Swatfame improves collaboration with NGC's Extended PLM

02 Nov '11

3 min read

New Generation Computing Inc (NGC) announced that Swatfame, a global, multi-brand women's and girl's fashion company headquartered in Los Angeles, has gone live on NGC's Extended PLM software. The rapidly growing, $130-million brand has seen vast improvements in communication and collaboration throughout its global supply chain as a result of NGC's software – enabling Swatfame to quickly react to changes, reduce lead times for design and production, and dramatically improve overall efficiency.

With high-profile customers that include Nordstrom, Macy's, Bloomingdales, Kohl's and JCPenney, design excellence and speed to market are essential to Swatfame. However, prior to NGC, Swatfame relied on a combination of homegrown systems and spreadsheets that couldn't keep pace with the company's expanding business. The company needed a solution that could help Swatfame take its business to the next level. After comparing software from a number of PLM vendors, Swatfame selected NGC's Extended PLM, which combines PLM and Supply Chain Management (SCM).

NGC's integrated PLM and SCM solution was the single biggest factor in Swatfame's decision. "Most PLM systems that we saw were standalone, but NGC's software was unique in tying together both production and PLM," said Jonathan Greenberg, executive vice president, Swatfame. NGC's software offers a single repository of information that includes history by style, costing, and collaboration and communication history, as well as visibility throughout the company and with suppliers.

Swatfame has seen a number of benefits from implementing NGC's software, including:

Improved collaboration : The collaboration engine in NGC's Extended PLM is essential to helping Swatfame manage changes for a complex, fast-changing business. "We are in and out of styles very quickly; we do a large amount of styles per month, and our product needs are always changing," says Greenberg. "We add and subtract styles constantly, and we need to be able to react to changes quickly. NGC's collaboration tool allows us to do that by putting everyone on the same page, and it's been really important for us."

Better access to information : Access to information has improved dramatically with NGC's software. Since all information is stored in a web-based system, "our overseas vendors can access information while we're sleeping, eliminating the need to use email," Greenberg says. "Anyone can look up information at any time, and know that they have the most up-to-date information. This has drastically reduced the amount of time that's required to get things done."

Improved business planning : Extended PLM has helped Swatfame improve its design processes and planning. "We now have greater visibility and awareness of our design and production functions, and because of that, a better ability to plan our business," according to Greenberg. "Also, by having better access to our design history,we've become smarter about design moving forward."

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