CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
10 January 2011
Implementation Investments
Fishman & Tobin Advances to YuniquePLM to Manage Expanding Global Operations
Gerber Technology announced that leading childrenswear company Fishman & Tobin is upgrading and expanding its webPDM™ software installation to the latest YuniquePLM™ platform. When fully implemented, the company plans to triple its current user base by extending implementation of the web-based product lifecycle management solution in its Conshohocken, PA (USA) headquarters; New York design and merchandising center; Panyu, China development, sourcing, and manufacturing operations; and numerous regional design, development, and sales locations throughout the United States. Fishman & Tobin will leverage the comprehensive YuniquePLM toolset to accelerate new product development and delivery, increase visibility and management of global business processes, and empower its teams to be more productive through enhanced collaboration and system usability.
According to Fishman & Tobin chief information officer Lewis Summers, “YuniquePLM gives us the productivity tools and platform we need to connect all of our teams together in a single, accessible system. While our PDM system served us well for more than ten years, the expansion of our global operations and the addition of several new brands in recent years required us to implement a more robust collaboration platform. After evaluating several PLM software packages for nearly one year, we are confident that YuniquePLM is our best-fit solution to solve the challenges we now face with multiple system platforms that cannot be easily shared across our many locations.”
The Fishman & Tobin evaluation started with a complete review and mapping of existing business processes. A cross-functional task force carefully studied the interaction of departments, flow of work, and the positives and negatives that existing technology had on these processes. This work helped all teams come together on a specific set of requirements that they used in their PLM vendor evaluations.
“One of the main goals of the move to PLM is to gain a symbiotic relationship between our New York design team and the many locations that are carrying out the development tasks,” noted Amanda Lally, director of business operations. “Currently, our primary means of visibility is through email threads and spreadsheets that require constant back-and-forth interaction. YuniquePLM incorporates color and material management, style catalogs and line lists, merchandise and line planning, workflow management and much more all in the same system that we use to create our tech packs. Instead of working from independent documents and manually entering data into a separate system, our teams will build a complete product record in normal course of their work in a single system. YuniquePLM was our choice because Gerber clearly understands the needs of designers, merchants, and salespeople; and the relationship between color, artwork, materials, and the management of the tech pack.”
“A key factor in our choice of PLM was the user experience offered by the software,” added Summers. “We did not approach this as an IT project, but rather as a business project. Because we understand the importance of both management and user buy-in to the success of the project, our end-users played a major role in the decision. They chose YuniquePLM because they saw it as the easiest to use and the best functional alignment with their needs. From an overall business perspective, workflow management and process visibility were very important as we see those as improvements that can transform our business. YuniquePLM will give everyone in the company the tracking and visibility they need to prevent and manage the exceptions. We have learned from experience that managing by spreadsheets is not the answer. After all, the information contained in spreadsheets is only beneficial to those on copy. Information shared in a central database is available to everyone with appropriate permissions.”
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