"Case Study: Maggy London"

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"Brand managers, manufacturers, importers and retailers use NGC's business applications to meet all of their Global Sourcing Visibility, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)."
Source : New Generation Computing, Inc

Resources Related to Case Study: Maggy London:

• Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) (Wikipedia)

Case Study: Maggy London

Executive Summary

Company: Maggy London (www.maggylondon.com) is highly regarded for its stylish dresses that are sold in specialty and department stores nationwide and are regularly seen on the covers of top fashion magazines.

The Challenge: As a successful, rapidly growing apparel company with seven separate divisions, Maggy London needed to streamline its product development lifecycle, improve communications and eliminate duplication of work.

The Solution: Maggy London selected e-PLM® for Product Lifecycle Management, as well as e-SPS® software for global sourcing and RedHorse® for raw material management and inventory control.

The Results: "The greatest benefit has been our ability to streamline our daily operations and become a more efficient organization from top to bottom," says Lisa West, Corporate Director of Supply Chain Management Systems. "The visibility we've gained into our supply chain is invaluable."

The Challenge

Four years ago, Maggy London began a process of rapid expansion, adding new divisions such as London Times, Suzi Chin, Muse, Antharacite, Shani, and Ali Ro. Maggy London soon faced the growing pains that can accompany success, and was challenged with the task of having a single view of the business while managing each division.

"Each of our divisions had its own formats for communicating and tracking design, product development, and production activities," explains Lisa West, Corporate Director of Supply Chain Management Systems at Maggy London. "We needed to streamline our processes and solve the issues of redundancy, duplication of work, communication errors, and missing information throughout our product lifecycle. We also wanted the ability to communicate and collaborate with factories in other countries more efficiently and provide them with greater visibility."

The Solution

In 2006, Maggy London began searching for a PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) solution that would enable the business to have complete visibility of its design and production processes from start to finish. After a thorough evaluation of its options, Maggy London chose e-PLM from NGC® (New Generation Computing®), a leading provider of PLM, global sourcing, and ERP solutions for fashion, apparel, footwear and retail. Maggy London also selected NGC's e-SPS software for global sourcing as well as Red- Horse for raw material management and inventory control.

Prior to the PLM implementation, NGC completed a very thorough business process analysis that enabled them to get a 360° view of the company's supply chain strengths, weaknesses, and current practices. The company then made the decision that it would first roll out e-PLM to the division that would be the toughest implementation. While uncommon, this decision gave them a distinct advantage, as many of the issues the company would encounter on the first implementation would be smoothed out to make future rollouts progressively quicker and easier.

"The visibility we've gained into our supply chain is invaluable"
Lisa West, Corporate Director of Supply Chain Management Systems at Maggy London

Management Support, Close Cooperation Make Implementation a Success

When Maggy London began the PLM implementation with NGC in 2007, the company knew it needed to dedicate its top talent to the project. Top executives were involved with the selection and implementation from day one, and West was named to head up the PLM project. Management support has been a key factor in the success of Maggy London's PLM implementation. "Success takes both a commitment to the vision and the support of the organization from both management and staff," says West. "Maggy London has provided the right level of support at every step."

NGC's professional services team worked closely with Maggy London throughout the implementation. "NGC's presence in New York has made a tremendous difference to our PLM project," says West. "Whenever we ran into an issue, highly experienced implementation personnel were only minutes away."

Gaining Visible Results with PLM

Maggy London has already begun to see tangible results since implementing NGC's e-PLM solution, including:

• Improved overall efficiency throughout design, product development, and production
• Ability to create reports from the data base to provide better management tools.
• Greatly enhanced visibility across the supply chain
• Increased collaboration and sharing of information in realtime
• Easier tracking of purchasing requirements

"The greatest benefit has been our ability to streamline our daily operations and become a more efficient organization from top to bottom," said West. "The implementation forced us to closely examine our existing processes and challenged us to make certain process changes, which ultimately will result in a strong ROI. Also, the visibility we've gained into our supply chain is invaluable, as we continue to strive to reduce time-to-market and increase collaboration between our offices and overseas vendors."

"The greatest benefit has been our ability to streamline our daily operations and become a more efficient organization from top to bottom"
Lisa West, Corporate Director of Supply Chain Management Systems at Maggy London

In addition to the e-PLM implementation, Maggy London is continuing its growth and innovation with several projects in the works. The company is relocating its warehouse to a larger and more modern facility. It also just launched its website at www.maggylondon. com, and is currently experimenting with a 3-D clothing simulator that will help its designers, production team and factories save time and costs in the sampling process.