Long-term PLM Relationships: Silver Jeans Co.™ Reflects on 9 Years with Centric

We decided to implement Centric PLM in 2010 after a diligent selection process. It wasn’t a spur of the moment decision – we went through evaluations and demos with three or four different vendors. We wanted to make sure we found the right partner and a solution that had room to grow with us.

Centric was at the top of our list for many reasons. With their experience in the garment industry, they spoke our language. Centric PLM is extremely user-friendly and web-based, offering a centralized system that can be accessed from anywhere in the world. The out-of-the-box implementation was a huge plus for us. When we chose to implement Centric PLM, it took just 12 weeks.

The initial implementation consisted of product specifications, sourcing, calendar management and line planning. Our focus was simply to consolidate all of our information and save time. Two weeks after we completed the implementation, we were able to integrate our main facility in Hong Kong, which helped us streamline our process with the factories that they use in China, Cambodia and Bangladesh. Just like that, we no longer had to worry about different time zones and everyone was working with real time data.

In the nine years since then, we have gone through four update migrations with Centric PLM. Each of these was on time and on budget, and met our business targets. I personally feel that engaging in a migration is an exciting venture rather than a scary proposition, and it has benefited the business every time.

The upgrades usually took place when we were focusing on different aspects of expanding the business. For example, when we upgraded in 2012, it helped us to develop the Silver Jeans Co.™ Sportswear line. The next upgrade didn’t happen until 2016 due to the company’s focus on a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) , but when we did upgrade, we found that new features Centric had introduced  helped us to expand into the Big & Tall and Maternity markets. The addition of our Sportswear, Maternity and Big & Tall lines have doubled our number of product lines since 2010 – from three to six.

In March 2018, we completed our most recent Centric PLM upgrade. We had a mission to increase efficiency and reduce lead times and this migration was a huge change for us. Centric introduced a new user interface and over 100 new features that we were able to benefit from.

Critically for us, the implementation was on schedule, during an optimal time in the product lifecycle. Since then, one of the things we’ve been able to do is consolidate our Bill Of Materials (BOM) and product data packages. Information is extremely clear and concise for our factories, and reporting which used to take us days, now takes us minutes.

Over the years, Centric has done a really good job of listening to their customers’ wants and needs, with a multitude of benefits in each upgrade.

It’s important for us to work with a company that fits with the friends and family culture that Silver Jeans Co.™ has cultivated. Centric employees are great to work with and have a dedicated support person for each company, which means they know our specific processes really well and are quick with solutions when issues arise. They also suggest how best to implement new processes.

We have been extremely pleased with everything Centric has to offer, and as we look to the future we see Centric as an integral piece of new innovations and migrations along the way. We’re looking forward to a bright future together.