Product Development Management (PDM) for Fashion
Product development management (PDM), also called product lifecycle management (PLM), tracks a product from creative brief to final sign-off. Solvoyo’s cloud-based, fully configurable PDM keeps briefs, tech packs, costing and approvals in one collaborative workspace, then passes the attributes to assortment and buy planning.
3-8x
3-8xPlanner Productivity
Don’t take our word for it
“We’ve been using Solvoyo’s PLM solution for our pre-season and in-season planning processes. Solvoyo’s cloud-based PLM solution helps us digitize our manual processes and workflows. The integration between our ERP systems and the PLM solution of Solvoyo has been working well for us.”
“80% of IT tools investment fails if the partners don’t strive to continuously improve and adapt. That is what sets our partnership with Solvoyo apart.”
“Solvoyo has been a very effective solution partner in our fast growth and digital transformation journey. Using Solvoyo’s platform for fashion planning solutions, we were able to bring automation to buy planning and size optimization decisions.”
“When I write or speak about supply chain management, I always state that the purpose of a supply chain is to do one thing – enable growth. I believe Solvoyo is the optimal supply chain platform to help companies achieve the growth they desire.”
-
Integrated Assortment Planning: A Key to Retail Success
Read more ->: Integrated Assortment Planning: A Key to Retail SuccessToday’s retail landscape is a battlefield. The competition is fierce, and customer expectations are higher than ever. Retailers can lose…
-
Pre-season Planning
Read more ->: Pre-season PlanningDeFacto – Multinational Apparel RetailerEnd-to-end to digital transformation for integrated budget management and buy planning
-
Digital Transformation for Pre-Season Planning
Read more ->: Digital Transformation for Pre-Season PlanningPenti – Apparel RetailerPenti achieved end-to-end integration and digital transformation for pre-season planning
Solvoyo Platform
From Creative Brief to Sign-Off in One Workspace
Digital Product Creation & Critical Path Management
Manage every product from creative brief through final sign-off in one workspace. It tracks design specs, material selections, sampling milestones and supplier approvals. Automated tech-pack creation replaces version conflicts and email chains. Approved products then move into line planning, which Solvoyo covers under strategic and tactical planning.
Standardized Product Attributes
Standardize product attributes at the development stage: size ranges, material compositions, colorways, construction details, price bands and commercial classifications. They flow directly into line, assortment and buy planning without manual re-entry, as described under category and assortment planning. For how stores are grouped for those assortments, read the whitepaper on approaches to retail store clustering.
Collaborative Workflow & Multi-Level Approvals
Web-based collaboration with configurable multi-level approval workflows keeps design, buying, sourcing and supplier teams working from the same product status. Every decision, costing scenario and approval is logged in a complete audit trail.
Multiple Costing Scenarios & Margin Visibility
Evaluate multiple costing scenarios within the development workflow. Compare material, production, duty and freight costs against target retail prices and margin requirements before supplier commitments are made.
Native Integration with Other Systems
Product development decisions flow directly into assortment planning and ERP through native integration. The attribute architecture, option count and cost structure set at development are immediately visible to buyers and merchandisers downstream.
Solvoyo Differentiators
Autonomous Decision Making
Executes high-quality supply chain decisions with little to no planner intervention.
95%+ User Acceptance
Drives recommendations planners trust enough to accept and execute at scale.
Optimization + AI + Heuristics
Combines mathematical rigor and machine intelligence to outperform rule-based planning.
Real-World Constraint Modeling
Builds real-world operational constraints directly into every decision the system makes.
Network Wide Objective Solving
Optimizes cost, service, inventory, and feasibility across the full supply chain at once.
Unified Data and Execution
Connects data, planning, diagnostics, and action in one system built for execution.
See Solvoyo PDM in a demo
Request a demo to see how Solvoyo PDM takes a style from creative brief to approved attributes in assortment and buy planning.
Frequently Asked Questions
Product development management (PDM) covers the design and development stage of every product, before it reaches the buying process. It tracks creative briefs, material specifications, sampling milestones, supplier approvals and critical path deadlines from concept through final sign-off. For fashion, apparel and footwear retailers, PDM is where product attributes are defined and costing scenarios are evaluated, and where development timelines are managed. That product data feeds every downstream planning decision, from line planning through initial allocation.
Solvoyo replaces email chains, shared drives and manual spreadsheets with one cloud-based workspace where design, buying, sourcing and supplier teams collaborate in real time. Creative briefs, tech-packs, material specifications, sampling status and approval decisions are tracked there. Tech-packs are created and shared automatically, approvals follow configurable multi-level workflows, and a complete audit trail replaces the fragmented, version-conflicted process most fashion retailers run across disconnected systems.
Attributes are digitalized and standardized at the development stage, so they flow directly into assortment planning and buy planning without manual re-entry. That covers size ranges, material compositions, colorways, construction details and commercial classifications. Standardized attributes support attribute-based forecasting, which draws on learnings from similar items to anchor new-season buy quantities. Buyers reach the order meeting with a recommendation grounded in demand, built on product data that was entered once. For the size side of buying, read our post on solving the size dilemma with AI inventory planning.
Fashion, apparel, footwear and specialty retailers that design and develop their own products benefit most, because keeping product information current across design, buying, sourcing and external vendors is a hard planning problem for them. Solvoyo’s cloud-based, fully configurable PDM digitizes the product development process with collaborative workflows built for medium-sized businesses and large enterprises. Retailers that manage several collections, sales channels and supplier relationships at once gain the most from its standardization, automation and integration. For the wider fashion planning workflow, see Solvoyo’s apparel and fashion planning.
Approved new styles flow from Solvoyo’s PDM into the ERP automatically and trigger new product master records. Every attribute is already filled in during development: size ranges, material specifications, colorways, cost structures and commercial classifications. That removes the manual ERP data entry step, which typically delays style activation by days and adds transcription errors. Those errors then carry into forecasting, buying and replenishment decisions that run on inaccurate or incomplete product master data.