WebPDM Provides Collaborative Solution for Product Design and Development
Challenge
When a national retail chain spun off from its parent company, the IT department had 18 months to wean the retailer off the parent-company systems and implement its own independent applications. One major application was product design and development.
Solution
Gerber Technology’s WebPDM is a web-based application that is accessible by external vendor partners and internal users 24/7. Hokura rolled out WebPDM Browser in a phased implementation. Part of the phased approach was a pilot implementation for one retail division. This required various product definition setups as well as validation of the configuration.
Within three months, the application was rolled out to all divisions, which created more than 350 costing packets. WebPDM is now in use by more than 100 internal users and 150-plus vendor partners. The application was also rolled out to the internal QA team and the third-party audit team.
Success
WebPDM provides a very efficient collaborative process between all parties -- designers, technical designers, product development managers, agents, merchandisers and vendors.