cover many different aspects of the garment design and development process. In the early days CAD programs allowed 2D representations of garments to be developed on screen, from detailing design elements to drafting patterns. Nowadays CAD has evolved to encompass sophisticated 3D modelling techniques, allowing virtual true to life prototypes to be created, saving both time and money through the reduction of real samples required.

Since the adoption of CAD for the apparel industry, one of the key benefits has been the digital link from the design process (CAD) to the manufacturing process (CAM, Computer Aided Manufacture). This basically passes key information rapidly across computer networks from the design stage to the production stage so that products can be produced more quickly, more accurately with minimised mistakes and reduced costs. This can range from taking pattern information from a CAD system and automatically positioning the pattern on the fabric so that waste is minimized to using CAD data to control the movement of materials, components, and finished garments around the factory.

Another important usage of CAD data is being able to quickly pass digital information about the design to PDM (Product Data Management)/PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) systems. These systems deal with specifying all information about the style, from design and technical data through to costing and quality control, and then sharing and communicating this information rapidly across the supply chain.

Whatever the process being carried out, metadata plays an important role in its execution. Metadata is text based information that can be used to describe, categorise and define the file, so when the file is shared from one system to another, the receiving system knows what to do with it.

Pros and Cons of CAD (Computer Aided Design)

Despite the pros of using CAD systems there are also some drawbacks. Apparel specific CAD systems, whether 2D pattern drafting to 3D virtual design, deal with fairly technical information. The former requires pattern cutting knowledge, the latter requires both pattern cutting knowledge, expensive equipment (a pattern digitiser) and also fabric testing facilities. Even apparel CAD systems aimed more at producing fashion flats are based around the principles of auto-cad, with little emphasis on creativity. There is also quite a steep learning curve. These points tend to alienate the Design community, so apparel CAD systems tend to be adopted more by the garment tech community.

In addition, dedicated apparel CAD, as a relatively niche market, tends to be expensive.
Because of the high costs, and steep learning curve, these types of CAD systems are often not well known by graduates or potential employees coming into a company.

A New Approach to Garment Design – Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator is the perfect solution to combat the cons of typical apparel CAD systems for the design process. In terms of companies already using a vector based drawing package, Adobe Illustrator has an 80% market share in the apparel industry. Due to this many fashion designers are already competent Illustrator users, and for those that are not, the learning curve and training requirements are significantly less than those of traditional apparel CAD systems. It is also considerably less expensive, due to Adobe Illustrator being used in many different industries with a substantial user base. So whereas apparel CAD systems may only be deployed for a small number of key users in a business, Adobe Illustrator is a viable option to roll out across the full design department. Unlike the CAD systems, Illustrator also lends itself to creativity, so rather than making Designers feel like “computer operators”, if trained correctly, Illustrator just becomes another artistic medium, an extension of the pencil if you like.

Due to the relatively ease of use and learning requirements and inexpensive cost, Illustrator has also been adopted by many universities, meaning that many graduates are also competent in using the program.

Now at this stage you may argue that you are losing two of the major benefits that come with dedicated apparel CAD systems – the fact Illustrator is not garment specific and that style data does not pass to a CAM or PLM system. I’ll address the former first….

When you look at the tools available in Illustrator, you won’t see tools entitled “stitch” or anything else using apparel terminology. This is because Illustrator contains generic tools that produce vector graphics for many different industries i.e. graphic design. But because of its broad market, Illustrator is a very powerful tool that can handle any graphic work you need it to. This includes fashion sketches, fashion illustration, print design etc. With proper tuition, you can adapt the generic tools to enable you to produce fast and accurate fashion drawings. For example Illustrator’s Symbol functionality allows you to create libraries of garment components, such as buttons, rivets, pockets etc that can be called upon and added to any sketch using a drag and drop, so basic elements never have to redrawn. The Pattern Fill functionality enables you create complex knitting ribs using a few basic shapes, something that would take considerably more time with pen or pencil. Using the Paint Brush tool and Brush Libraries, designers can create intricate top-stitching details with a couple of clicks of the mouse. All these techniques enable designers to create production-ready garment drawings, more quickly and accurately with a far greater level of detail than can be achieved with traditional methods of drawing. All that is required is some basic training that shows designers the techniques needed to optimise Illustrator for fashion.

So onto the second point; passing metadata onto CAM or PDM/PLM systems. What many people working in fashion do not know about Illustrator is its ability to work with metadata. They may know that you can embed information about the file such as Author and Description, using the File Info option from the File menu, but find it ineffectual as the type of metadata you can capture is much geared towards print production and graphic design. However it is possible to create multiple tabs containing your own pre-defined metadata, using the Adobes XMP Custom Panel facility. Adobe’s metadata is created using XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform), a language based on the common standard XML. Using Adobe’s XMP language you can create metadata such as Brand, Product Type, Season, Fabric, Product Code, the possibilities are endless, that a designer can complete inside Adobe Illustrator linked to their design. There is now the potential to pass this information to the CAD, PDP/PLM system while providing the ability to use standard Adobe applications to manage it. Adobe even provides The XMP Toolkit allowing you to integrate XMP functionality into any other business product or solution.

Despite Adobe Illustrator already being used widely in the apparel industry, many people are not aware just how powerful it can be and know how to utilize it to its full potential. It is an application that is not only designer friendly, cost effective and easy to use, it is also capable of becoming apparel specific and metadata “intelligent”, meaning that it really is a viable alternative to traditional CAD systems for the apparel design process. All that it required is some tailored training to open users up to its full potential.

Useful Tools and Apps for Fashion Designers

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 10:44:00 -0400

Now here’s a little something for all you Fashion Designers out there…

Most designers have heard of Photoshop and Illustrator, but I have discovered that few are aware of any other nifty applications available, that not only have a fit for fashion but are also either cheap as chips or better still, free. Admittedly, many of these tools are originally aimed at the graphic design world, but as tools I have been working with, for in some cases years, I have found them incredibly useful for the fashion world too. For the past few months I have been sharing these with Fashion Designers I’ve met on my travels and all have been pleased as punch with them, so for your viewing pleasure only, here are my top picks….Enjoy!

SnagIt

SnagIt and I have been bosom buddies for many years now and it’s a friend I wouldn’t be without. SnagIt it’s a simple application for capturing any part of your screen and saving it as an image file.

Key features:

Can capture whole screen or just a part of the screen by dragging a box over area you want
If you can’t fit it on the page, SnagIt auto-scrolls capturing everything in the window
Can edit any image you capture, resizing and adding annotation such as text and arrows
Can send captured images by email, IM or Skype with the click of a button

Why it’s useful for fashion designers…

So you’re browsing a website with the latest catwalk images, or on WGSN and just want a single image, part of an image or a selection of images. With SnagIt you no longer have to print screen then crop out the piece you want in Photoshop, or have to right click on every single image you want on a page. And if you don’t have/use Photoshop, not only will SnagIt capture any part of the screen you want, you can also annotate the captured image instantly then save/print an image to add to a mood board.

http://www.techsmith.com/screen-capture.asp

Price: Free trial / £37.95 / $49.95

Pixie

Pixie is a dinky little app whose usefulness far exceeds its size. Incredibly quick and simple to use, Pixie will tell you the RGB/CMYK/HTML/HSV reference of any colour you hover your mouse pointer over.

Why it’s useful for fashion designers…

Ever seen a perfect colour combination in a picture and want to know what the colours are so you can recreate them in your favourite art applications? Well Pixie’s your man. Yes you could screen grab and launch Photoshop to extract the colour information but this is somewhat longwinded and not even an option for those not using Photoshop.

http://www.nattyware.com/pixie.php

Price: Free

Adobe Kuler

Adobe Kuler is an online application for creating and sharing colour themes. With an online community that has created thousands of complimentary colour themes, it’s a fantastic resource for colour inspiration.

Key Features:

Experiment quickly with colour variations and browse thousands of themes from the Kuler community
Save/view your own colour themes
Integrated into the Adobe Creative Suite (incl. Photoshop and Illustrator)
Create colour themes around a base colour
Create palettes with colour rules, i.e. complimentary, shades
Numeric values for the HSB, RGB, CMYK, LAB, or HEX colour models

Why it’s useful for fashion designers….

Great for experimenting with colour for either collections or even make-up and styling ideas. The colour rules are great for finding colours that work well together and the access to other user’s themes provide excellent inspiration. Again this is great for those that don’t have access to or work with the behemoth art applications.

http://kuler.adobe.com

Price: Free

Aviary

Now if all of the above sounded exciting then Aviary will knock your socks off. Imagine all the previously mentioned tools all combined into one seamlessly integrated suite of online applications. And I mean all of the previously mentioned tools, including Photoshop and Illustrator, for Aviary is the mother hen of online creativity. All named after birds (hence Aviary), there’s an app for everything, from vector art and pixel manipulation to screen capture and colour pickers, Aviary has it all.

Key features:

Phoenix – Image Editor. Like Photoshop, rich editing tools such as brushes, magic wands, blends and layers. From basic image retouching to complex effects, Phoenix has all the key features of its desktop counterparts.
Peacock – Effects Editor. Like Photoshop filters and plug-ins. Even has a plaid editor so useful for creating fashion fills.
Raven – Vector Editor. Like Illustrator – vector art. Includes, path, curves, objects, stroke, fill, and layers.
Falcon – Image Mark-up. Like Snagit and Pixie combined. Use Falcon to quickly capture images and web pages from your browser and crop, resize or mark them up. Includes colour picker.
Toucan – Colour Swatches and Palettes tool. Like Adobe Kula.. Choose up to 20 colours per palette using colour association rules or an uploaded image.

Why it’s useful for fashion designers…

• Well where to begin? The Aviary suite is all hosted online so you can access it from anywhere with an internet connection and because it’s hosted you don’t need the processing power on your machine. With the increasing popularity of net books, Aviary is perfect for those who want to be creative on the go. So you’re off doing a shop report or at a show? Well no longer do you need to wait until your return to start creating and sharing your ideas, or lug around a machine capable of running the desktop apps. Although Photoshop and Illustrator have more overall features and power, I bet most fashion designers don’t utilise them to their full potential. Aviary has all the key features to enable you to produce fashion flats and prints and compared to Photoshop and Illustrator the learning curve is not as steep. And then there’s the price. Whilst Photoshop and Illustrator will cost your company thousands to kit out the design room, you can access Aviary and use all the applications free of charge, the only downside with the free option is your files are public, however if you want to create private files its only $24.99 a year!

http://aviary.com/

Price: Free/$24.99 per annum

And just in case you were doubting the power of Aviary, here are some creations that have been produced in the suite…

Implementing – Don’t Scrimp on Your Internal Resources!

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 10:41:00 -0400

Having spent the last few months implementing PLM in two different organisations, the moral of today’s story is “you get out what you put in”. The “what” in this instance being internal people.

For the purpose of this tale, and respectful anonymity, let’s call my two organisations Company A and Company B. Both Company A and Company B started implementing around the same time and the scope of the projects were not too dissimilar, both implementing the same PLM modules, both integrating to other internal business systems, both with a similar amount of users. Company A however, is bang on both time and budget and has recently gone live with phase 1, Company B on the other hand has had to push back their go live date and the budget is starting to drown in the murky waters of scope creep. So what went wrong I hear you ask? Let’s examine the two cases in hand and play a little game of spot the difference…

Company A
Company A assigned two internal people that knew their business inside out to help us define the new business process and system configuration. They provided examples of all existing documentation and coordinated the required data gathering from the various departments. One of these people was full time on the PLM project, being involved in every meeting, participated in all training sessions on the system and will be supporting the internal team during rollout.

Company B
Company B assigned two internal people that knew their business inside out to help us define the new business process and system configuration. They provided examples of all existing documentation but other members of the internal team, or even us, the implementers, were asked to gather the required data. These two people were not involved in the training on the system and new people have been brought into the business to support the internal team during rollout.

So what was the difference here that enabled Company A to meet deadlines and budget but made Company B fall by the wayside? Yep, that’s right internal resources, or to be more precise dedicated internal resources. By not having a dedicated internal resource, Company B put their project at risk. Implementing PLM is not so straight forward that people can dip in and out of the project. It requires an internal resource that understands the business in depth and understands the requirements of PLM. The only way to achieve this is to have consistency in the internal team, start to finish. People that are new to the project or new to the business cannot grasp the hidden complexities or detailed requirements to the level needed for the project to run on time, on budget and successfully go live.

Too often, we as the implementers are seen as something of magicians, or at the least assumed to possess some level of psychic abilities. We have the expertise to guide and coach but we need to be provided with the required data in a timely manner, such as grade rules, standards and library data. If we have new people coming in at every stage of the project we cannot magically transfer knowledge into their heads, it adds time and effort to get them up to speed.

What made company A the success story was having a dedicated internal resource. We were able to have a continuous point of contact to educate and support, which in turn equipped them to educate and support the rest of their team as they were brought into the project. This internal ownership is crucial so that reliance on the implementers can be naturally phased out so that both deadlines and budget are met and go live is a sucess.