So how can PLM solutions help to decrease your carbon footprint? Well here are a few suggestions on how I believe PLM solutions can assist in helping to decrease the carbon footprint of Retail, Footwear and Brands:

3D Virtual Sampling
Many of the worlds leading brands and retailers request several million samples each per year. Recently, at the IMB show in November, I heard a senior executive from Adidas quoting a requirement of 3 million samples for the European business. Having worked with the leaders of 3D virtual sampling technology for the last ten years, I’m certain that companies could eliminate 2/3rds of the sample requirements through the introduction of 3D virtual samples. Today’s 3D technologies allow the business user’s to utilize 2D patterns from the majority of CAD CAM systems available that export DXF standard file formats.  Several of the 3D solutions today offer high definition, detailed photo realistic images, enabling the suppliers to fully appreciate the concise detailed requirements of the finished garment. Furthermore, through the software collaboration the vendor can query the requirements on line via a collaborative white board to ensure that they have all the details, enabling them to deliver the correct finished article, thus reducing the need for multiple sample iterations.

Fabric Sampling
Keeping on the sample theme another area to consider is that of physical fabric samples. Assuming we have decided upon the right silhouette and colour then the next step is to obtain the physical fabric sample from our sourcing partners?  Well let’s consider an alternative. Some 15+ years ago, I ran a design bureau service, one of the first of its kind in the World. One of our claims to fame was the introduction of digital printing on fabric substrates. Back then we termed the new process the “24 hour sample”. The process takes the digital fabric image file based on a 1:1 ratio or repeat pattern and using dye based inkjet cartridge technology, prints directly onto the fabric substrate resulting in a 1 x 1 metre sample length that is then turned into the physical garment samples. The process can be completed in a matter of hours reducing the need for physical samples to be flown in from global sourcing locations. The net result is samples that can be produced in a matter of hours versus a minimum of a week and several potential flights!  The bottom line is not only do we reduce the carbon footprint using the digital fabric printing process but we also reduce the time to delivery by a factor of potentially 25:1 resulting in on line up to the minute trend!

Colour Management
Another key area that takes up a large carbon footprint. Typically it takes at least two to three physical colour samples that need to be flown into the USA - Europe to complete the colour approvals process before arriving at the approved finished colour sample. Again this can result in millions of samples per year per company dependent upon the size of the organisation. The colour management process is an area that can be easily resolved via the deployment of on-line self digital colour approvals process linked back to the originators colour management system.  

Collaboration
It’s all about joining the dots!   There’s lots of talk around collaboration but the fact is that most people see collaboration as a one way stream leading directly to their manufacturers.  In fact this is only a very small part of the total solution. In order to help reduce the overall carbon footprint we really need to consider the extended supply chain including raw material suppliers for both fabrics, linings, components such as buttons, threads, labels, zippers etc, all of which can be digitised to enable the sampling process via images rather than physical samples. This results in fewer deliveries via road, sea or air helping to reduce the overall carbon footprint and at the same time resulting in a more efficient process that decreases the overall time to market. Basically this means is that we all need to consider ways of joining the dots across every part of the supply chain from it’s concept through to delivery, resulting in a much smaller yet more productive carbon footprint for our industry.

PDM Standards
Since the inception of the early PDM systems back in the late 80’s there have been many discussions around the need for PDM standards to enable data sharing between different solutions in the form of a new standard file format. Today via XML the suppliers of PDM/PLM have the possibility to deliver standard xml attributes for each of the common processes such as style summary standard headings, size charts & graded measurements, image layouts, material development, component development, costing & quotations, BOM & BOL etc. It’s now possible to define a set of standard attributes in XML that will allow all solutions to talk to one another, reducing the need for suppliers to deploy multiple PLM/PDM systems and to enable suppliers to link to their own downstream raw material suppliers without the need to deploy additional licences throughout the extended supply chain. The introduction of XML standard attributes will go a long way in helping the industry to embrace PDM/PLM on a much broader scale than we have today, resulting in a much more efficient global supply chain.

So you may ask why is it taking so long to introduce standards? Well, prior to XML it would have been very difficult for the suppliers of PDM/PLM systems to deliver some form of standards. On top of this who decides what the standard attributes will be for each of the processes? You need a standards team that have a deep understanding of the attributes required for each of the main processes and then we need to publish these to the industry and request that the suppliers of PDM/PLM solutions should ensure that they offer the XML file formats for each of their software versions in the form of Input/Output files, making it possible for different PDM systems to work together. Perhaps one of the biggest area’s to benefit from such standards would be the raw materials suppliers, using their own in-house developed ERP solutions that maintain the data warehouse solutions, enabling data and image sharing with their customers directly into the PDM/PLM systems. The benefits that this would have on the environment utilising digital data would be enormous, not only in reducing speed to market and improving accuracy, but the combined carbon footprint reductions would go a long way in helping the climate!