DTech: Infor Fashion ERP

PROJECTS

INFOR - FASHION ERP

A laptop displaying Infor Cloud Suite, a business software.

We modified an existing cloud based mid-market platform to serve Small and Medium businesses (sMB's) in Fashion industries

The Infor Cloud Suite Industrial platform is an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. This business process management software has set out to optimize how Infor's applications solve problems for the fashion industry.

Opportunity

Emerging designers represent an important sector of the fashion industry. These are SMB's that face considerable challenges as they grow – yet they make up a considerable part of the market.
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Existing software solutions for operating small fashion businesses are inefficient for this audience. SMB's are challenged to scale the software to fit their smaller infrastructure.

Current solutions are designed for large companies, expensive, and not responsive enough for young, agile designers.

Problem

Many SMB's launch using point solutions. As tools are needed, function specific software is acquired, i.e., accounting, e-commerce and inventory.

As SMB's grow, they realize their existing repertoire of tools has functional gaps. The short term solution becomes manual work arounds.

With the realization that work-arounds are not sustainable long term, SMB's search for an efficient, durable, and flexible platform that can be integrated into their workflow.

Approach

The case study involved working with an emerging shoe designer, Noah Waxman, whose omni channel business model includes product design, manufacturing, wholesale, retail, and online.
With product fulfillment based in a New Jersey distribution center, company sales flow from a consumer base that is both domestic and international.

The intention is to customize Infor Cloud Suite Industrial (CSI) with transactional fashion attributes.

The company was a microcosm of the fashion industry.
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The modified UI fields, created by the student team.

Our Solution

Rather than trying to scale a small business tool to meet the needs of the SMB market or introducing an expensive, unrealistic solution, we sought to modify CSI to meet the requirements of fashion apparel industry:
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Season

Style

Color

Size

Materials

Accomplishments

The team solved multiple software application gaps:
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(body, upper, sole, heel height, material, origin & category)
Identified need for non-transactional attributes

ResearchED business systems used by the SMB Fashion/Apparel market

‍Studied fashion apparel companies that may benefit from the case study findings

Created systematic complexities representing the physical product movements

Processed transactions through the critical lifecycle stages from seasonal item creation to final sale

Learned the basics of UI Form modification

Populated basic data for standard accounting practiCes

The students created tutorial videos for basic processes on the platform:

TEam MEmbers

Infor
Michael Marsolo
Senior Software Engineer

FIT Faculty
Neil Hicks

FIT Fashion Design Participants
Derek Knodt

FIT Production Management Participants
Alan Thomas
Andrea Billings
Dakota Reilly
Ye (Jocelyn) Yang

FIT User Experience Design Participants
Julian Catasus y Brueggemann
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