#Software
Lectra’s Design to Cost approach gives companies the power to anticipate real costs earlier in the design and product development phases
“At a time when companies are striving to remain competitive, materials represent a significant percentage of the cost of a garment, companies therefore need to manage material usage effectively in order to preserve and increase their margins,” says Anastasia Charbin, Director, Marketing Fashion, Lectra. “Lectra’s Design to Cost approach, which combines design, product development and marker-making solutions, allows companies to analyze the cost of final garments and then use that information to make important business decisions in the design and product development phases.”
Visual fabric layout increases accuracy and cuts out manual labor
An integral component of Lectra’s Design to Cost approach is the new pre-costing and marker-making solution Diamino® V6, which now allows fabric to be visualized on costing and production markers to help companies better anticipate and control material consumption. During the conceptualization phase, a period in which many ideas are proposed, challenged and reworked, material consumption is often only very roughly estimated. By more tightly integrating its core product design and development technologies and allowing for a more fluid exchange of visual and technical information, Lectra has opened the door to faster and more realistic evaluation of possible production scenarios.
“It allows us to exchange information faster and to more quickly identify potential problems before production,” says Nicolas Drevet, Head of Production Methods at French lingerie company Lise Charmel.
In addition, non-specialist profiles like product managers, cutting room managers, research departments and product development teams can now have access to this information. Fabrics can also be visualized in the marker layout to enhance the impact of fabric choices on cost, while providing clear visual instructions on repeat placement and orientation.
“We now better control material consumption and cost and have improved our ability to foresee problems,” says Davide Lunardon, CAD Manager, Staff International, part of the group Only The Brave (OTB).
Design to Cost is especially useful for companies that work with engineered prints and complex or intricate fabrics. They are able to import sketches, graphics or scanned fabrics from the design department to evaluate production scenarios before fabric is ordered, printed or cut. If changes need to be made in design to reduce costs at the production end, Diamino V6’s visual capacities make it easier to communicate across departments quickly and accurately to keep development moving forward.
“I can see exactly where the markers are going to fall on the print. If it doesn’t work out, I can make my recommendations to the print department before the screen is sent out and costs are committed to,” explains Alex Canoro, Head of Marker Making at American dress company Maggy London.
“The decisions that are made in design have an impact on final garment cost, but this often isn’t apparent until the production phase. With a holistic Design to Cost approach supported by Lectra, companies now have the capacity to take production constraints into account early on in design,” says Antoine Mercier, Product Manager, Lectra. “What used to be manual, time-consuming and rife with errors, has become a more streamlined process that enables companies to evaluate the impact that both style and fabric design have on material consumption, before production commitments are made.”
