CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
7 April 2008
Product News
PTC Introduces FlexPLM™ 9.0 with New Capabilities to Manage Merchandising, Design & Sourcing Data
PTC introduced FlexPLM 9.0. With this release, PTC expands its comprehensive retail, footwear and apparel product development solution to improve collaboration across merchandising, design and sourcing departments, as well as with supply chain partners. FlexPLM 9.0 delivers new capabilities to help customers optimize key design and sourcing processes.
The requirement to connect merchandising and design with product development and sourcing is a big challenge companies are facing in the retail, footwear and apparel industry because it impacts a company’s ability to quickly deliver new products to the market. FlexPLM was designed to help customers connect these once-disparate initiatives in order to realize greater value in their implementation. FlexPLM 9.0 offers advantages by bringing together designers, merchandisers, planners, suppliers and buyers early in the product development process so that more products can be efficiently created and quickly delivered to the market.
FlexPLM 9.0 offers the following powerful new capabilities and usability enhancements:
Merchandising & Design Features
• Adobe Illustrator® Design Integration – Allows designers to create concept products in familiar Adobe Illustrator while taking advantage of FlexPLM color and material libraries.
• Quick Spec – Gives technical designers the ability to create product specifications with minimal steps.
• Advanced Planning – Enables customers to create financial, creative, sourcing and material plans and delivers the ability to track the line development against a specific plan. Advanced planning capabilities are necessary to bring together designers, merchandisers, planners and buyers early in the product development process.
• Placeholders – Designers create multiple concept products for placeholders in the line plan and then adopt into seasonal lines when appropriate. This enables the designer to create product concepts for an established line plan, thus increasing adoption rates.
Sourcing Features
• Enhanced Request for Quote (RFQ) – Gives the designer the ability to create an RFQ, send it to one or more suppliers, and review quotes from multiple sources.
• Enhanced Sampling – Enables designer to request samples for multiple products and sources at the same time to allow for effective source selection and management.
• Off-Line Forms – Allows customers to work off-line with suppliers located in countries that may not have reliable Internet access.
In addition, FlexPLM 9.0 includes many usability enhancements including an expanded graphic-based user interface, greater personalization options and enhanced index search capabilities.
“We recently previewed the new capabilities of FlexPLM at PTC’s annual Retail Footwear and Apparel Customer Advisory Board meeting,” said Abu Bakar, director, applications development, Liz Claiborne, Inc. “We clearly see the benefit of the new release which will allow us to create product specifications faster, resulting in cycle time reduction. It is clear from PTC’s software releases that they listen to customer requests and incorporate them into their product roadmap.”
“The real value in PLM is providing visibility from concept to retail delivery,” said Kathleen Mitford, vice president, vertical market strategy for retail, footwear and apparel, PTC. “FlexPLM 9.0 underscores PTC’s commitment to delivering solutions that address the trends and challenges prominent in the retail, footwear and apparel industry and was designed to connect the front and back-end processes that enable organizations to reduce cycle time and enable fast fashion across a global marketplace.”
FlexPLM 9.0 Product Availability
FlexPLM 9.0 is scheduled to be available summer 2008*
Upon availability, FlexPLM active maintenance customers can conveniently download FlexPLM 9.0 or order a CD from the PTC support site under their current maintenance coverage.
*The timing of any product release, including any features or functionality, is subject to change at PTC’s discretion.
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