Simplifying product development across multiple brands with

CASE STUDY
Simplifying product
development across
multiple brands with
YuniquePLM
CASE HIGHLIGHTS
The Client: Fruit of the Loom (FOL), a leading
international, vertically-integrated, multi-brand
company.
Fruit of the Loom is one of the world’s largest manufacturers and
marketers of men’s, boys’, women’s and girls’ underwear, printable
T-shirts and fleece for the activewear industry, casualwear and
childrenswear. Fruit of the Loom’s major national and international
brands include Fruit of the Loom®, Russell Athletic®, Spalding®,
Vanity Fair®, BVD®, Underoos®, Lofteez®, JERZEES®, Bike®, AAI®,
Dudley®, Cross Creek®, Sherrin®, Illusion®, Bestform®, Gemma®,
Belcor®, Value in Style®, Lily of France®, Lou®, Curvation®, Intima
Cherry®, Vassarette® and Exquisite Form Fully®.
Brief about client business: Fruit of the Loom
is owned by Berkshire Hathaway Corp., controlled
by legendary investor Warren Buffett. It is one of
the world’s largest manufacturers and marketers
of men’s, boys’, women’s and girls’ underwear,
printable T-shirts and fleece for the activewear
industry, casualwear and childrenswear. The
company sells its products under a number of
underwear, intimates, sportswear and sporting
goods brands.
Business Need
using different systems to manage the product
development process across its many brands and
style data was dispersed across many locations.
The company wanted to consolidate processes and
leverage experience/common libraries across its
brands.
Across its brands, the company’s design teams were using different methods
to manage the product development process, including legacy PDM systems,
Excel spreadsheets and email. Users were also working on multiple brands
simultaneously, using a different set of libraries for each, which led to duplication
of data and, oftentimes, confusion among teams. The company wanted to
consolidate processes and leverage common libraries across its brands.
FOL’s vision was to find a software solution that would enable product
development to create, control and communicate data across its entire
corporate landscape in a consistent and efficient manner. They were looking
for an experienced partner who could provide best practices and the domain
expertise to meet their technology needs.
The Challenge: The company’s design teams were
The Solution: FOL decided to implement
YuniquePLM across all its brands, beginning with
Fruit of the Loom and then Vanity Fair Brands,
Spalding and Russell.
The Benefits: FOL is well on the way to
significantly improving collaboration and
communication among product development
teams for its many brands and ensuring a scalable
platform for growth.
Simplifying product development across multiple brands with YuniquePLM
Fruit of the Loom (FOL) already had a long-standing relationship with Gerber as
several of its product development teams were using Gerber’s webPDM™ product
data management system. But, other factors also influenced FOL’s decision to adopt
YuniquePLM, including, enthusiastic feedback from industry leaders already working
with YuniquePLM, Gerber’s willingness to configure YuniquePLM to meet FOL’s precise
needs, and the system’s ability to integrate with Gerber’s AccuMark® pattern design,
grading and marker making software in use at FOL.
Since FOL develops its own fabrics, the PLM system they chose needed to capture this
level of detail. This led to extensive two-way communication during the configuration
and implementation process to ensure FOL’s exact requirements would be managed in
the YuniquePLM environment.
During the implementation, FOL migrated a significant amount of historical data
including all of their point of measure (POM) libraries and many of their raw material
libraries. The actual styles were not migrated as is because the company wanted to first
verify that the information was accurate. Several employees at FOL were responsible for
backfilling style information and validating data before it was migrated to YuniquePLM.
FOL’s color and material request process is unique so Gerber also customized the
system to accommodate it.
With the implementation of YuniquePLM, FOL is in the process of significantly
improving collaboration and communication while providing a scalable platform for
growth. Also, since YuniquePLM will be integrated with the company’s existing ERP and
other enterprise wide systems, it will be able to deliver powerful business intelligence
to guide decision making.
CASE STUDY
Key Benefits
• YuniquePLM became the product
development teams’ single version of
the truth across all brands.
• With easy integration to the AccuMark
pattern design, grading and marker
making system, data could now be
shared between the two systems.
• FOL , with the help of Gerber’s Project
Team, is in the process of implementing
powerful dashboards that will
increase transparency in the product
development process.
• With YuniquePLM, FOL had a scalable
system that could grow with the
business.
IN THE WORDS OF THE USER
“
Choosing a software system that affects all areas of the business can be quite a
challenge. But, based on our past experience with Gerber, and after working closely
with them during the discovery phase of this project, we became confident in their
broad knowledge and deep expertise of the day-to-day product development process
that occurs at all levels and across all areas of the organization. Our users are excited
by how YuniquePLM has streamlined the product development process.
”
Cameron Bailey
SVP Product Development & Sourcing
Fruit of the Loom
About Yunique Solutions
Yunique Solutions is the product lifecycle management business unit of Gerber Technology.
YuniquePLM and webPDM software enables organizations to connect their creative teams
with their supply chain to get the right products to market, on time and at the right cost.
These systems can help businesses of all sizes accelerate time to market, reduce lead time
and improve margins by managing the details of line plans, tech packs and samples and
simplifying communication and collaboration with global partners.
Yunique Solutions
A Gerber Technology Company
1359 Broadway, 12th floor New York,
NY 10018, USA +1 212 868 7795
yuniqueplm@gerbertechnology.com
www.yunique.com