Holistic Approach to Color Management Software for the Retail, Fashion, Apparel, and Footwear Industries

Color Lifecycle Management

Color Lifecycle Management™ (CLM) represents a brand new paradigm in the management of colors for fashion and footwear products. Color is one of the key decision making criterion when consumers select products to purchase. Traditionally, enterprise solutions such as ERP and PLM treat color as a simple attribute of a product. These systems do not provide the management or scientific tools to ensure that a selected color is what will be delivered. DeSL’s color management software solution resolves this issue, enabling real time communication of color concept and specification, between brand, agent, and mill.

Benefits

Reduced Time to Market

Unnecessary rounds of lap dips are eliminated by using a single source of accurate color standards. The objective scientific reading provides clear feedback to suppliers to improve their process to achieve the color requested.

Consistency of Color Between Applications

Color no longer has to operate outside of design and development due to the ability to export color palettes to 2D and 3D tools. Passing accurate color files to downstream processes allows accurate representation when visualizing products.

Transparency and Increased Insight

Real-time feedback is provided to suppliers to correct their dyeing and coloring processes. Detailed reports provide transparency for both sides by ruling out subjectivity to the approval process.

Environmental Sustainability

Going to digital color approvals reduces the need for physical samples, lessening the often-costly packages creating waste and carbon emissions associated with transportation.

Printer Optimization

Seamless integration through color reading with spectrophotometers allows for color accuracy when printing CADs for design and for digital prodution printing, including sublimation.

Color Lifecycle Management

Living Color: The Case for a New Approach to Color Management Software

Read the cobranded whitepaper with The Interline, written to educate and provide a solution to color accuracy throughout the lifecycle process.

The Process

The Process

Build – Create color libraries by importing qtx files from your color standard provider or measuring fabric samples with a spectrophotometer. Seasonal color collections can be created by pulling colors from libraries or creating new colors from trend images.

Share – Color libraries and palettes can be shared across the enterprise for use within PLM and 2D and 3D design applications, creating consistency in downstream processes

Request – Using the web portal collaborate, create and manage requests for development (lab dips) by sharing specifications, scientific color requirements, and timelines keeping your agents, vendors, and mills on time and up to date.

Approve – Vendors can measure their lab dips and strike-offs by using spectrophotometers. This gives the ability to provide accurate color measurement against the requested standard. Our intelligent system can generate corrective comments based on spectral values and pass/fail results based on tolerances, giving non-biased information for brand approval.

Summary

Digitalization of color management enables team to no longer be subjective in the color approval process. Utilizing digital color standards and putting in place tolerances allows team to communicate based on scientific data and eliminates unacceptable submissions before samples are dyed. With increased need to be first to market Color Lifecycle Management meets that need by leading to greater efficiency and improved quality for color.

Demo DeSL’s Color Management Software

To learn more about DeSL’s Color Lifecycle Management for the retail, fashion, apparel, and footwear industries, request a demo with a DeSL representative.