PTC to Demonstrate Its Retail Innovation Platform and the Transformation of Retail with the Internet of Things at NRF 2018

PTC (NASDAQ: PTC) announced it will feature its Retail Innovation Platform, an end-to-end technology platform designed to enable retailers and brand owners to overcome today’s market pressures, including the need for fast fashion, the ability to service the digital consumer, the need to keep costs under control, and the ability to manage complex supply chains with agility, in booth #4463 at the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) annual event, Retail’s BIG Show.

To better meet the evolving and demanding needs of the retail industry, several retail technology innovations and solutions from PTC are being fully integrated into a single, connected platform. The Retail Innovation Platform from PTC will enable retailers to design and develop products faster and better, overcome global supply chain complexities with end-to-end transparency, and deliver a connected store experience to improve consumer engagement.

“The potential impact of the IoT is no longer a secret. At PTC, we recognized this from the beginning and are bringing our solutions and technologies together to further enable retailers and brand owners to transform how they operate and compete, starting with design through to the in-store experience,” said Eric Symon, vice president and general manager, PTC Retail Business Unit. “We are excited to show the industry at such a significant retail event just how powerful this technology can be.”

IoT Is at the Heart of First-Of-Its-Kind Connected Store

PTC and several technology partners, including Deloitte, piloted a fully smart, connected store with Legend World Wide, located in Belgrade, Serbia. Impinj, Monolith, and NCR each provide a unique set of in-store data, which is then centralized into PTC’s ThingWorx^® Industrial Innovation Platform and presented in a series of dashboards that provide actionable insights.

“Digital channels are re-defining the purpose of today’s store. We are exploring the promise of IoT with stores like Legend and experimenting with smart technology to capture data and generate insights,” said Victor Hoong, partner, Deloitte Digital. “We joined forces with PTC, Monolith, Impinj, and NCR Corporation, combining our capabilities to connect stores and gain practical learnings that we can share with our customers and the retail community.”

Retailers, including Legend, can leverage analytics to enable them to optimize inventory levels and understand customer traffic to optimize product assortments based on personas. Additionally, ThingWorx allows retailers to improve the in-store experience by understanding traffic patterns to optimize store layout and better predicting in store staffing needs. Centrally, ThingWorx enables users to monitor the health of the devices in the store.

Visual and Collaborative Design with FlexPLM Canvas

To enable brands and retailers to deliver on-trend products to market on-time and on-budget, PTC offers the FlexPLM^® Canvas app, a visually-stunning digital concept board app that enables designers and developers to easily capture inspirations, concepts, trends, requirements, and feedback in one place.

Users can drop in images and video, text, documents (PDF, Adobe^® Illustrator^®, Adobe^® Photoshop^®, Microsoft^® Word, PowerPoint^®, Excel^®), and color swatches, as well as leverage built-in links to leading social media sites to capture up-to-the-minute trends, imagery, and the voice of the customer.

The tool enables teams to share ideas internally and externally, while rapidly iterating on them to help teams understand design direction early in the development cycle. Finalized inspirations can be integrated into FlexPLM to kick start product development and enable users to gain deeper insights and visibility into sourcing processes. FlexPLM Canvas enables brands and retailers to shorten cycle time by easily transforming ideas into real products.

Introducing ThingWorx Augmented Reality (AR) Apps for the Retail Industry

As a leader in both the Internet of Things (IoT) and augmented reality (AR), PTC is excited to bring both technologies to the retail industry with the announcement of its new AR apps. These apps will combine the capabilities of iOS 11 and ARKit – a new framework that enables unparalleled augmented reality experiences for iPhone and iPad – with ThingWorx to enable retailers and brand owners to transform how they design, develop, and sell their products. These apps will be made for iOS, and this mobile-led retail transformation will enable users to redefine the customer experience and allow retailers to do even more with iPhone and iPad.

The retail AR apps will enable retailers and brand owners to access FlexPLM and other enterprise systems in real-time to support a variety of internal and customer-facing processes:

• Line Review App will enhance how users review a product line by combining critical product data, such as unit cost and margin, with high-fidelity 3D models augmented into a user’s physical space. The app will enable merchandisers and other stakeholders to review a product line’s viability and capture feedback and execute adjustments from the convenience of an iPad.
• Material Lookup App will enable users to accelerate the material development and sourcing processes by using image recognition to identify materials, prints, and patterns and providing crucial information, such as supplier, cost, and lead time to the end user.

PTC’s Retail Innovation Platform and AR technologies will also enable retailers and brands to improve the consumer’s product buying experience. With PTC’s focus on the iOS platform and ecosystem, both retailers and consumers will be able to experience the power of AR quickly and easily with iOS. This platform can combine rich, high-quality 3D models with product information, enabling consumers to make informed buying decisions when shopping online or in stores when physical products aren’t always on-hand for review.

“Augmented reality, when coupled with product design data, can transform the way products are developed,” said Quach Hai, senior director of product management, PTC Retail Business Unit. “Stakeholders, including merchandisers and designers, can use AR to get a feel for what a product will look like during its development. This empowers them to make better aesthetic and financial decisions. The support for AR on the iPad and iPhone is powerful and convenient for these kinds of use cases.”

Additional Resources

• Deloitte article: “Transforming store fleet through technology (2018)”
• FlexPLM resource page
• On the Runway: Retail Apparel Software Blog
• Harvard Business Review: “Why Every Organization Needs an AR Strategy,” authored by PTC CEO Jim Heppelmann and Harvard Professor Michael Porter 

About PTC (NASDAQ: PTC)

PTC has the most robust Internet of Things technology in the world. In 1986 we revolutionized digital 3D design, and in 1998 were first to market with Internet-based PLM. Now our leading IoT and AR platform and field-proven solutions bring together the physical and digital worlds to reinvent the way you create, operate, and service products. With PTC, global manufacturers and an ecosystem of partners and developers can capitalize on the promise of the IoT today and drive the future of innovation.

The timing of any product release, including any features or functionality, is subject to change at PTC’s discretion.

PTC, FlexPLM, Canvas, ThingWorx, and the PTC logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of PTC Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.