At the NRF Annual Expo in New York City next week, Gerber Technology's Yunique Solutions team will demonstrate how its PLM software can help businesses of any size accelerate time to market, reduce lead time and improve margins. YuniquePLM enables retailers and brand owners to manage the details of line plans, tech packs and samples and simplifies communication with global partners to help get products to market faster, on time and at lower cost.
Darioush Nikpour, vice president of Product Management for Gerber's Yunique Solutions business, said, "Visitors to the show will see for themselves that YuniquePLM is far ahead in terms of delivering what industry analysts have identified as functionality that enables companies to achieve their strategic goals."
Enhanced Integration with Adobe Illustrator
YuniquePLM now accelerates style and line creation by providing comprehensive integration with Adobe Illustrator, enabling bi-directional sharing of images and data. Designers using Illustrator on either the Mac or PC can open, edit and modify assets such as images, styles and color palettes in YuniquePLM without leaving Adobe Illustrator.
Dynamic Line Creation
Now, with enhanced touch capability, merchandisers and designers can drag and drop sketches and photographs and apply colors from an existing palette to create styles en masse, thereby drastically reducing product development time. With a preliminary line plan in place, merchandisers can easily calculate raw material consumption and costs, as well as labor requirements, to estimate the overall product cost early in the development cycle.
Nikpour added, "The powerful thing about YuniquePLM's new line management capabilities is that, before designers even sketch a concept or generate a single piece of artwork, the team can gauge if the product is going to meet profitability expectations."
Powerful "What If" Scenarios for Product Costing
With YuniquePLM's powerful costing capabilities, companies of any size can understand the impact of design decisions very early in the process by generating multiple "what if" scenarios for comparison. For example, retailers submit preliminary fabric requirements to suppliers who, in turn, can propose more cost-effective options based on their experience. This capability encourages dynamic collaboration between brand owners and suppliers enabling them to analyze all product variables early in the development process.
Interactive Sample Capture
When it comes to facilitating sample approvals, YuniquePLM uses digital images to eliminate barriers caused by time zones and divergent languages. With an easy-to-use iPhone app, suppliers can now capture a 360-degree view of a sample on a model or mannequin and send these images with annotation and mark ups to brand owners via YuniquePLM. It eliminates the number of sample submits and courier charges and enables organizations to drastically reduce product development time and improve fit quality.
Sourcing and Compliance Tracking
Retailers today face more intense social and regulatory scrutiny than ever before. Identifying a methodology to ensure compliance throughout the product development lifecycle can increase a retailer's speed to market and avoid difficult situations. YuniquePLM offers tools to clearly document and manage regulatory requirements and track accountability across the organization in real time to enable all involved parties to make informed decisions.
Business Intelligence Dashboards Extended to Suppliers
YuniquePLM now enables managers to analyze product margins by country. However, the system not only delivers critical business intelligence to middle managers and executives within an organization, new functionality extends this power to suppliers. Now, suppliers have access to dashboards that graphically summarize changes made to tech packs and are able to locate them quickly and easily to streamline product development.
Donny Askin, senior vice president and general manager of Gerber's Yunique Solutions business, explains, "Retailers, brand owners and manufacturers who have chosen YuniquePLM have done so because they see how easy it is to use and appreciate how it can streamline their day-to-day processes. More importantly, they understand that, with their investment, they get a team of experts with deep industry and process experience who have grown up in the fashion industry and bring with them the knowledge of what makes companies like theirs successful."
YuniquePLM also integrates with Gerber's AccuMark pattern design, grading and marker making system. With AccuMark and YuniquePLM working in tandem, users can import data on material yields and points of measure from the AccuMark system and use them to generate costing and product tech packs in YuniquePLM. This information exchange eliminates redundant work and minimizes errors that often occur between the creative and development teams.
About Gerber Technology
For more than four decades, Gerber Technology has been the world leader in providing sophisticated hardware and software systems to automate and more effectively manage the product design and manufacturing process. The company serves 25,000 customers, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies, in the aerospace, apparel, retail, composites, packaging, furniture, technical textiles and transportation interiors industries in 130 countries. Gerber's products help users move faster, at less cost and with the highest quality.
