3D Design - Module 7 - Understanding Solutions

Hello and welcome to Module 7. Here we're going to talk about understanding the solutions. As we take a look at understanding the solutions, we want to make sure that we are picking the right solution or solutions for our organization. And we also want to talk here about getting the most out of your product demo. And we can take a look at how many solutions there are available on the market. And it is important to note that depending on what your implementation looks like, and where you want to use 3D, there isn't necessarily going to be just one solution that works best for your implementation. You may have different needs in the design department than you have in the fit department. You may have people who are already skilled in certain software products in this department versus that department. Uh, make sure those considerations do have weight when you're making a decision about which solution to go with. Again, it's not necessarily a situation where you have to pick just one solution. If you have people who are able to work effectively in this solution, in that department, in another, in another department, it's not a bad thing. It's a great thing because it gets you where you're looking to go. That's one of the wonderful things about living in this point in time where we do have so many options available to us. So when you start to engage solution providers, you want to do this in phases. So before you start to make a decision or narrow the field, make sure you've properly assessed what's available. Uh, take a look at as many solutions as you can because you never know which one is really going to have the best configuration for your goals. After you make your initial assessments, now you want to bring your team in to review what you learned about the solutions out there, to discuss and make sure you hear out every member of your team that you expect to bring along on your 3D journey, and even some external members of the operation. You know, so maybe it's not just the people in the design department or not just the people in the fit department, But let's talk to other people so that we can make sure we're making a decision that we'll be able to get the most benefit out of. Once you've done your review and your discussion, then it's time to plan. In this phase, you can go ahead and make a, a narrower playing field for the solutions that you will continue to speak with about your implementation. And once you've made that plan, identify your best options and it's time to move forward. Alright, so when we break down the different steps in figuring out who's gonna be the best solution provider for you, again, we wanna start with assessing the territory. So here are some ways to do that. One of the best ways to make an, an in-depth assessment of the solutions available is to find an opportunity where those solutions will be available to your team in one space. This is something that the, uh, PI team does very well. And trust me, at the PI events, the solution providers would love to have an audience with you. Nothing is more important to them than showing you what they can do for you. So networking at a PI event is a great place to bring your team and to get on-the-spot demos of different products, talk with the solution providers. Very often they will have several different tiers of people from their organization there. This is great if you bring people from different tiers of your own organization. You can sort of speak short-term, long-term, and get a sense of the overall culture of the solution providers, 'cause they're all different. Each solution provider has different strengths and weaknesses. You wanna make sure you align their strengths with your goals. So after you've made an assessment of where you are and where you wanna go, uh, these are things that you wanna have in mind when you start to align the strengths of your solution provider to your implementation and your organization. As you're making your assessments, be open. Allow the solution providers to show you areas that maybe are outside the scope of what you were looking for originally, but these types of things can spark excitement in some of the team members that get to see it, and also provide new ideas. Picking up new ideas and figuring out new ways to do something is always great. In addition to features and functions, consider other factors. User interface, user experience, and access to training options will make a big difference in your implementation. You wanna make sure your users are gonna be comfortable with the user interface and the user experience. And have access to the training that they need or want. As you're evaluating the software solutions, make sure you also give consideration to the updates in the release schedule. As I've mentioned before, there are new advancements happening constantly in the 3D space, and that's great, but we wanna make sure that we can update in a cadence that's going to make sure our users have the most up-to-date features as they are being released. It's never as exciting when you're getting new updates and you're a year behind. It also makes you a little less able to adapt and pick up the new features easily. You know, eventually you end up in a situation where the software has gotten so far ahead of your users that, you know, it gets to be more comfortable just to stay behind, and we don't want that. When you're looking at the release schedule and the upgrades, as they come out, make sure you're also speaking with your IT team to make sure that the updates are something that's easy for them to implement for your organization and isn't going to cause any hiccups on that side. So work with your friends in IT. Review and discuss your available options with your team members and stakeholders. You're gonna wanna compare and contrast the different solutions and figure out which one is gonna be the best fit for your organization. Based on what you've learned about your organization and the solution providers, you should be in the position to make the best decision. As you're evaluating the software solutions, make sure you are always considering your short-term and your long-term goals. In an industry that's changing so fast, it's so easy to get caught in the short term when you're making your considerations about your 3D partners. You wanna make sure that they can do what you need them to do today, but you also have to look at your long term to make sure your transformation is a sustainable one. Before you narrow the field completely and decide to move forward with a smaller set of solution providers, make sure you continue your engagement and your dialogue with those providers. In that time that you're trying to weigh out your options, it's great to take a look at what is available from the solution provider. What kind of interaction are they having with their user community? This is something that's great to understand and great to see how your users can stay involved with their solution provider. Outside of any training that you may offer on-site. In addition to looking at what the solution providers have in terms of engagement, you also wanna look at some of the other users in the field. Now is a great time to connect with others on LinkedIn. Uh, there are great Instagram accounts that I'll tell you about a little bit later, uh, of people who just love 3D and are using 3D, and these are great people to communicate with as well for your users. And some of those users may become members of your organization in the future. So definitely take a look at what the solution providers have and take a look at what other users are doing. After assessing the solutions and having further review, it's time to pick your top contenders. After you've narrowed the field, create a project that you can use in your demos to level the playing field for your contenders. You want to get a great snapshot of what their solution looks like in your environment. This is the best way to make sure the solution is going to meet your needs and deliver on their promise. One of the best examples I've seen is actually having the solution provider take some of your data in its rawest form and put it together in front of you. This gives you a great idea of how long it will take you to create certain styles with proficiency. Naturally, when you first start out on your implementation, your skills will not be as demo-ready as they will be at your solution provider. But this is a great way to pull down the curtain and make sure the product is going to do what you need it to do. Another example of what this could look like is starting with a design memo, having some components that you want to put together in a 3D simulation to see how long that will take your designers. At the end of the day, the goal is to make sure you see exactly how that solution will function for your users. One of the methods that I don't recommend as a basis for your decision is providing data and images ahead of time, uh, and then seeing the end result without knowing how they got it. When you're doing a 3D demo, it's very, very easy to take pictures of a finished garment and the patterns for that garment and create something that looks pretty one-to-one, but If you're in a situation where you want your 3D to be predictive and show you what the garment will look like, it's important to understand what the predictive-culottes functionality of the software solution is. And you don't want to figure that out by showing your solution provider at the demo what the end result looks like. This is a great way to vet options and a great way to see, again, if the solution is going to deliver on its promises. As you have the solution provider walk through some of the functions you wanna perform in their software, make sure you have your stakeholders and your team members there to see as well. They will see things that you won't because again, this is a part of their day-to-day job, right? Especially if you're gonna ask them to do this function as well, it's great to let them see what it looks like. All right, that's Module 7. Next, in Module 8, we'll take a look at some of the success factors that will really help you rock your implementation.