17 years helping Canadian businesses
choose better software
Backbone
What Is Backbone?
Not your typical PLM, hundreds of fashion & apparel brands trust Backbone to organize entire production cycles, create professional tech packs in minutes, keep product data in sync, safe & clean, improve internal (interdepartmental) & external (vendors, factories) communication, and much more - ALL FROM ONE SINGLE TOOL! Built to boost efficiency, the software offers unlimited custom fields, interconnected product & component libraries, dynamic reports, useful integrations, etc. Try it for free!
Who Uses Backbone?
Fashion & apparel brands of all sizes that design & develop clothing, accessories, soft home goods, etc., and want to break free from spreadsheets to join the digital transformation of fashion.
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Reviews of Backbone
My Tech Packing Go To
Comments: It's mostly positive. There's great support and customer service.
Pros:
This program makes building tech packs easier than spreadsheet programs or other web PDM programs I've used. I enjoy how easily the BOM populates and grading with ease.
Cons:
Creating the tech pack PDF is tedious. And if something needs to be changed you have to go through the entire process again... not fun if it's only one small change that needed to be made. That's the biggest downside to this program. The other is that sometimes updated specs in the sample page do not copy over to the main spec and grading pages.
Alternatives Considered:
Good for housing TechPacks
Comments: V1 was simple and easy even though it had missing functionality, it was workable. Housing complete TP in one place. Having a Trims and Materials library to ensure BOMs are standardized, Specs and Grading are more consistent, all comments and images are in one place. This is how and why I use BB. I am not overly excited about V2. The change to the user experience was so drastic and seemingly not an improvement.
Pros:
V1 was more intuitive, simple for TechPack build. Housing sketches, BOM, spec and comments. Easy to use. V2 color palette is nice. Set up is easy, but still not efficient to pull into styles and BOMs V2 Line Sheet is a nice concept but still need to build a lot in AI to pull in
Cons:
V2 is glitchy and cumbersome. It is trying to do more than V1, but not doing it to the level of it being more efficient and useful. No secure log ins to share only specific information with brands or factory. Still missing a lot of functionality. For example: complete costing with Margin and landed cost views, Forecasting materials, Forecasting production, inventory management, Lab dip status and review, Product Lifecycle planning, etc
Alternatives Considered:
Good Value PLM
Comments: It's been pretty easy to work with Backbone. The customer service is prompt and cordial and we love our rep. The price for the system is also unbeatable, but you do get what you pay for. If you are looking for a first time PLM system, this is a great place to start. It UX is very straightforward and most anyone with some tech savvy can quickly pick up on the functionality and adopt it in as little as a month.
Pros:
Creating products is very simple and the interface is very intuitive. It does not take long to train a new hire on how to use this system. The cost for the program is very affordable, and I would recommend it for any startup or company seeking to launch their first PLM integration.
Cons:
There are several features that we were told were in the roadmap 2 years ago that have not been rolled out. Vendor integration is not something that currently exists. The "supplier login" feature does not seem to be as simple as we were told it would be. Additionally, there seem to be consistent glitches within the system that prevents things from running as smoothly as it should. We would love to see an easier ERP integration for costing, style and color assignment, but the only option currently available in that regard would require a complete backend buildout by a 3rd party IT company or if you had someone on staff to easily write code for that feature.
Backbone PLM Response
3 years ago
Thank you very much for taking the time to leave us a review and provide our team feedback on your experience with Backbone! We greatly appreciate it. As much of our team comes from design and development backgrounds, we're so glad you've found Backbone easy and intuitive to use--it's a huge part of our core mission! We're sorry to hear some parts of the platform have not met your expectations. Like many companies, we experienced setbacks in 2020 related to the pandemic. In 2021 our engineering team has made significant progress in releasing over 300 performance improvements. We have a number of exciting updates planned for the rest of this year and into 2022 based on client requests that will enhance the functionality of our platform in ways that should address your frustrations. Please continue to contact your CSM to review any specific workflow stops or bugs, we greatly appreciate your patience with us as we continue to grow the company and platform!
Alternatives Considered:
A great solution for teams working on garment product management
Comments: Simply put, Backbone allows our product team that is located on different sides of the country to work collaboratively on garments in a really meaningful way, and ultimately produce a tech pack that looks really tight. Its one of those pieces of software that make the cut to become an essential tool to running your business.
Pros:
Backbone seems to be unique in that it really focuses on tech packs, and all of the parts of the tech pack (materials, suppliers, colors, etc). Other garment PLM solutions tend to include much bigger and in my opinion, sprawling solutions that include purchasing, inventory management, inter-factory communications and a bunch of other services that we already take care quite well on our own. As a result, Backbone delivers on exactly what we need, at a more reasonable price.
Cons:
There are some parts of Backbone that still feel like they are in development. But to their credit, the product is regularly updating with solid improvements, and they are very, very receptive to input. I think also it's important for a new user to understand that Backbone has to work for a bunch of different kinds of products and companies, so some flexibility is required.
Backbone - The Future of PLM Management
Comments: My experience is nothing but amazing! I am a core user and believe Backbone is the future of PLM!
Pros:
I like how easy it is to manage my projects. I have worked in other platforms and i have found that Backbone is the easiest most efficient program. I have saved so much more time!
Cons:
I wish some of the features from 1.0 were moved forward for 2.0: 1. Utilization tool that you could download as a pdf based on your program and filters was super helpful. 2. Selecting color in summary and then in each component is a nightmare! Sometimes I working with 4-5 different colorways and not being able to select multiple colors at once can be frusrating. 3. Managing Labdips on a component level would be nice. Right now I just have a google doc. Keeping in one place would save time. 4. Comments tool box size in Feedback and revisions - way too small for me to type all the information in. Also having an auto save would be amazing!
Backbone PLM Response
3 years ago
Thank you for taking the time to leave Backbone a review! We're so pleased to hear as a long-time client, that you've had such a positive experience on our platform. We very much value the feedback you've provided as it helps us further enhance the platform to meet your and other client needs. We will pass on your specific comments regarding Backbone functionality to our product and engineering teams as they continue to work on new features and release enhancements.
