Product Development Associate, Footwear & Raw Materials

Overview

rag & bone is currently looking for a Product Development Associate, Footwear. In this critical role, the PD Associate will play a key role in making our design team’s footwear concepts come to life through a strong understanding of footwear from construction to materials and the ability to communicate efficiently with factories to make it happen. This person will support all product and sourcing functions from initial creation into final SMS approval.

This role will collaborate daily with Design, Merchandising and Production to ensure all product information, deadlines and quality standards are being met.

Developing Samples

• Manage WIP files daily for:
• a) Prototypes
• b) Material trials and approvals
• c) SMS

• Manage Specs from SMS into Production, ensuring all information is accurate at all times.
• Monitor SKU counts by category and update each sample round
• Participate in proto and SMS Fittings.
• Recap Merchandising and Production on any Design/construction changes from SMS into production.
• Attend cross functional meetings to ensure any changes to product are addressed in a timely manner.
• Responsible for sample tracking and communicating delivery status to cross functional teams.
• Participate in product reviews and note changes in design, material or cost
• Call out any product concerns to Merch and Design during development and production stage
• Manage Seasonal Product Knowledge for Market Wedge & E-commerce

rag & bone is currently looking for a Product Development Associate, Footwear. In this critical role, the PD Associate will play a key role in making our design team’s footwear concepts come to life through a strong understanding of footwear from construction to materials and the ability to communicate efficiently with factories to make it happen. This person will support all product and sourcing functions from initial creation into final SMS approval.

This role will collaborate daily with Design, Merchandising and Production to ensure all product information, deadlines and quality standards are being met.

Developing Samples

• Manage WIP files daily for:

• a) Prototypes
• b) Material trials and approvals
• c) SMS

• Manage Specs from SMS into Production, ensuring all information is accurate at all times.
• Monitor SKU counts by category and update each sample round
• Participate in proto and SMS Fittings.
• Recap Merchandising and Production on any Design/construction changes from SMS into production.
• Attend cross functional meetings to ensure any changes to product are addressed in a timely manner.
• Responsible for sample tracking and communicating delivery status to cross functional teams.
• Participate in product reviews and note changes in design, material or cost
• Call out any product concerns to Merch and Design during development and production stage
• Manage Seasonal Product Knowledge for Market Wedge & E-commerce

Material Development

• Responsible for developing and sourcing all raw materials, development through to production. This includes leather, textiles and trims.
• Owns daily communication with material suppliers
• Manage seasonal color standards and approvals from proto into production
• Prepare and own sending all color masters out to factories and suppliers.
• Own organization of seasonal material books and ensuring references of all sample materials are received.
• Order seasonal pantones
• Coordinate materials for trials and prototypes.
• Own compiling all LDS/FDS info from suppliers and relaying to factories in a timely manner
• Counter source any materials that are out of price/moq targets
• Evaluate suppliers based on specialty, cost, quality, leadtimes and conduct cost exercises
• Pre-book sample materials for SMS and follow through on quality and color approvals into production.
• Manage timeline for materials including when factories need materials on hand to meet sample/production deadlines.
• Track certifications on all materials where applicable
• Meet with existing and new suppliers for research and development purposes.
• Own maintaining material library and keep organized weekly with assistance from team and interns
• Ongoing research of new competitive suppliers for costing and quality

Material Liability

• Keep track of all…