PLM and Big Data Driven Product Design

One of the most interesting trends to watch these days is big data. It started few years ago and I can see different dynamics related to usage and value proposition of big data. It certainly started as a technology that revolutionized the way we can capture and process large amount of data. This is where everybody get into Hadoop. However, to have a possibility to process data is just a beginning. What and how can we get value of this data? How can we efficiently use this data for decision processes? These are the most important questions on the table of data scientists, data architects, IT managers and software vendors.

I touched big data topics on my blog several time before. In one of my earlier posts – Will PLM vendors dig into Big Data? two years ago, I discussed big data opportunity and adoption rate in different industries. However, in many situations, I’ve seen vendors are approaching big data in a too wide and abstract way. It sounds like “just collect data and see the magic”. Take a look on my writeup for more details – Why PLM cannot adopt Big Data now?

I’ve been tying to come with more specific examples of how companies can use data. My attention caught by smart data collective  article – Data Driven Lingerie few days ago. It speaks about company True&Co, which is focusing on design and e-commerce lingerie based on absolutely incredible data driven approach. Here is a short passage from article, which explains that:

True & co is an interesting company that combines data and design to create an opportunity for consumers to share data with the company, thereby improving the appropriateness of the product to the customer. True & co claims to be the first company to fit women into their favourite bra with a fit quiz – no fitting rooms, no measuring tape, no photos. The data they collect allows them to match the customer to over 6000 body types on their database. 

I recommend you to spend 12 minutes of your time and watch True&Co CEO Michelle Lam speaks about data driven product experience.

I found very interesting to see how True&C use data not only to empower e-commerce experience, but actually design products with a specific requirements. It is fascinating example of how specific data collected from millions of customers can be used to classify product requirements, distinguish product configurations and optimize supply chain.

Product configuration is a very complex field. Traditional PLM implementations typically demonstrating aerospace and automotive industries to describe the complexity of configurations. It is unusual and interesting to see 6000 product configurations of bras tailored to specific customer requirements. This is a very unique experience and good example of specific big data applications.

What is my conclusion? With growing interest in product customization, we are going to see requirements to manage product configurations everywhere. Sometimes it is driven by personalization and sometimes it is driven by diverse set of customer requirements. The example of True&Co is maybe unique these days. However, I think, the trend is towards empower designers and manufacturing companies with data insight to develop better product. Big data can help companies to create a unique product experience, to design better products and optimize resources. This is a future as I can see today. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg