CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
15 January 2007
Product News
PTC Releases FlexPLMT 6.1 To Improve Quality Management For Apparel Industry; Enhanced Retail, Footwear and Apparel Solution Adds Management of Testing Processes
PTC announced the general availability of its Retail, Footwear and Apparel solution, FlexPLM version 6.1. In addition to the FlexPLM solution capabilities leading brands already rely on for product lifecycle management, this version delivers specific enhancements for managing material and product testing processes and gives organizations the ability to control product variations of new product lines by providing a single point of visibility to key testing conditions and methods on selected material. As a result, a consistent, repeatable testing environment can be developed and apparel manufacturers are able to improve product quality, reduce costs typically associated with ineffective products, and improve time-to-market.
For every new product design there are specific testing requirements that must be achieved in order to meet corporate, customer and regulatory demands. Product components like zippers, linings and pockets, as well as product characteristics like material durability, ability to repel water and flame retardant levels each have different testing procedures. These challenges can be further complicated by custom requirements for products sold globally.
FlexPLM, PTC's Retail, Footwear and Apparel solution, focuses on solving these challenges. The solution leverages the power and scalability of Windchill®, PTC's web-based product data management and collaboration solution, to enhance the product development process. FlexPLM is the only enterprise Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution that is Web-based, fully configurable, scalable and able to manage complex workflow processes of a trend-based retail, footwear and apparel industry. The PTC solution enables apparel organizations to manage the interdependent relationships among material suppliers, testing service providers and other third party vendors in order to facilitate communication among the groups. It offers a library of both current and historical performance test information to support product development, provides a vehicle to report testing results to the entire supply chain, and provides valuable feedback on testing timelines in order to support line planning decisions impacted by the material approval status.
Highlights of this release designed to improve testing processes and quality management include:
• Testing specification module for materials and products with enhanced functionality to manage the development and testing of materials and product performance.
• Comprehensive library of building blocks for the test process that include testing properties, methods, conditions and standards that can be defined and aggregated depending on material and product type.
• Reusable test templates that can be utilized among product lines and variable material selections.
• Enhanced collaboration capabilities between supplier, design center and customer.
"The apparel industry requires a solution that supports quality management initiatives by managing complex testing processes among global supply chains," said Kathleen Mitford, vice president vertical market strategy, PTC. "The latest version of our Retail, Footwear and Apparel solution builds on our commitment to continually develop scalable, sustainable technology to manage the complexities of the product development process in this industry. Organizations that implement PTC solutions are able to have more control over the quality of their products."
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