Although fashion thrives on the thrill of color, color development frequently remains an analog process. This makes the road from design to color approval very long and can often lead to substandard results. And this is precisely where Natific AG comes in. With smart software solutions and professional services, Natific helps customers digitalize their final color results, shortening development cycles by four to six weeks, improving color quality – and making sure the thrill of color doesn’t become overwhelming.

Carol T. Revels, Sr. Manager of Color & Fabric Operations at Lands’ End in Dodgeville/Wisconsin:

“As part of Global Sourcing, our Color team manages the color approval process. In the past, the management consisted of a manual process of emails, spreadsheets, and data re-entry across disconnected systems. In partnering with Natific, we have a centralized and integrated color management solution to communicate with our suppliers and internal cross-functional partners. The efficiency gains allowed the business to scale up product offerings to our customers, meaning increased color development, with no increase in headcount and no decrease in color quality.”

Christoph Bergmann, responsible for Sales/Marketing as well as Senior Partner at Natific AG:

“The fashion industry is extensively digitalizing product development, significantly shortening lead times and reducing costs long term. But it often neglects the color development process along the way, and that can be a critical mistake. The traditional color approval process is quite laborious. Time gained from other digital efficiencies is quickly lost – and unforeseeable color differences between original samples and production are a common occurrence. Digitalization means more than just defining a digital Pantone or CSI standard for a supplier. With our software and our years of dye house know-how, the textile industry gets precisely the colors it specifies, avoiding compromises caused by lack of time. This is also the message we’ve embodied in our slogan: Let’s make your color right!”

Natific Color Warehouse – Real-time control systems

To provide customers with an app for comparing color results across dye houses, Natific developed its Color Warehouse. On the market since 2008, this smart B2B software solution, integrated in textile companies’ production processes, ensures high color precision within the specified color scheme and reproducible color results in production for both brands and suppliers. All color-related data from the supplier network are transferred to a cloud-based system for central information management and handling all color matches and approvals in real time. Users no longer need to send physical color samples or make analog comparisons. What is more, there are fewer surprises when colors are off or metamerism occurs. A dye house can actually approve colors itself if they are within the specified tolerances and have been accurately captured. The prerequisite is that all participants have aligned their digital standards. Once this is achieved, key performance indicators (KPIs) can be compared across different sites, services tracked and monitored, and quality issues minimized. Development cycles are demonstrably shortened by four to six weeks while color quality is optimized.

Beyond continuous production monitoring, the system further promotes strategic supply chain development. Indicators help identify key performers and facilitate decisions for optimizing the supply chain.

ASAP – the job analysis tool for generation 2.0 color managers

Another leading product from Natific AG is ASAP, a B2B platform for digital and analog color development helping dye houses achieve the greatest possible color accuracy. Suppliers create prototype colors for approval by customers. Based on customer-defined color standards and color samples, the system determines key indicators for digital and analog color matching as well as for evaluating a supplier’s color quality and delivery performance. This gives retailers and brands reliable information about whether and by when a given dye house can prepare a desired colorway, print or blend. Suppliers on the other hand can, after initial validation, optimize their formulas to completely eliminate protracted coordination processes down to the color lab and to enable digital color approvals. In short, ASAP tells customers very clearly whether and how accurately a supplier can produce a given dye for a given material.

Fully integrated for precise color results

In contrast to traditional platforms that solely provide digital color data to suppliers, ASAP works in both ways, enabling an interactive exchange between companies and their suppliers. The platform’s ability to seamlessly integrate into existing IT infrastructures, such as Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) or Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), ensures smooth communications, reducing coordination to a minimum and eliminating traditional data management based on Excel sheets. Provided as a service (SaaS), ASAP is the perfect way for textile and clothing companies to start digitizing ‘their’ colors.