Paris, June 20, 2006 – Lectra, the world leader in software, CAD/CAM equipment and related services dedicated to the fashion businesses, presented its complete, innovative offering for design, development, production, and  product lifecycle management at its 1,000 square-meter stand at the 2006 IMB show.

This international event held May 10-13 in Cologne, Germany, drew 25,000 visitors from 115 countries who discovered the latest technological advances of the fashion sector.

The Lectra offering is the result of more than 30 years of experience in the fashion market and a deep understanding of fashion processes. It responds to the challenges of fashion-sector professionals by enabling them to anticipate changes, manage the collections development cycle, create and develop products, and optimize production.

Today’s fashion companies face major challenges, including the multiplication of product lines and the expanding number and geographical dispersal of the various players involved in collections development

Specifically developed for the fashion markets, Lectra’s PLM offering allows companies to shorten lead times and reduce costs associated with the conception of products in a context of permanently renewing collections. Providing continuous decision-making support, it rationalizes and improves the reliability of product development processes, and assures the synchronization and traceability of information flows. In addition, it optimizes the collaborative modes used between contractors and suppliers.

At the IMB Forum, Pascal Denizart, Lectra’s PLM Director, explained how companies can use product lifecycle management to boost performance and profitability. “The adoption of PLM allows fashion companies to improve their collections development processes, synchronize their resources and workflows, develop products in real time, and improve and guarantee quality.”

With constant acceleration of collections and more frequent personalization of models, fashion professionals just overcome new challenges while guaranteeing the quality of product design and development processes.

Lectra propose complete, innovative, world-renowned solutions to manage textile design, to create collections, to preserve color integrity, and to rapidly manufacture all types of garment patterns.

The fruit of eight years of development – and previewed at the 2006 IMB – Lectra’s 3D virtual prototyping solution will enable fashion companies to shorten lead times and reduce development costs while facilitating collaborative work and decision making between all involved participants. Associating 2D patterns, fabric information and 3D virtual models, this solution will enable simulation and validation of styles, fabrics, motifs and color ranges; it will allow pattern designers to check garment fit in various fabrics and sizes. Furthermore, it will reduce the time and cost of product specification and validation processes by reducing the number of physical prototypes required.

Optimizing raw materials and the usage of resources and technology equipment in function of productivity and quality constraints, reducing costs, assuring process flexibility and the mastery of manufacturing order transmissions are among the major challenges faced by fashion-sector industrialists. In response to their needs, Lectra proposes a global CAD/CAM offering with material management solutions (marker making, in particular) and cutting-room management solutions for small- and large-series production. 

Pierre-Michel Richer, Lectra’s Cutting Room Marketing Manager, delivered an address at the IMB 2006 entitled “Manufacturing in a constantly changing environment: winning strategies and key factors for success,” highlighting the importance for players from this sector to evolve from large-scale production to more flexible high volume production.

“Brands need to develop ways to distinguish themselves, and manufacturers need to achieve higher levels of productivity, flexibility and quality,” said Lectra CEO, Daniel Harari. “I am convinced that technology is a key factor for stimulating the entire fashion sector. Whether our customers are brands, retailers or manufacturers, Lectra technology simplifies and accelerates all of their processes.”