World Fashion Exchange: PLM Software
Just this season we got set up with software called WFX (World Fashion Exchange). It is a PLM (product lifestyle management) software system and is SO amazing…the screenshots below don’t do it justice. This system is how we manage all of the tech packs for garments, approvals, sample ordering, reporting, and much more. We used to manage everything in a billion Excel spreadsheets, and it was a mess – when something changed, it had to be updated in 5 different spreadsheets. It was a mess and a lot of work. This database like set up saves a lot of time and work while also tracking things more efficiently. Here is a quick rundown on a tech pack:
WFX Tech Pack Home Page
Click on the image to get a legible view, but here’s a quick rundown on the capabilities of the software. Circled on the left are the details for the tech pack – you can add more but the basics are colorways, care, image and annotation (allowing you to upload CADs to call out details in garments/patterns), file upload/download, specs. Circled along the top are various tabs that allow you to track the status of the garment, a log that tracks everything modified on the tech pack, a messaging center where you can communicate w/ your vendors on that specific style, BOM (bill of materials) that allows you to add all of the “materials” required to make your garment (buttons, zippers, hang tags, poly bags, fabrics, etc), and costing where your vendors can input pricing and it will auto calculate all of your margins frombased off of your sell price. Wow, as I write about this I realize that this is only the smallest fraction of what the software does. More details will have to come later or this will wind up being one lengthy post…