Backbone PLM
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Background: Backbone PLM is a product lifetime management platform designed for the apparel industry. It helps direct-to-consumer apparel companies manage their entire creative development process, especially as they expand from a few products to entire collections and lines. The platform integrates with existing ERP systems and aids in transforming initial sketches into delivered products.
Challenge: As apparel companies grow, they face increasing complexity in managing their product lines and presenting them to buyers. Creating and maintaining line sheets - documents that showcase product collections - was a time-consuming process that required frequent updates as product plans changed.
Solution: Backbone PLM developed the Line Sheet Library, a micro-app within their larger PLM system. This tool was designed to streamline the creation and management of line sheets, making the process more efficient and responsive to changes in product plans.
Implementation:
- Feature Development: The product design team, led by a dedicated designer, managed the conception, design, and development of the Line Sheet Library.
- Stakeholder Engagement: The lead designer presented the feature to various stakeholders, gaining buy-in for different library features.
- User-Centric Design: Through analysis of user behavior and needs, the team identified that adding products was one of the most common and time-consuming tasks in creating line sheets.
- Innovation - Live Link: The key innovation was the development of the "Live Link" feature. This allowed for dynamic addition and removal of products based on their taxonomy or specified Custom Field Values.
- Integration: The Line Sheet Library was integrated into the larger Backbone PLM system, ensuring seamless operation with other features and data.
Results:
- Time Savings: The Live Link feature significantly reduced the time required to create and update line sheets by automating the process of adding and removing products.
- Improved Accuracy: By dynamically updating based on current product data, the line sheets remained accurate and up-to-date, reducing errors and miscommunications.
- Enhanced User Experience: The tool simplified a complex task, improving user satisfaction and potentially contributing to the platform's consistent 80% month-to-month retention rate.
- Competitive Advantage: The Line Sheet Library, especially with the Live Link feature, provided a unique selling point for Backbone PLM in the apparel PLM market.
Conclusion: The Line Sheet Library, particularly its Live Link feature, demonstrates how understanding user needs and pain points can lead to innovative solutions. By automating a critical but time-consuming task, Backbone PLM enhanced its value proposition to apparel companies, helping them manage growth and complexity more effectively.
Backbone PLM's Line Sheet Library revolutionizes the way apparel companies create and manage their product presentations. With intuitive grouping capabilities, users can effortlessly organize their products by collection, season, or custom categories. The innovative Live Link feature dynamically updates line sheets based on product taxonomy or custom field values, ensuring that presentations always reflect the most current product lineup. This smart automation significantly reduces the time and effort required to create and maintain line sheets, allowing designers and merchandisers to focus on creativity and strategy rather than manual data entry. Whether preparing for a buyer meeting or planning a new collection, Backbone PLM's line sheet tool streamlines the process, making it easier than ever to showcase products in a professional, organized manner.
Backbone PLM's line sheet tool is engineered to handle the complexities of diverse product ranges in the tangible world of apparel and accessories. Recognizing that fashion isn't just about pixels on a screen, but real fabrics, textures, and dimensions, the tool allows for rich product representation. Users can easily showcase multiple colorways, detailed material specifications, and precise measurements, giving a comprehensive view of each item. The flexible grouping system accommodates various categorization needs, whether by season, collection, or product type, mirroring the physical organization often used in showrooms. With the ability to include high-resolution images and detailed annotations, the line sheets bridge the gap between digital convenience and the tactile nature of fashion, ensuring that even in a digital format, the physical attributes of products are accurately conveyed to buyers and team members alike.
Backbone PLM's line sheet tool revolutionizes product presentation for diverse apparel ranges, seamlessly bridging the digital and physical worlds of fashion. With intuitive grouping and the innovative Live Link feature, it dynamically updates product information, streamlining the creation of professional, comprehensive line sheets. This success inspired a powerful dashboard view, extending the real-time updating principle to monitor incoming purchase orders and adapt to companies' evolving needs. The dashboard provides instant visibility into PO status, quantity changes, and delivery timelines, enabling teams to spot trends, make data-driven decisions, and respond agilely to market demands. From showcasing products to tracking sales, Backbone PLM offers a unified, flexible solution that grows with apparel companies, enhancing efficiency from design conception to final sale in the fast-paced fashion industry.