What Brings Customers Closer to Your Product Development? » The. Written By: Published On: July 9 2009 (Originally Published On:) ) Bringing all product stakeholders in a tighter loop within the entire product life cycle is one of the main strategies of the product lifecycle management (PLM) methodology.
Following this idea, letting the customers (those who pay for and/or use the product) get involved as early as possible in the product design and development phases provides many benefits, including: more ideas for innovation, less design rework, higher customer satisfaction, shorter time-to-market, and more. Today, including customer inputs in the design process is not only a theory, but also an increasing requirement from PLM users. Based on statistics from the TEC PLM Evaluation Center, among 50 possible business objectives for implementing a PLM system, the option of “including customer input in the design process” changed its ranking from 28th (in the year 2007) to 20th (in the year 2008) (see figure 1). Figure 1. 3-D Visibility Down to Earth. How Is a Bad Product Developed. Written By: Published On: August 3 2009 (Originally Published On:) ) There are multiple answers for how a bad product is developed; many of them are rooted in myopia in the development process.
This morning, when I was leaving a subway station through a tunnel, a billboard caught my eye. Actually, at first glance, I was kind of scared by the weird eye of one of the women in the picture. A second look revealed that the weird eye was a bolt (on top of a washer) located very close to her right eye. Let me clarify that the bolt and the washer were physical items, not printed in the picture. On the way to the office, my thinking continued.
Actually, this is quite a complicated situation. You could say that this is just a rare and special case, and collaboration might therefore not be worthwhile. This billboard case demonstrates the neglect of the installation phase during the design phase, or the disconnect between two phases in the lifecycle of a product. The Two Driving Forces Behind Fashion Products. Written By: Published On: November 5 2009 (Originally Published On:) ) “Sometimes, I feel frustrated at work—there is a constant conflict between my department and others and it never stops.” – A product developer at a fashion company During the process of building the request for proposal (RFP) template for fashion product lifecycle management (PLM), I spent some time talking with some relatively large fashion goods manufacturers and retailers to gain a better understanding of how the fashion business runs.
As I learned more, I realized that the conflict between the two major driving forces (pushing and pulling) behind fashion products is causing frustration, unachievable sales targets, and missed sales opportunities. Let me explain these two forces briefly. The “Pushing” Force As a fashion company, you need to either lead or follow current fashion trends.
People who are in charge of creating ideas and concepts to build the “soul” of new collections. The “Pulling” Force.