How K3 supports fashion business planners and designers

Fashion is inherently a business that demands precise planning and accurate designs to ensure that collections can be brought to market at the pace consumers expect.

With brands releasing at least two to four collections per year, fashion companies must provide the tools needed to support their designers and business planners.

More importantly, these capabilities must be baked into an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to ensure that all aspects of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Product Data Management (PDM), and range and collection planning can be effectively managed.

Yet, so few ERPs facilitate the above. This is precisely where K3’s solutions shine.

Business and collection plans

K3 Fashion, natively embedded in D365 Finance, Supply Chain Management and Commerce, extends Microsoft’s flagship ERP to provide more comprehensive business and collection planning support.

The extensions enable companies to deliver line plans that include all relevant financial and production details, ensuring that each collection is not only creative but commercially viable.

This means planners can make informed decisions about product assortment, pricing, and inventory levels based on real-time data and market insights.

Designers benefit from knowing that their creations form part of a cohesive plan that supports the company’s overall strategy.

Range planning for retail

In a similar mould, it’s paramount that companies can successfully plan ranges for their retail stores. K3 Fashion provides advanced range planning tools that help planners create merchandise plans, retail buys, and coverage records used for replenishment.

These tools allow planners to visualise the entire collection, ensuring that it meets market demands. K3 Fashion also supports planners in balancing aesthetics with commercial viability.

By offering real-time data and insights, companies can gain a holistic view of their range planning to ensure that collections are not only visually appealing but also poised for commercial success.

Product Lifecycle Management & Product Data Management

PLM and PDM are two essential components of fashion design and development, but they are scarcely supported in the way companies need them in traditional ERP systems.

K3 Fashion offers a unified platform to support critical path planning and workflow management. For designers, this means all the tools needed to develop a product from concept to completion are housed within one system, providing greater flexibility and reduced risk of delays and last-minute changes.

The PLM and PDM capabilities take this further by enabling detailed planning and tracking at every stage of the product development journey. This includes business and collection plans, line plans, and managing design specifications.

By streamlining these processes, K3 Fashion allows designers to focus on creativity while ensuring their designs can be efficiently translated into the final products.

Intuitive templates and product wizard tools

Designers are often faced with juggling multiple projects with unique requirements simultaneously. To lessen this burden, K3 Fashion provides intuitive templates and product wizard tools that facilitate quick and accurate product creation.

These tools also allow users to add essential details like wash and care instructions, bill of materials, target costs, and buying and production prices.

Such templates and tools ensure consistency and accuracy across products, reducing the risk of errors and reworks. Crucially, this ensures designers can spend more time on innovation and less on administrative tasks that eat up time.

This is invaluable to any fashion company as the ability to rapidly develop and iterate on designs is a huge factor to success in an industry where time-to-market is vital.

Real-time data access

All of the above points are ultimately meaningless if a company does not have access to real-time data to enable greater collaboration amongst teams. This is where most ERPs fail.

Since ERPs often lack much of this functionality natively, companies opt for third-party solutions that scatter data. By embedding seamlessly into D365, K3 Fashion eliminates the need for disparate tools and ensures all teams can work within one single solution and UI.

Shared access to real-time data fosters better communication and coordination across team members. For instance, designers can see how their creations fit into the broader collection plan, while planners can provide feedback based on market trends and sales data.

Want to know more?

The functionalities discussed in this article represent just a small sample of how K3 supports companies in all facets of fashion.

If you’d like to learn more about how we can support you, feel free to drop us a line today!