Category Archives: PLM

Centric Receives Four 2024 Just Style Excellence Awards

CAMPBELL, CA, Mar 18, 2024 – Centric Software, the product lifecycle management (PLM) market leader is pleased to announce that it has been awarded four accolades in the Just Style Excellence Awards 2024. Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to plan, design, develop, source, buy, make, price, allocate, sell and replenish products such as fashion, outdoor, luxury, multi-category retail, grocery, food & beverage, cosmetics & personal care and consumer electronics to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.

Centric recognized for excellence in innovation, product launches, R&D and M&A in Just Style’s 2024 awards

The Just Style Excellence Awards is an independent recognition program powered by the business intelligence of GlobalData.  Just Style’s team of researchers and journalists, assisted by the power of AI, analyze over 1 billion datasets during the year to recognize, endorse and rank top-tier companies across the globe. The awards represent one of the largest, most prestigious and widely known programs in the industry, and Just Style’s objective is to recognize forward-thinking, innovative companies that drive positive change.

Centric Software received four awards from Just Style in 2023, and has repeated the feat this year. Centric is a Category Award Winner for Innovation, Product Launches, Research & Development and M&A in the Just Style Excellence Awards 2024.

“We recognize Centric Software for their innovative AI-driven products and relentless pursuit of product evolution, coupled with acquisitions that align with the company’s strategic goals,” says Tina Ross, global awards manager at Just Style. “Centric’s innovations are driven by the insights of their Customer Advisory Board.”

In particular, Just Style notes that Centric Planning, an AI-powered retail analytics and planning solution, has been acknowledged for its user-friendly interface and AI/ML engine, which significantly enhances margins and improves sell-throughs.

“Centric’s substantial investments in R&D have yielded a suite of digital solutions, empowering consumer-centric planning and execution in addition to sustainability and compliance needs,” Ross continues. “The strategic acquisition of aifora, an AI-powered price and inventory optimization solution, aligns with the company’s vision of providing actionable insights for brands and retailers to thrive in a data-driven market.”

“We are delighted that Just Style appreciates how Centric has embraced AI innovations,” says Ron Watson, EVP, Products and CSO at Centric Software. “We included AI tools in Centric PLM as far back as 2018, and AI is now present across all of our solutions. AI has an important part to play in assisted decision-making, data analysis and the elimination of manual tasks so that teams can focus on value-added work. It’s a critical component of our innovation game plan, and Just Style’s awards validate that strategic focus.”

“We would like to thank Just Style for recognizing Centric’s commitment to excellence with these four awards,” says Chris Groves, CEO of Centric Software. “Centric has evolved and grown considerably in the past year with the acquisition of aifora and the launch of our seamless customer to replenishment solution experience. We celebrated a milestone of 800 customers in January, and continuously work with our customers to develop innovations and incorporate cutting-edge technologies such as AI into our solutions.”

About Centric Software

From its headquarters in Silicon Valley, Centric Software provides a concept to customer solution experience for consumer goods such as fashion, outdoor, luxury, multi-category retail, grocery, food & beverage, cosmetics & personal care and consumer electronics to plan, design, develop, source, buy, make, price, allocate, sell and replenish products.

Centric Software’s flagship solution Centric PLM brings cost savings and efficiency by optimizing product execution from ideation to development, sourcing and manufacture. Centric Planning is an innovative, cloud-native, augmented-intelligence solution delivering end-to-end planning capabilities to maximize retail and wholesale business performance. Centric Pricing & Inventory leverages AI to drive margin and revenue improvement by influencing demand via price and inventory optimization from pre-season to in-season to season completion. Centric Market Intelligence is an AI-driven, market insight platform for data-informed decision-making on competitor offers and pricing as well as consumer trends and buying behavior. Centric Visual Boards pivot actionable data in a visual-first orientation to ensure robust, consumer-right assortments and product offers.

Centric Software has the highest user adoption rate, customer satisfaction rate and fastest time to value in the industry. Centric Software has received multiple industry awards and recognition appears regularly in world-leading analyst reports and research.

For more information, visit www.centricsoftware.com.

IMA Schelling Selects Aras Innovator

ANDOVER, MA, Mar 13, 2024 – Aras, a leader in product lifecycle management and digital thread solutions, announced that IMA Schelling Group has selected Aras Innovator to standardize its data management processes and establish a consistent digital infrastructure for further growth.

Thomas Hampel, head of mechanical development processing and technical support at IMA Schelling, appreciates not only the integration functionality of Aras Innovator, but also how quickly it could be implemented. “We initially implemented the solution at our locations in Germany and Austria, as well as in Poland and Slovakia, where parts of both design and production are located. The establishment of central data storage and the setup of the necessary infrastructure enables them to connect further plants and locations within a very short time, as the application is browser-based and activated via a rights and licensing concept.”

In total, 18 sales, service, and production companies and 70 sales partners worldwide are united under the IMA Schelling Group umbrella. Due to historical reasons, two different ERP systems are still in use, which now communicate with each other via Aras. “We can access the respective contents of the ERP systems from any location and coordinate them centrally. Since we always access the original file, there is no risk of creating incorrect or outdated copies. This guarantees process security,” added Hampel.

With the establishment of a unified database and the representation of the lifecycle workflow, the deployment initially focused on the areas of design and manufacturing, but then gradually expanded.

According to Oliver Pallerberg, head of technical systems at IMA Schelling, the benefits of the solution were quickly apparent and ready to be implemented. For example, the assembly department could use it to visualize individual components or even entire machines in 3D. “Purchasing also benefits from the uniform representation and part numbering, as this eliminates possible sources of error,” said Pallerberg. In the future, the possibilities of 3D visualization should also be increasingly used in the area of maintenance and service – and play a central role in localizing potential causes of malfunctions.

“To leverage the full potential and elevate the business to a new level, different IT ecosystems must be consistently integrated, and data silos completely opened,” said Roque Martin, CEO of Aras. “Since the merger of two original companies, IMA Schelling has experienced impressive growth. We are proud that our open and adaptable PLM solution is a part of this success story.”

About IMA Schelling

The IMA Schelling Group develops, designs, and produces machinery and systems for woodworking, plastics, and metalworking companies. Its customers include international furniture manufacturers, aircraft manufacturers, and discerning carpentry family businesses.  Based on its over 100 years of experience, the company develops innovative machining solutions for state-of-the-art networked production, tailored to individual customer requirements – all the way to fully automated batch size 1 systems. The portfolio is completed by individual strategies for value-oriented corporate development as well as consulting, software, and digitization products. IMA Schelling has a global network of 18 branches and 70 sales partners and operates four production sites in Germany, Austria, Poland, and Slovakia.

About Aras

Aras is a leading provider of product lifecycle management and digital thread solutions. Its technology enables the rapid delivery of flexible solutions built on a powerful digital thread backbone and a low-code development platform. Aras’ platform and product lifecycle management applications connect users in all disciplines and functions to critical product data and processes across the lifecycle and throughout the extended supply chain.

Visit www.aras.com to learn more.

Samsung C&T Fashion Selects Centric PLM

CAMPBELL, CA, Mar 8, 2024 – Centric Software is pleased to announce that Samsung C&T Fashion Group, South Korea’s leading fashion company, has selected Centric PLM to digitalize business operations across its brands. Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to plan, design, develop, source, buy, make, price, allocate, sell and replenish products such as fashion, outdoor, luxury, multi-category retail, grocery, food & beverage, cosmetics & personal care and consumer electronics to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.

Founded in 1954, Samsung C&T Fashion Group has grown to become a leading worldwide player, offering a wide range of fashion and lifestyle products. The group owns and designs products for its in-house brands, including BEANPOLE, GALAXY and EIGHT SECONDS, and distributes global brands such as MAISON KITSUNÉ, ISSEY MIYAKE and TORY BURCH. Samsung C&T Fashion Group operates over 1,200 stores in South Korea and has global branches in Milano, New York, Shanghai, Hanoi and Tokyo. The company prides itself on its brand-building capabilities, digital transformation, global expansion, quality and retail expertise.

Samsung C&T Fashion Group’s strategy for 2024 is to digitalize and standardize product go to market workflows across its brands, as well as discover and develop new brands for external growth and increased profitability.

SangWook Ahn, vice-president of business administration division, Samsung C&T Fashion Group, explains their goals and challenges, “We envision a solid, standardized process for product development, and rely less on manual tools and use of multiple systems. Due to the lack of visibility in the product development stage, errors and miscommunication sometimes get carried over to the mass production stage, which is very inefficient. Having information in just one digital location is crucial to ensure product data is accurate and updated in real-time.”

To achieve their goals, and to strengthen communication, increase visibility and boost efficiency, Samsung C&T Fashion Group researched Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions. Centric stood out due to having a local team, reliable technical support and a proven track record with customers in the South Korean fashion and apparel industry.

“We found Centric PLM to be more user-friendly than other PLM solutions. The ability to integrate with 3D software is particularly useful for streamlining workflows and processes. We are also excited about the possibility of integrating and implementing other Centric solutions such as Centric Planning and Centric Pricing & Inventory in the future,” adds Ahn.

Samsung C&T Fashion Group will utilize Centric PLM for product planning, merchandising, design, pattern development and sourcing, bringing all divisions together on a single platform.

“By digitalizing and standardizing work processes across teams and brands, we anticipate increased productivity, reduced costs and ultimately enhanced product competitiveness,” says Ahn. “Scheduling merchandising plans through Centric PLM will provide a clear view of tasks and timelines.”

“We are delighted to welcome Samsung C&T Fashion Group on board,” says Chris Groves, CEO of Centric Software. “With Centric PLM as the foundation for their overall product development process, we look forward to seeing Samsung C&T Fashion Group optimize efficiency across all brands and empower the business to continue its growth globally.”

About Samsung Fashion C&T

At Samsung C&T Fashion Group, all our decisions and actions are based on the customer’s perspective. Samsung C&T Fashion Group has a wide range of in-house brands representing Korea, including Beanpole, Galaxy, Kuho, and Eight Seconds, as well as an online business centered on EN-SSF Shop, editorial lifestyle boutiques, and overseas brands.

Samsung C&T Fashion Group has established a solid system for mutual growth with its partners, and strives to generate social value through the Samsung Fashion & Design Fund (SFDF), which supports emerging designers, HEARTIST, a fashion brand for people with disabilities, and the Heart for Eye campaign, which subsidizes eye surgery for blind children.

Samsung C&T Fashion Group will continue its evolution into a global company that creates new value and provides high-quality lifestyles for all people around the world.

For more information, visit www.samsungfashion.com.

About Centric Software

From its headquarters in Silicon Valley, Centric Software provides a concept to customer solution experience for consumer goods such as fashion, outdoor, luxury, multi-category retail, grocery, food & beverage, cosmetics & personal care and consumer electronics to plan, design, develop, source, buy, make, price, allocate, sell and replenish products.

Centric Software’s flagship solution Centric PLM brings cost savings and efficiency by optimizing product execution from ideation to development, sourcing and manufacture. Centric Planning is an innovative, cloud-native, augmented-intelligence solution delivering end-to-end planning capabilities to maximize retail and wholesale business performance. Centric Pricing & Inventory leverages AI to drive margin and revenue improvement by influencing demand via price and inventory optimization from pre-season to in-season to season completion. Centric Market Intelligence is an AI-driven, market insight platform for data-informed decision-making on competitor offers and pricing as well as consumer trends and buying behavior. Centric Visual Boards™ pivot actionable data in a visual-first orientation to ensure robust, consumer-right assortments and product offers.

Centric Software has the highest user adoption rate, customer satisfaction rate and fastest time to value in the industry. Centric Software has received multiple industry awards and recognition appears regularly in world-leading analyst reports and research.

Centric Software is a subsidiary of Dassault Systèmes, the world leader in 3D design software, 3D digital mock-up and PLM solutions.

For more information, visit www.centricsoftware.com.

Aras Innovator Integrated with SAIC’s ReadyOne

ANDOVER, MA, Mar 6, 2024 – Aras, a leader in product lifecycle management (PLM) and digital thread solutions, announced a strategic partnership with leading technology integrator SAIC (Science Applications International Corp. that includes integration of Aras Innovator as the digital thread backbone for its digital engineering solution, ReadyOne.

ReadyOne is SAIC’s rapidly deployable digital engineering ecosystem, which offers customers an end-to-end digital thread for consistent, traceable, and complete engineering solutions. By using Aras’ product lifecycle management (PLM) technology as its foundation, the solution creates a single-source-of-truth for users, letting them access any and all needed information, at any point in the engineering process, all from a common platform. With ReadyOne, collaboration and transparency are increased, while risks and costs are decreased.

“Organizations in critical industries such as defense and intelligence need access to modern, powerful solutions to solve their information age problems. Expensive, cumbersome industrial age solutions should be left behind,” said Roque Martin, CEO, Aras. “The combination of our digital thread backbone with SAIC’s digital engineering know-how and years of experience make it easy for customers to meet even the most stringent requirements of the defense sector while still improving efficiency and cost.”

ReadyOne creates a new level of responsiveness, impact, and quality for engineers – and Aras Innovator is the PLM platform that provides the foundation. By bringing an organization’s technical data, engineering tools, and management processes together into one common environment, collaboration increases without there being any worries that critical information is being lost along the way. The ReadyOne environment is independent of infrastructure, enabling it to support all types of customers, and either cloud-to-cloud or on-premise delivery.

“Data is the common thread connecting all of today’s most important innovations,” added Chris Finlay, Vice President of Innovation at SAIC. “As organizations at all levels continue to grapple with digital transformation initiatives, the availability of real-time, accurate data throughout the engineering process will enable better informed decision making – and result in faster, more effective results. Tools may come and go, but data is the key to success.”

About SAIC

SAIC is a premier Fortune 500 technology integrator driving our nation’s technology transformation. Their robust portfolio of offerings across the defense, space, civilian and intelligence markets includes secure high-end solutions in engineering, digital, artificial intelligence and mission solutions. Using our expertise and understanding of existing and emerging technologies, they integrate the best components from our own portfolio and our partner ecosystem to deliver innovative, effective and efficient solutions that are critical to achieving our customers’ missions.

They are approximately 24,000 strong; driven by mission, united by purpose, and inspired by opportunities. SAIC is an Equal Opportunity Employer, fostering a culture of diversity, equity and inclusion, which is core to their values and important to attract and retain exceptional talent. Headquartered in Reston, VA, SAIC has pro-forma annual revenues of approximately $6.9 billion.

For more information, visit saic.com.

About Aras

Aras is a leading provider of product lifecycle management and digital thread solutions. Its technology enables the rapid delivery of flexible solutions built on a powerful digital thread backbone and a low-code development platform. Aras’ platform and product lifecycle management applications connect users in all disciplines and functions to critical product data and processes across the lifecycle and throughout the extended supply chain.

Visit www.aras.com to learn more.

Aras Innovator Updated for PLM

ANDOVER, MA, Mar 6, 2024 – Aras, a leader in product lifecycle management (PLM) and digital thread solutions, announced new enhancements for Aras Innovator, its open and adaptable platform for deploying PLM and digital thread solutions. Built on a highly scalable product data platform, Aras Innovator offers a library of applications that can be rapidly deployed, configured, and extended with enterprise-class low-code development tools to meet the specific needs of any organization.

Today’s announcements include:

New Digital Thread Capabilities

Aras Innovator forms an extensible digital thread, serving as a data backbone for digital engineering and the broader digital enterprise. New capabilities will support simplified user interactions for viewing, editing, and implementing changes on interrelated items. In addition, a new streamlined experience for configuring connections to a comprehensive range of authoring tools simplifies extending the digital thread to a broader set of enterprise applications.

Extended Low-Code Development Enhancements

Aras Innovator is the only PLM platform with a fully integrated low-code development environment. Leveraging a rich set of development and enterprise-class DevOps services, Aras subscribers can extend applications or develop their own to address the unique needs of their organization. These enhancements introduce new widgets and charts that simplify the user experience and navigation for analytics dashboards and reports embedded in Aras apps. In addition, advanced form design tools facilitate a more streamlined, modern user experience for applications built within Aras-powered applications and deployed within Aras’ DevOps framework.

Powerful Visualization of Complex Assemblies

Aras’ CAD-agnostic approach to 3D visualization has been built on the foundation of the digital thread, enabling users to leverage Dynamic Product Navigation to facilitate the exploration of product data in any representation. The introduction of Aras Advanced 3D enhances this capability, providing a scalable environment to visualize and interact with larger, more complex assemblies that often exceed the capacity of a single CAD session. It integrates a rich feature set to explore, analyze, and collaborate on 3D content, including capabilities such as:

  • Advanced search and filter (name, markup, attribute, color selection, volume, etc.)
  • Clash detection
  • Analysis such as wall thickness, curvature, and neutral axis
  • Advanced measurement and sectioning
  • Geometry manipulation and illustration
  • IP protection of 3D data

The projected availability for this enhancement is set for Q3 2024, with a preview webinar scheduled for April 25.

Optimized Connectivity and Collaboration with Suppliers

With this announcement, Aras is introducing a suite of supplier management solutions designed to enhance how organizations interact with their suppliers and business partners. These new applications facilitate secure, remote access to controlled subsets of digital thread and PLM information through configurable mobile-optimized web applications. These solutions streamline communication and data sharing to optimize supplier management business processes. Projected availability for Aras Supplier Management Solutions is in Q2 2024, with a preview webinar scheduled for March 26.

John Sperling, SVP of product management at Aras, said: “Aras continues to reimagine how teams collaborate across the digital thread for product lifecycle management. These new capabilities further differentiate Aras Innovator as the digital thread and PLM solution for organizations that prioritize scalability, flexibility, and openness.”

About Aras

Aras is a leading provider of product lifecycle management and digital thread solutions. Its technology enables the rapid delivery of flexible solutions built on a powerful digital thread backbone and a low-code development platform. Aras’ platform and product lifecycle management applications connect users in all disciplines and functions to critical product data and processes across the lifecycle and throughout the extended supply chain.

Visit www.aras.com to learn more.

EIZO Selects Aras Innovator to Create Digital Thread

between Development, Manufacturing

ANDOVER, MA, Feb 28, 2024 – Aras, a leader in product lifecycle management and digital thread solutions, today announced that EIZO, a visual technology company that develops and manufactures high-end visual solutions, is using Aras Innovator to successfully create a digital thread between development and manufacturing – enabling more streamlined, cost-effective, and adaptable processes. As a result, EIZO will be able to track products and their digital assets across the entire product lifecycle.

EIZO’s integrated approach to planning, development, production, and quality control is the foundation for its success. To achieve an integrated in-house system, end-to-end management of information from product development through to manufacturing is crucial. However, existing product data management (PDM) functions left the company unable to develop add-ons for use with Engineering Change Requests and Change Orders (ECR/ECO) and enterprise resource planning (ERP).

EIZO selected Aras Innovator as its new product lifecycle management (PLM) solution, in large part because it offered:

  • Open and Adaptable: Aras Innovator offers an open platform, which enables users to expand functionality themselves. Users can easily adapt as needed and evolve over time.
  • Seamless implementation: EIZO was able to transition from its old system to Aras smoothly, without impacting business operations or causing friction for employees.
  • Consolidated and streamlined workflows: EIZO can now fully track products and their digital assets from concept stage through design, manufacturing, proof-of-concept and service, providing visibility across the entire product lifecycle.
  • A clearly defined subscription model: Aras Innovator subscriptions are based on the actual number of users. Having a defined structure makes it easier for EIZO to project costs.

To learn more about how Aras Innovator is helping EIZO bridge product development and manufacturing with the digital thread, read the full case study.

Ryosuke Koizumi, IT platform development section manager, EIZO, said: “Aras Innovator is working exactly as we originally envisioned, right down to the ease of linking data together and referencing links. The way it enables data connectivity directly to machines to reflect product specs and requirements at the push of a button represents the ultimate digital thread, the ultimate mass customization. Aras Innovator has provided the foundations for us to realize that new world.”

Masahiko Hisatsugo, president of Aras Japan, Aras, said: “Companies like EIZO must have complete visibility across the entire product lifecycle. One of the main reasons EIZO chose Aras Innovator was because of the overriding goal of creating a foundation for data exchange. They now have a complete flow of information from upstream and downstream in one place.”

About Aras

Aras is a leading provider of product lifecycle management and digital thread solutions. Its technology enables the rapid delivery of flexible solutions built on a powerful digital thread backbone and a low-code development platform. Aras’ platform and product lifecycle management applications connect users in all disciplines and functions to critical product data and processes across the lifecycle and throughout the extended supply chain.

Visit www.aras.com to learn more.