PLM Makes Nike A Lean Enterprise

PLM lets Nike see the dawn of becoming a lean enterprise and getting a return on supply chain innovation. In Nike's annual revenue of $15 billion, clothing sales account for about 4 billion 200 million dollars. Its report says that through the use of PLM, the gross profit rate of clothing has been raised, and the gross profit of the equipment sector has also been raised.

In the clothing market, Nike is a pioneer in the implementation of PLM.

This history dates back to 1994, but by 1999, with the rapid growth of sales and overall business scope, Nike realized that it needed more reliable PLM solutions to replace its self developed applications.

In the implementation phase of the new PLM system, Nike spent a year on business process reengineering, and at the same time, determined the best way to market the product.

Until 2001, Nike completed its first PLM implementation in the apparel department. In the following years, the apparel department has extended PLM to material management, supplier management, collaboration and reporting.

It also uses the integration framework of the software to bind its product development and procurement activities to the downstream business system.

Nike's point of view, when Nike embarked on the PLM plan and solution exploration, took two overall goals into account.

The first is to raise gross margins and reduce the cost of managing PLM systems.

Another main goal is to better collaborate with suppliers to make use of purchasing power and to improve relations with strategic suppliers.

Nike also realizes that if it can achieve a flexible and extensible PLM solution, it will benefit from it.

Through the establishment of a single PLM platform, Nike can provide more complete IT training, and can help to successfully complete its inevitable business pformation and organizational evolution process.

Nike is very clear that the greatest potential to improve business performance through PLM is to enter the market quickly.

In the implementation process, we constantly adjust and improve, let Nike see become a lean enterprise, and in the supply chain innovation returns.

Nike's four point experience is that Nike spends a lot of time trying to get users to accept the new system and give them a full range of training.

Nike believes that it is more important to focus on teaching new processes and the reasons behind them than forcing users to receive new system training.

The ultimate goal is to make Nike R & D personnel unrestricted to create good products.

Nike has begun to introduce PLM into its equipment sector, as new functions have been continuously enriched in the implementation of the apparel department.

Review the entire PLM implementation process, Nike company summed up a few successful experiences: first of all, the support of the company executives; secondly, the Nike business sector and other key users in the company to participate actively; third is a clear positioning of the PLM to achieve the maximum value of the key goals; finally focused on the data integration and migration related to the IT costs and risks.