Lacoste Turkey uses PolyOrganize PLM to consolidate information and automate integration and reporting
In this interview, we spoke with Eren’s Burak Ilgaz, General Manager and Alize Toklu, Design Manager, on how Eren and Polytropon worked together to optimize Eren’s processes.
Before we dive in, here’s a bit of history on the connection between Lacoste, Eren Holding and Devanlay-Eren!
1933, Lacoste
The story of the Lacoste clothing brand goes back to 1933, when it was created by the champion tennis player René Lacoste, nicknamed the Crocodile, and André Gillier, the owner of France’s then largest knitwear firm. The firm began by producing its revolutionary tennis shirt with the crocodile logo embroidered on the chest.
1969, Eren Holding
Eren Holding started its life in the textile industry in 1969.
1991, Devanlay-Eren
Devanlay-Eren was established in 1991 as a partnership between the French textile company Devanlay SA (the then worldwide exclusive licensee of the Lacoste brand) and Eren Holding. It has since been the exclusive licensed manufacturer of Lacoste products in Turkey. Important products in the Lacoste line are produced using advanced technologies in Devanlay-Eren’s facility in Çorlu where the group runs their integrated production from cotton to fabric to clothing. The products are sold in Turkey and abroad through its retail network of self-owned and franchisee stores.
Eren’s General Manager Burak Ilgaz spoke with us about some of the challenges the company faced before they started using PolyOrganize PLM software, why they chose PolyOrganize, and what has changed.
“The groups in France and Turkey are working in close cooperation in product design. We tried to keep the process under control with good communications, but everyone was using his own system and method for filing and tracking. Reports, presentations, story boards, and analysis of collection performance were all created in an ad-hoc manner, with images, data, and feedback collected in a manual way. The process was time consuming and error-prone. We sought a system to make this process more organized, transparent, collaborative, and systematic.
Having already partnered with Polytropon using their PolyPattern CAD software, we took a serious look at their PolyOrganize PLM software. We began using PolyOrganize five years ago and have never looked back. Because of the way PolyOrganize is designed, getting started was super easy, including integration with our other enterprise systems.”
Getting started was super easy
“We now use PolyOrganize extensively on the collection side - tracking style development, managing materials and specifications, and evaluating the collection status and performance. PolyOrganize integrates all the information developed in both France and Turkey so that everything is easily accessible to everyone.”
“Our design teams became more organized and coherent because PolyOrganize works with other programs we use in design. All documents, product boards, product booklets and reports, which we previously prepared with a variety of methods, are now systematically managed through the software. In addition, with all the data visible to our data analysis and planning departments, we can efficiently follow our targets without any hassle.
Lacoste is committed to designing products that combine innovation, quality, and elegance. Polytropon has become a valuable solution partner that helps us with many services including process development and management in our company”
Eren’s Design Manager Alize Toklu also spoke with us about how her team uses PolyOrganize in their daily workflow, how PolyOrganize is delivering the solutions in difficult scenarios, and the benefit of having a PLM system.
“At the beginning of the collection, we roughly spec our designs in PolyOrganize and form the first technical specs. With these specs our suppliers begin to put our collection into process. Later on we refine the details, for example in color and composition.
As a design manager at an international brand, I’m responsible not only for the collection creation, I am also managing the information flow and collecting comments from different countries. This can sometimes be an elaborate and painstaking process. To consolidate and be efficient, we need consistent presentation and reports where the information is clear and understandable.”
Polytropon is a wonderful solution partner.
“Being able to create detailed reports and retrieve information is an important advantage for us. For instance, before PolyOrganize we were preparing the spec sheets for a 300-400 piece collection for 5 countries (approximately 2000 pieces) by hand. Now, with reports that we design, all the sample specs are generated automatically from PolyOrganize. I can’t tell you how easy it is! Similarly, there is an excel table that we have to prepare for France. Last year we prepared this report by hand last year but this season with a report, we retrieve the required information directly from PolyOrganize.”
These solutions are lifesaving given our intense working pace.
“Apart from one designer, none of us in the team had any experience with a PLM system before. Still, learning was very fast and easy.”
image credit: lacoste.com
“Thanks to PolyOrganize, we can archive all our collection information in a way that all departments can easily reach. When I need to answer who is the producer of this polo from SS18 season, that information is one click away. We are working in a brand, where we have to set standards in design. That’s why having a platform where all style related information are ready to access is essential to our work. We are using a variety of customized views and reports in the design, planning, and sales phases.”
Fun Fact: Two LACOSTE products are sold every second.
Whenever we have something on our mind, we work with the PolyOrganize team. They are always ready to support us. This gives us confidence.
“Each department here at Eren benefits from PolyOrganize and this shows us that the system is managing a lot of details needed throughout our enterprise. Now we are planning to use the information in PolyOrganize in our e-commerce platform and we are very excited about this.”
We would like to thank Burak Ilgaz and Alize Toklu from Eren for helping us understand how they work with Polytropon’s software. If you also want to optimize your process get in touch and we will gladly demo our products for you.
Posted by the Polytropon team