If your in NYC for this weeks Apparel PI, you are in for a treat. If you are anything like me, and you love to see something really innovative and its not VR (sorry not into virtual reality - at least not yet ;)) then the folks at Wink Software will be giving you what you want. 

We all have heard about Artificial Intelligence / alternatively referred to as machine learning - but  how does this help the handbag or apparel designer, Fabric R&D and sourcing specialist ? I have been researching how it can address time saving and automation in the "1st mile" of the product commercialization process - where opportunities exist to speed the time to market.

With the advent of foundational tools in the digital arena such as GPS location, Mobile Phones, and newer graph databases there now exists a real opportunity to introduce intelligence along with automation to the social product creation narrative. This is different than a traditional enterprise PLM approach that utilizes a relational database. I'll skip the technical deep dive to simply say - this type of user experience just isn't there in the relational database model.

Use Cases:

1. "I want to take a picture of a fabric and have the platform automatically tag it with appropriate attributes such as "Gingham, Plaid, Stripes" as well as break down the color

2. " I want to photograph a Print and have the platform automatically suggest the closest Pantone colors."

3. "take a mobile photograph of a physical fabric swatch and have the platform recommend a like or similar 2D or 3D fabric that already exists in the fabric library" - This is hot item as many companies who have been fortunate to go live with PLM commonly struggle with lots of duplicate Fabrics that have little value and re-use - because it actually takes longer to search and find the existing fabric than it takes to create a new fabric.

4. From an Inspirational photo have the platform recommend similar styles that match the photo and present the appropriate information such as the region, factory, and costs related to that item.  Lastly, it can also recommend a similar list or Bill of Material for that item.

These are just some of the use cases that can have a transformational result on reducing the mouse-clicks, time and accuracy - it takes to communicate with internal and external teams with product creation. At its core, the more you "Teach" it the smarter, faster and better it gets - so you can focus on being more innovative.

Technologies that not only reduce the friction between analog and digital but also add automation and help better the flow of ideas to radically transform product creation are what we need to experience and understand for our selves and our teams.

Contact us to experience how this platform and approach can help fill in the gaps or perhaps step up to a more simple, collaborative and integrated method of innovative digital product creation.