For nearly a quarter century, Parigi Group's stable of brands has helped define children's fashion apparel market. The apparel company designs and produces apparel for many of the industry's leading brands, including Phat Farm Boys and Baby Phat Girlz, Pumu Kids, Applebottoms for Girls, Academia for Boys, Enyce Kids, Buffalo by David Bitton and DYNK Kids. Parigi garments are distributed through leading department and specialty stores.

Since its beginnings in the 1980s, the company's strategy has been to develop trendy garments that speak to today's children and "tweens." The strategy has been a cascade of long-term partnership with an ever-growing list of brands, each of which has to be distinctive and authentic. In the fast-changing fashion world, new products and apparel lines must constantly be developed and introduced. Executing that strategy back through a supply chain that reaches all the way to Asian suppliers and manufacturers requires leading edge IT tools that, until recently, Parigi lacked.

As a result, Parigi's approval and revision process was very challenging. The complexity was just too much for manual techniques, according to Parigi's vice president of design Isaac Jemal.

"The design process for each new product involves constant changes that cannot be effectively managed without a tool such as a product lifecycle management (PLM) system," says Jemal.

With headquarters in New York, a sourcing office in Hong Kong and factories throughout Asia, Parigi needed a PLM system to help the company manage its global operations. And not just any PLM system. It had to be one that allowed sharing of data among a widely dispersed and extended supply chain.

In 2007 Parigi began searching for PLM software that would provide end-to-end visibility throughout its supply chain, enhance collaboration and communications, improve timeliness and accuracy of products, and help it manage an increasingly complex and fast-paced business.  Parigi selected e-PLM software from New Generation Computing (NGC).

According to Jemal, all of the company's goals were met remarkably quickly.

"We are seeing vast improvements in the timeliness and accuracy of communications between our offices in New York and Hong Kong," says Jemal.  "Time and action calendars and exception management automatically trigger alerts when milestones aren't met, so the proper individuals can take immediate action.

"With NGC's PLM system, we can now stay on top of approvals and revisions from our licensees to ensure that we are delivering the exact products they expect," says Jemal.

RESOURCE LINK:

New Generation Computing (NGC), www.ngcsoftware.com