Lawson Software (Nasdaq: LWSN) announced that ColorPlus, a premium Indian casual wear brand, has gone live with the Lawson Fashion Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution. Lawson Fashion PLM is a comprehensive product design and development tool for retailers and manufacturers of apparel and accessories. It is a web-based suite of applications that facilitates the management of products, from design through production. With an increasingly competitive landscape and with future expansion opportunities in mind, ColorPlus needed a more efficient and standardized product lifecycle management system.
ColorPlus Fashions Limited is a subsidiary of Raymond Apparel Limited and is one of the largest premium-category smart casual wear brands in India. ColorPlus embodies the core values of quality, innovation and sophistication with superior fabric, unique processes and styling. To complement these values, ColorPlus selected the Lawson Fashion PLM solution.
“We required a PLM system that would eliminate manual and ad-hoc systems, standardize processes and provide complete visibility in design and product development processes,” said Ashesh Amin, advisor to Raymond Apparel that heads ColorPlus. “We chose Lawson and Ptex Solutions as our preferred technology partners because of their track record, deep understanding of the apparel industry and comprehensive software solution for our business requirements,” he added.
“ColorPlus is a fast-growing and dynamic company. We are pleased that they have selected Lawson and Ptex Solutions as their partners and are now able to drive product development process efficiencies after implementing Lawson Fashion PLM,” said Shane Cumming, industry director, Fashion, Lawson Asia-Pacific & Japan.
Ptex Solutions, a Lawson channel partner, implemented the system at ColorPlus. The implementation process enabled ColorPlus to relook at its business processes, reduce leads time and improve controls leading to greater efficiencies. In addition, Lawson Fashion PLM enables more parallel activities to take during product development, easy accessibility to a central data repository and seamless sharing of important information across business functions.
Automatically generated email notifications now keep users up to date on any modifications made to the styles, enabling them to provide instant feedback to the relevant people, thus avoiding critical delays and shortening time to market.
Lawson Fashion PLM facilitates the generation of product Specification Packs for the production of different styles, which are available online to the internal team at ColorPlus and can be easily shared directly with external vendors. Earlier, ColorPlus developers spent significant amounts of time using a combination of Microsoft Excel and Corel Draw applications to develop and manage multiple versions of the product Specification Packs.
“Now, the Techpacks that are generated from Lawson Fashion PLM enable us to print out detailed information on the styles, including sketches, bill of materials and measurements for use during prototyping and production. We are accessing the most up-to-date style information, thus avoiding having to manage multiple versions of the truth and eliminating the time required previously to compile all the information manually,” said Archana Panda, head of design for ColorPlus (Kidswear Division).
“Apart from the product Specification Packs, various analytical and operational reports are generated from Lawson Fashion PLM. These reports consolidate data and provide better visibility for decision-making,” added B Sreenivas, IT manager and project manager, ColorPlus.
Lawson Fashion PLM is best-of-breed software that contains pre-defined to speed up implementation in the apparel industry. This allows implementation within weeks rather than months or years and enables customers to start deriving benefits from the software much sooner.
“The implementation process was a challenge to the Ptex team as the first phase of the project had to be completed within eight weeks to align the ‘go live’ with the start of the development of a new season’s collections at ColorPlus. We were able to achieve this with Lawson Fashion PLM due to our industry experience, application knowledge and domain expertise,” said Prasham Kamdar, managing partner, Ptex Solutions.
“Ptex Solutions were committed in delivering the right solution to meet our key requirements,” concludes Ashesh Amin.
The first phase of implementation went live in ColorPlus’ Kidswear division. The company plans to expand the use of the system into its in Women’s Wear and Men’s Wear business areas.
—IndiaRetailing Bureau
