Collaboration among all the players is key in any successful PLM program.
Kent, Wash.-based Recreational Equipment Inc. was looking for ways to better manage growth and cut time-to-market for new products, without sacrificing product performance. In addition to its 80-plus retail stores, REI has a gear-and-apparel division that designs and develops products under two private-label brands: REI for outdoor sports-related equipment and clothing, and Novara for bicycles and related equipment and clothing. (All of REI's manufacturing is outsourced.)

Kevin Myette, REI's director of R&D for gear and apparel, says, "Even before pursuing PLM, we spent time, energy and resources making our private-label goods relevant" so they could compete effectively against major brands like North Face and Cannondale. "We do the research and the science, deliver products esthetically, promote them, create desire and price them appropriately." That strategy is paying off. While about 80 percent of REI's $1 billion in annual revenues still comes from store sales, the balance now comes from gear and apparel, which has gained market share relative to other brands sold in the stores, and generated higher profits.

The problem was that REI's functional areas had grown organically over time. So the various groups—new-line management, R&D, lab testing, field testing—weren't always choreographed, says Myette. Each of them had their own information stored in stand-alone product-data-management tools, CAD tools, e-mail messages and elsewhere. A team responsible for bringing out a new line of tents, for instance, might have "thrown information over the fence" to the teams charged with designing the tents, choosing materials, testing them in the lab and so forth. And finding information across product groups, about, say, which other products used zippers or screen fabrics, was time consuming and inefficient, at best. There was simply no common and consistent way to communicate about products.

Says Myette: "We needed to do something to meet the needs of the organization. Redesigning processes gave us a third of the benefit. Now we're systematizing those changes. We moved into PLM because we hit a ceiling in terms of our ability to execute."

The biggest challenge, says Myette, involved bringing people, from designers and sourcing managers to engineers and field test technicians, onboard with a more collaborative approach to product development. "Previously, people shared their work only after it was completed. Now we're asking them to be more collaborative."

The process redesign now emphasizes collaboration. Teams involved in product development now get more information, and get it earlier. In the case of tents, choosing appropriate materials, making logistical arrangements for field testing (often done by employees), and other activities now run in parallel. "The linkages between groups and their various processes supported by PLM add much more value than product data-management tools alone ever could," Myette says. As a result of its PLM efforts, REI will be able to introduce more new product lines, and more choices within products, without sacrificing quality or performance.

REI chose MatrixOne Inc.'s Accelerator Series of PLM components because it was flexible enough to support manufacturing of everything from tents to apparel. (MatrixOne was recently acquired by Dassault Systèmes.) The technology implementation has gone very smoothly. After completing a pilot last fall, REI moved into planning and implementation for production systems, which are being brought online in order of the processes as they actually occur—first concept and R&D processes, then line planning, bill of materials, specifications and so on.

Myette acknowledges his company's PLM efforts are still relatively immature with respect to the kinds of product information it is sharing within and across product groups. "We're still focused on getting a very clear, traceable engineering specification and bill of materials in place, which is very important in the apparel world. Ultimately, we'd also like to make our processes more seamless with suppliers. Today, we still choose suppliers based purely on their ability to deliver quality products. Some still operate on a phone, a fax and a PC."

Myette's biggest challenge, for now, is managing the scope of REI's PLM efforts, including prioritizing which processes to bring onboard next. In addition to creating closer links with suppliers, he's also concerned about end-of-product-life issues, and implementing true "cradle to grave" design. "Petroleum is a finite resource, and a lot of our products are synthetic. The better we can manage the design and development process, the more likely we can choose materials that can be recycled."

How can we design our IT systems to support greater cross-functional collaboration and business process automation around product information?

Which PLM vendors offer software that is most likely to meet our needs, given our industry?

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