Intentia: Stepping Out With Fashion and Style More Software Challenges

But the software challenges do not stop here. In fashion people think in terms of style, color, size, and fabric—not items. However, inventory records are maintained at the item level. The translation between these views must be transparent and simultaneous. When customers call to place an order, they are likely to say, "Give me a dozen blue pleated skirts in medium." However, when picking the order, the pick list will direct the warehouseman to go to location G120 and pick twelve of item 324B.

The software must be able to generate and handle an inordinate large number of stock keeping units (SKU). A man's button-down, long sleeve, Oxford shirt that comes in five colors could easily generate 300 distinct, pickable items (shirt x color x collar size x sleeve length). When you add such variations as plain collars, Egyptian cotton fabric, and French cuffs, the number of items expands geometrically and, even for very small suppliers, can easily exceed several thousands. And who said that women were the fashion plates of the species? A corollary to this challenge is that orders tend to be huge in terms of line entries and numbers.

Being at the beck and call and within easy reach of the consumers, the software must be able to accommodate and service a large number of stores, be it their own or those of a retailer. The only constant in the fashion industry is change, namely nothing stays the same. When compounded by the short life cycles of products, even shorter lead times for materials, and extended and complex supply chains, software catering to the fashion industry must be adaptive and serve to the needs of a three-headed master: suppliers, retailers, and consumers.

For software developers these challenges translate into features that must be incorporated in the design of the enterprise application. A common feature is the generation of item numbers based on a standard distribution of size and color ratios. For example, men and women shirts are sold in standard size and color combinations. To handle the challenge of the large number of SKUs a typical software feature is to automatically generate item master entries for this standard distribution. Figure 1 below translates this and other challenges into common features that must be included in the software design of any respectable application for the fashion industry.