As of now, footwear, we use Illustrator for lineart and then screenshot it into Excel with BOM/Color tables. Works alright, I set up the template to be locked so that the seniors can’t mess up the template. They used to make a word file with tables which looked like mayhem…
Previous job was also AI+Excel, but a quite complicated one with size charts (apparel) that adjusted with values that were typed into the Measurement lists.
It worked great on PC, but when I saved it on mac, they were compromised. Some transperancy settings were killed etc, which kind of destroyed them. Technical designer liked them a lot though. This became a big issue during heavy workload periods, and i hade to switch between pc and mac to make a complete tech pack.
Job before that, also apparel, had a PDM system called QuestPDM. Worked alright, but still did the base in illustrator and exported images in to the system where the BOM and colors were. MM-list was inside the software as well. Was nice to have a dedicated software with all materials available inside. Does of course mean that someone has to maintain it, which is usually a problem. There were a lot of development with the software supplier to make it fit our process and needs.