Alludo > Case Studies > Streamlining Apparel Design and Development with CorelDRAW: A Sierra Designs Case Study

Streamlining Apparel Design and Development with CorelDRAW: A Sierra Designs Case Study

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Technology Category
  • Functional Applications - Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES)
Applicable Industries
  • Apparel
  • Retail
Applicable Functions
  • Facility Management
  • Product Research & Development
Use Cases
  • Additive Manufacturing
  • Manufacturing Process Simulation
Services
  • Hardware Design & Engineering Services
  • Testing & Certification
About The Customer
Sierra Designs got its start in San Fransisco in 1965 as a manufacturer of outdoor equipment and personal apparel. Sierra Designs Canada was founded in 1982 as an exclusive Canadian licensee of the brand. Currently based in Brampton Ontario, the company also operates a manufacturing facility in Foymount, Ontario. The company deals with some of the most powerful retail partners in the world and depends on partnerships with contract manufacturers overseas in Asia for its apparel division.
The Challenge
Sierra Designs, a manufacturer of outdoor equipment and personal apparel, faced challenges in streamlining its apparel-design process from initial conception through manufacturing. The evolution of the outdoor-apparel industry and the corporate success of Sierra Designs have both produced challenges for the company. Fashion-savvy consumers and an increasingly competitive marketplace demand increasingly greater flexibility and creativity from the Sierra Designs team. The company also deals with powerful retail partners that expect nothing short of the absolute best in terms of quality and on-time delivery. In addition to its domestic manufacturing facility, Sierra Designs' apparel division depends on partnerships with contract manufacturers overseas in Asia. Design, for the Sierra team, has therefore become a complex process in which clear communication at every stage is critical to success.
The Solution
Sierra Designs has been using CorelDRAW Graphics Suite to streamline its design process. CorelDRAW's versatility and flexibility provide greater design freedom and improve the ability to communicate with manufacturers for faster, more accurate production. CorelDRAW's handling of color has evolved along with Sierra Designs' design requirements. The interoperability of CorelDRAW allows the team to add plug-ins such as Pantone color queues to increase their options. CorelDRAW also has the flexibility to make adjustments easily. The greatest advantage Sierra Designs has gained by using CorelDRAW, however, has to do with the specification packages it creates to support the manufacturing process. Sierra Designs uses CorelDRAW to map out its plans at the beginning of each new design season, preserving the entire trail of iterations and maintaining a complete record of the evolution of each design.
Operational Impact
  • The use of CorelDRAW has significantly improved the design process at Sierra Designs. The software's versatility and flexibility have provided greater design freedom and improved the ability to communicate with manufacturers for faster, more accurate production. The ability to build comprehensive spec packages has proven invaluable when working with manufacturers on the other side of the world. The renderings that the team creates in CorelDRAW are so detailed and of such high quality that they actually reduce the number of iterations required to create a finished garment. This has resulted in important time- and cost-saving gains in efficiency. Furthermore, CorelDRAW files are extremely portable and can be converted into other formats, allowing images used in the design process to be reused in other areas such as the company's website or promotional workbooks.
Quantitative Benefit
  • CorelDRAW cuts the time it takes to progress from one iteration to the next by 20 to 25 percent in the prototyping process.
  • The high-quality renderings created in CorelDRAW reduce the number of iterations required to create a finished garment, leading to significant time and cost savings.

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