Impact of 3D Design on new product development process in the clothing industry

: the case of Cordeiro Campos

Abstract

The global fashion industry is facing demanding needs submitted to fast evolving trends, where innovative and upgraded solutions are essential to increase capacity of response. In order to satisfy this challenging industry, firms ought to look at their current new product development processes and analyze the prospect of implementing new solutions to keep up the pace of the industry. These solutions go from reducing design times, having fast times to market, improving quality to reducing the development cost. This work embraces the case of 3D design, a recent technology here applied in the clothing industry, which helps companies to meet the challenges posed by the market in terms of new development processes. The study takes the case of Cordeiro Campos, a SME which works as a subcontractor manufacturer for large luxury companies and represents one of the few companies in the world that has integrated 3D design in its structure. In that sense, this firm suits perfectly well the aim of this study, since its purpose is to understand the payoff of using 3D design in the new product development process in terms of the most relevant attributes in the development of products in clothing industry. After an in-depth review of the literature related to both NPD and 3D design, an analysis supported by interviews was conducted to two different perspectives: (1) Cordeiro Campos, the company which employs 3D design and (2) Lectra, the firm that provides this design solution.

Date of Award	2014
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Céline Abecassis-Moedas (Supervisor)