Assistant Fabric Researcher

Description
The Assistant Fabric Researcher supports fabric research and development for the New York product development team. The role sits on the fabric side of the department and is responsible for keeping testing and fabric records accurate and moving on time.

The Assistant carries their own workload alongside the Associate Fabric Researcher on fabric research, manages the testing tracker, and is responsible for keeping PLM up to date and accurate.

Responsibilities

Fabric Research and Development

Support the Associate Fabric Researcher on day-to-day fabric research and development work.
Assist in fabric research and development across knits, wovens, seamless, and sweaters.
Field incoming fabric requests from Design and log them for the team.
Create development documents for fabric development.
Receive, log, and organize new fabric qualities and newness sent in by mills and suppliers, so they are ready for review.
Send all fabric packages to Shanghai, India, and Bangladesh, and track them through to receipt.
Pull together fabric information and reference materials when the team needs them.
Testing

Manage the testing tracker, keeping every submission and its status current.
Prepare and send Walmart test samples requests and log each submission.
Record test results as they come back and raise any failures to the Associate Fabric Researcher straight away.
Maintain complete testing records in PLM

Physical Library and Records

Help build and maintain the fabric library and reference materials.
Support the fabric boards alongside the wider fabric team.
File all submits and approvals back into the books, keeping the physical records complete and retrievable.

Systems and Data

Keep fabric records in PLM up to date and accurate, treating it as the single source of truth.
Enter and update fabric data, references, and statuses consistently.
Support ongoing PLM projects and data clean-up across the department.

Cross-Functional

Communicate with the overseas fabric teams across time zones.
Work with the sample yardage side of the team on fabric needs feeding development.
Support seasonal development calendars and key account milestones.

Requirements
Bachelor's degree, ideally in fashion, textiles, or a related field
Prefer, internship or coursework in a fabric library, R&D, or raw materials environment
Strong attention to detail and accuracy with data entry
Organized, able to track a high volume of open items without dropping them
Clear written communication, including with overseas partners for whom English is a second language
Proficiency in Excel and comfort learning new systems
Prefer, exposure to PLM or a comparable development system