PLM Functionalities in the Fashion Industry. Preliminary Results of a Classification Framework

As widely known, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is a set of business solutions and tools for the management of the entire lifecycle of a product, from its conception to its disposal. Despite PLM was born in traditional contexts, recently it is increasingly used in other sectors such as the fashion industry, even if it shows several features that distances it from the traditional approach to PLM deployment. Request for customized products, rapid changes in customer’s preference and the consequent shorter product lifecycles make the fashion environment very complex. Within this scenario, PLM has the potential to enable fashion industry to reduce time to market and to increase competitiveness in the global scenario, but quite often clear guidelines are not available. Literature is not exhaustive, as we can’t find articles covering the whole set of functionalities. Quite often only few features have been mentioned and the same functionalities have been differently called. To overcome this gap, the purpose of this research is the definition of a framework on PLM functionalities in fashion, classified according to the macro-processes where they are involved. The result is an overview of the PLM functionalities organized in macro-processes, moving from the development of the creative idea to the arrival in the stores, validated by experts of PLM software houses working within the fashion industry. From a managerial point of view, it represents a clear guideline to support companies and vendors to identify the whole range of PLM functionalities and the processes positively involved during their implementation.