Digital Product Creation (DPC) is a fundamentally different business model of product development where companies can create and sell products in a virtual collaborative environment. DPC is being used in education, gaming, film, software, architecture, and Fashion domain to name a few.
DPC in Fashion Domain:
3D fashion designs are developed using 3D CAM/CAD based software that help to build virtual, true-to life garment visualisation with cutting-edge simulation technologies. CLO 3D is an example of 3D design software. Many giant players such as Microsoft and Capgemini are working towards creating digital avatars, products, and experiences. Another big leap in the DPC domain is Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). AR and VR help in visualizing garment, footwear, and accessories designs by seamlessly blending real-time surroundings to animated designs. DPC also involves the usage of numerous digital tools which generate a lot of market trends related data. This data is mined to provide actionable intelligence.
Why DPC?
The routine way of Product creation has many problems:
- Product development cycles are long and mostly need a lot of human intervention
- Opaque visibility throughout the supply chain
- Significant costs to assemble products (manual garment sampling and shipping)
- Increased time to market
- Non-customized and mass-produced products which may end up as dead stocks due to changing market trends and customer demands.
- Rising cost of raw materials as the planet’s resources dwindle
- Not a sustainable solution due to the carbon emissions from Shipping
Advantages of DPC:
- Speed time to market
- Improved products and customer experiences as digitization involves quick feedbacks
- Reduced costs and increased margins.
- Vast and swift sustainability gains (including removing textile waste and reducing the need for dyeing, water use and the carbon emissions generated by physical sampling)
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) -informed and consumer tested forecasts and associated order quantities
- Ability to manufacture small quantities of products profitably.
- Transparent, smart-connected products and supply chains
- Happier workforce with the advent of Artificial Intelligence tools
The creative journey in the digital world involves the below 5 steps in general:
- Data collection and analysis – the extent to which digital data is relied on, to make design decisions vary in different organisations, but there is no getting away from the fact that digital data plays an important role to get insights of the market without personal bias.
- Automation and standardization for speed – Fashion industry is fast changing and hence standardizing and automating process steps add tremendous speed.
- Real time cloud based raw material libraries, collaborative supply chains, integration with PLM software
- Digital approvals – saves a lot of time and money in couriers and shipping
- Digital products trials – Test a new product before mass production.
Conclusion:
In the $2.4 trillion fashion industry, successful fashion companies would be those which can leverage data and technology, during times of pandemics or otherwise, to produce sustainable products at the speed of light.
