Part 3: Unleashing Efficiency and Agility Delving Deeper: ERP-PLM Integration for Fashion Design-to-Sourcing

Efficiency and agility are major advantages in the fashion industry, right alongside competitive cost, good quality and on-trend styles. Integrated ERP-PLM technology is an instrumental tool to achieve all these advantages. Part 3 of the CGS Connected ERP-PLM Series discusses design-to-sourcing pain points and how to make them a lot more pain free.

What’s Behind Integrated ERP and PLM?

One way to think about integrated ERP-PLM is X + Y = Z. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) “does X.” What is X? The backbone business processes — order management, financials, purchasing, receiving, EDI, purchase orders. Product lifecycle management (PLM) “does Y.” What is Y? Design and product development, raw materials procurement, sampling, quality control and testing, vendor management, compliance, digital asset management, sourcing. Combine the two seamlessly, and you get Z — a connected, centralized solution, accessible by internal teams and strategic supply chain partners. An integrated solution like CGS’ BlueCherry® Suite offers:

• One version of the truth
• Updated in real time
• Tracking workflow
• Managing product information
• Keeping orders moving
• Providing visibility every step of the way

Check Out the CGS Connected ERP-PLM Series

• Part 1: Streamlining Fashion Design to Sourcing
• Part 2: Bridge Those Design-to-Sourcing Gaps

Managing Design Ideation to Material Sourcing

Fashion businesses face tough challenges trying to keep up with:

• Shorter development calendars
• More frequent shipments of fresh merchandise
• Raw material availability
• Labor shortages and rising costs
• Unpredictable supply chain issues
• Balancing offshore, nearshore, and onshore production

The earlier companies align design concepts with sourcing decisions, the better. Integrated ERP-PLM like CGS BlueCherry enables effective communication of key information between design and sourcing — sooner. By doing so, the business and supply chain partners reduce time to market and improve product quality. They are not:

• Chasing solutions to last-minute changes
• Expediting shipments and eroding profit
• Struggling with style specs vs. moving orders forward

Real-time Collaboration and Communication

Connected ERP and PLM systems enable seamless collaboration, real-time data sharing and effective communication between design, sourcing, and other teams. This fosters a more agile and responsive supply chain. With one version of the truth to turn to, everyone is turning pages from the same playbook. There is a common view of workflow, critical milestones, and key performance indicators (KPI). Most importantly, both design and sourcing share critical insights early in the product lifecycle, such as:

• What pieces are likely to go into different retail collections?
• What’s the preliminary plan for assortment mixes?
• Will styles be repurposed to sell into other channels at lower prices?
• When are initial shipments due? Second shipments? Replenishments?

Answers to these questions might not be solidified, but early indicators enable design and sourcing teams to initiate key conversations, raw materials research, and strategic planning.

Efficient Material Planning and Sourcing

What are designers, merchandisers and buyers thinking? This is often the burning question for sourcing teams and suppliers, and answers never seem to come soon enough. But with connected ERP-PLM, it’s easier for everyone to:

• Share product concepts and fabric/trim ideas
• Cost out styles high level to gauge economic feasibility
• Initiate raw materials planning and greige goods orders
• Discuss style construction and specs with vendors
• Reserve capacity to ensure adequate supply

Done earlier and more efficiently, this collaboration improves demand forecasting, speeds sourcing decisions, reduces costs, minimizes stockouts and enhances overall supply chain efficiency.

Accelerated Sample Development and Prototyping

Sampling is an Achilles’ heel for many apparel and home fashions businesses. It’s a supply chain step where things come to a halt for a while — waiting — for sample shipments, approvals, fit sessions, the right fabrics, the specified trim, for feedback. On the other hand, speedy sampling is a competitive advantage.

Connected ERP-PLM supports faster sample development, prototyping and approvals. This gives fashion companies a boost of fuel to move quickly with demand trends and reduce concept-to-sale cycle time. Integrated ERP-PLM gives teams tools to organize and share their work more efficiently — digitally.

Specifications, sketches, photorealistic style renderings and even 3D virtual fit sessions all save time and simplify sampling. Suppliers get clearer style guidance out of the gate, reducing back-and-forth emails, texts, calls and meetings to clear up details. Then when samples ship or are shared digitally, they’re more likely to be right the first time.

Scalability and Flexibility

Pivoting and adapting to changing demand and supply chain disruptions — it’s always been the name of the game. With the pandemic’s chaotic path, it took on new meaning. Now sourcing pros are:

• Spreading sourcing eggs across different baskets
• Experimenting with on-demand manufacturing
• Setting up sourcing offices in new locations
• Qualifying new mills, converters and materials
• Preparing to pivot with sudden demand surges or dips

These strategic sourcing moves give fashion businesses freedom to scale when a style hits the mark and flexibility to branch into new directions and niches when sales opportunities knock.

Scalability isn’t just important to sourcing. Designers need it, too. They face pressure to meet fast-moving consumer fashion preferences. In a retail world with blurry digital-physical borders:

• Trends can go viral from a single social media post
• Prime Day winners can bankroll the company coffers
• In-store experiences must be engaging
• Brands must be not only stylish but authentic and socially responsible

It’s a tall order to fill for the entire team, design to sourcing. Here again, ERP-PLM integration helps. With streamlined workflow, digital processes and automation, they can take on complexity without hiring lots of people or burning out the current bench. Whether it’s a flash-sale collection, a chance to enter a new product category or a shot at seizing private label or licensed business from a competitor, bring it on!

Data Analytics and Performance Insights

Connected ERP and PLM systems provide valuable analytical capabilities, offering actionable insights into style and supplier performance. Strong analytics support overall supply chain efficiency, data-driven decision making and continuous improvement. Real-time information, including retailer point-of-sale feeds and forecasts, can be boiled down into user-friendly dashboards and reports relevant to design, sourcing and the C-suite. In addition, with the newest shop-floor control (SFC) technology tied into ERP-PLM, businesses get up-to-the-minute visibility of orders on the factory floor and shipping dock.

• What are the latest demand signals?
• Where are orders on the sewing lines?
• Has the fabric been cut?
• Can we tweak a style based on new market intel?
• Is a color assortment adjustment doable?
• Where is production against contractual milestones affecting quantity commitments?
• How are quality assurance pass/fail metrics?
• Is the order on track to ship on time?

Powerful analytics/business intelligence capabilities built into ERP-PLM provide answers to these and other important questions during the fashion product lifecycle.

Mitigating Risks and Ensuring Compliance

In the race to get the right products to market, it can be tempting to cut corners. But compliance is not the place to do it. Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) enforcement and Walmart’s transparency standards are major developments of the past year. Both make chain-of-custody reporting and supply chain mapping must-haves vs. nice-to-haves. Additional sustainability and social responsibility regulatory rules, laws and retail mandates are in the works.

Compliance documentation and mandatory reporting requirements can overwhelm those who lack automated processes and systems to manage them. Integrated ERP-PLM supports:

• Risk mitigation strategies
• Compliance with regulations
• Track-and-trace material-of-origin validation
• Proof of ethical sourcing practices
• Connected ERP-PLM tools empower sourcing and compliance teams to centralize and digitize information required for necessary reports — automatically and accurately.

A Customer-Centric Approach

When data is well organized, easy to find and simple to share, design and sourcing teams get more done in a day. Whether it’s onboarding new suppliers or setting up new styles, if people have tools to do it faster and with less effort, they are free to focus their time and talents on top priorities.

Then everyone can do a better job of the most important priority: taking care of the customer. Who doesn’t want to be in a better position to go the extra mile for a retail partner? To give consumers something special and differentiated? With the right processes and technology behind them, when the door to new opportunity opens, design and sourcing can walk right in with “We’ve got this!”

To learn more about how integrated ERP-PLM will enhance your company’s agility and efficiency, contact the CGS BlueCherry team.

• Part 1: of the Connected ERP-PLM Series
• Part 2: Bridge Those Design-to-Sourcing Gaps
• Part 3: Unleashing Efficiency and Agility Delving Deeper: ERP-PLM Integration for Fashion Design-to-Sourcing