The retail industry is constantly changing and faces new challenges to meet ever more immediate customer demand.
At Cabela's, we realized that staying ahead of the market required a PLM system that would allow us to place emphasis on speed of innovation, thereby introducing more Cabela's brand products to the assortment each season and helping us grow our overall brand in the US and globally.
In addition, we knew that the right PLM solution would offer the following benefits:
Increase cross-functional team collaboration during the product development process;
Eliminate redundant tasks and enable more time for innovation and creative value-added work;
Reduce product cycle-time from ideation to commercialization through workflow driven tasks;
Reduce raw material input costs and increase overall product margin.
As we evaluated PLM vendors, one solution stood out due to the depth of its retail customer base, along with the proven processes enabled by its out-of-the-box capabilities. Being able to implement a comprehensive retail PLM system in a short period of time was critical to our quickly realizing value and reducing product cycle-time. We selected ITC Infotech as our PLM implementer based on their strong configuration knowledge base with PTC's FlexPLM and close relationship with PTC.
Cabela's is now using PTC PLM solutions to manage the entire lifecycle of its apparel and footwear products, from conception through design, technical design, sourcing, and manufacturing to commercialization. By integrating business processes, workflow, and data, the PLM solutions are enabling us to increase fill rates and improve margins, thus supporting our core strategy of improving merchandising performance.
We take our brand very seriously at Cabela's, and being able to implement a best-practices PLM solution out-of-the-box was crucial for us. By week three with PTC's PLM tool, we were already adding design content and adding to our apparel brand line. In fact, we were able to implement both apparel and footwear in just one year thanks to the FlexPLM simple configuration. Being agile in the market requires being agile in your product development process. Speed and the ability to change quickly is everything.
When evaluating PLM vendors, Cabela's brought in a team of 20 super users representing various functional departments such as merchandising, design, technical design, material and color management, sourcing, trade compliance, and customer relations. The super users provided their functional requirements during the configuration workshops. They then went through several "work and learn" training sessions where they were working on the test system.
After the super users were trained, it was their responsibility to train other users in their departments. It was a very organic and collaborative effort. The super users made a decision that they didn't want fancy PowerPoint slides and large training manuals that would just end up on the shelf. Our mantra was that the system should be so intuitive -- like an iPhone -- that no training manual was required. Instead, users would learn new tips and tricks through the system's user interface and then share them virally with other team members. This is the way today's users learn and adopt applications. They chose not to use the waterfall method of system development and adopted an agile method for quick ROI.
Gabe Garcia has 16 years of experience in the apparel and footwear design, product development, sourcing, manufacturing, and retail industry.
Thank you, but if you're trying to promote your product in new markets, you'd be wise to not assume that everyone is familiar with all the acronyms. As a simple-minded engineer, even with your explanation, it's not altogether clear to me how "PLM" software really does anything that comptent old-fashioned human management can't do. If a company can't maintain, for example, standard corporate industrial design standards (shapes, colors, fonts, etc) without software, they have bigger problems. But maybe PLM software really does tie a bunch of previously-loose ends together.
Maybe an example, rather than just a bunch of jargon-laden praise, would make the function more clear. When I started reading the article, since it was dealing with a specific company (Cabela's), I expect to read a clear example of what it does and how it works. This is how articles for engineering magazines are usually written. What you have here is what the marketeers tell me is know as a "concept sell". You have to show customers why they need a product that they never thought they needed before (toilet paper is the classic example). Even with your explanation, I'm left thinking, "Well, of course, any good management team will do all that. Why buy and maintain yet another elaborate software package?"
Anyway, thanks for the reply. At least now I know what PTC and PLM stand for.
PLM stands for Product Lifecycle Management. It's both a process and a type of software that focuses on managing product content (such as color management, design files, requirement documents and Bills of Materials) throughout the entire "life" of a product. You are correct that PTC is the name of the company and we sell PLM software. Cabela's is using our product, FlexPLM, to help them better manage all of their apparel and footwear designs.
We were, of course, excited to see Gabe talk about how FlexPLM helped Cabela's be more productive and get products to market more quickly. As Gabe mentions, "Speed and the ability to change quickly is everything."
What does PLM stand for? What does PTC stand for? I've been an engineer for 30 years, and I'm not insulted by a writer defining acronyms the first time he uses them in a story. Since the whole article is about how great "PLM" is it would be nice to start out by explaining WHAT PLM is.
Once I get into the article, I find more jargon. It's jargon I can parse, because I've read enough business-speak to know what "cross-functional team collaboration" reduces to in plain Engiish, but why put the reader to all that work? Why not just write an article in plain English, define acronyms the first time they're used, and if necessary include the jargon-filled press release as an appendix?
After reading the entire article I still have no idea what "PLM" and "PTC" are. I have a hunch that PTC is a vendor of PLM, but that's about it. I'm told that PLM is a great system that has worked wonders for Cabela's, but I have no idea if it's an email system, an MIS system, or some combination. if I had to guess, I would say it's probably software, although it could be a philosophy like JIT or TQC (I hate the alphabet soup, but I at least know what JIT and TQC are by now).
Please, can we have an editor who cuts through the press-release jargon and translates articles into someting useful, or at least comprehensible, to an ordinary engineer? Thank you.
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