Priscilla of Boston Gives Visibility to Design
The Priscilla of Boston legacy began in 1945 when fashion designer Priscilla
Kidder opened the Bride's Shop on Newbury Street in Boston, MA. Kidder became known
for her unique, handmade wedding gowns, and gained national recognition when she
designed gowns for the daughters of President Johnson and President Nixon.
She also garnered international distinction when she designed exquisite bridesmaid
gowns for Grace Kelly's nuptials to Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956.
Since then, the company has continued its tradition of unique and handcrafted
designs and the popularity of Kidder's dresses has allowed the company to grow
to 15 signature salons and select specialty boutiques nationwide. The Priscilla of
Boston (POB) group has expanded to include a collection of top designer brands
including Melissa Sweet, Vineyard, Platinum, Reverie and its newest brand, Jewel,
introduced last month.
As the company worked to keep pace with its explosive growth, POB found
that it needed: a faster way to communicate between offices and teams; a better
way to organize and share information among designers and other teams; and
a more efficient way of working with its business partners.
More specifically, without a single repository for design data, the frequent
design changes made by the team resulted in a lack of visibility among team members.
Various versions of designs existed in "silos" of disparate data, including
spreadsheets and e-mails that were owned by individuals.
This lack of visibility into revisions and processes often resulted in errors and
missed deadlines, and made it very difficult to track milestones of the design
and development processes.
The search for a solution to put an end to this lack of transparency ended with
the implementation of CGS's BlueCherry product lifecycle management (PLM)
Kidder opened the Bride's Shop on Newbury Street in Boston, MA. Kidder became known
for her unique, handmade wedding gowns, and gained national recognition when she
designed gowns for the daughters of President Johnson and President Nixon.
She also garnered international distinction when she designed exquisite bridesmaid
gowns for Grace Kelly's nuptials to Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956.
Since then, the company has continued its tradition of unique and handcrafted
designs and the popularity of Kidder's dresses has allowed the company to grow
to 15 signature salons and select specialty boutiques nationwide. The Priscilla of
Boston (POB) group has expanded to include a collection of top designer brands
including Melissa Sweet, Vineyard, Platinum, Reverie and its newest brand, Jewel,
introduced last month.
As the company worked to keep pace with its explosive growth, POB found
that it needed: a faster way to communicate between offices and teams; a better
way to organize and share information among designers and other teams; and
a more efficient way of working with its business partners.
More specifically, without a single repository for design data, the frequent
design changes made by the team resulted in a lack of visibility among team members.
Various versions of designs existed in "silos" of disparate data, including
spreadsheets and e-mails that were owned by individuals.
This lack of visibility into revisions and processes often resulted in errors and
missed deadlines, and made it very difficult to track milestones of the design
and development processes.
The search for a solution to put an end to this lack of transparency ended with
the implementation of CGS's BlueCherry product lifecycle management (PLM)
application, which has greatly enhanced communication between the design,
merchandising and production teams. This in turn has sped the design and
development processes and made them much more efficient and error free.
Cycle-time compression has been driven by having the right information, at
the right time and available to the right people, all centrally organized in the PLM
system. For example, the system has allowed the product coordinator to issue
completed tech packs for 15 styles in four days instead of seven days -- a time savings
of 43 percent. Furthermore, the system's unlimited image and text storage
has provided the designers with added freedom of creativity.
Additionally, the system has become an intelligence tool for the company:
designers now have access to styles, cost sheets and bills of materials which they
can use to proactively manage costs at an early stage in the process.
Cycle-time compression has been driven by having the right information, at
the right time and available to the right people, all centrally organized in the PLM
system. For example, the system has allowed the product coordinator to issue
completed tech packs for 15 styles in four days instead of seven days -- a time savings
of 43 percent. Furthermore, the system's unlimited image and text storage
has provided the designers with added freedom of creativity.
Additionally, the system has become an intelligence tool for the company:
designers now have access to styles, cost sheets and bills of materials which they
can use to proactively manage costs at an early stage in the process.