Managing New Product Development in the Fashion Industry with PLM: Based on Market Classifications

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) has become a crucial element to handle request for quotation management, throughout the product development process, bill of material management, product data management etc. The use of traditional PLM software has increased, having been applied to traditional manufacturing, and product development efforts. However to date the integration of PLM in the fashion industry has been limited with varying success. Although certain variables such as size, range, color, or collection have been integrated into the management system with ease, the specific functionalities of the PLM remain unclear. This is often contributed to the fact that fashion industry has a shorter product lifecycle and greater variation of product offerings. Based on the available literature and a use case study, the purpose of this research is to establish a set of standard PLM functionalities based on the needs of the fashion industry. By leveraging unique set of industry specific functionalities the conceptual framework developed aims to provide a competitive advantage to those involved by supporting the production of goods in mass market, premium market and luxury market fashion products.