Cosmetics and Personal Care

Frequently asked questions

• What is PLM for cosmetics and personal care?

  

  PLM stands for Product Lifecycle Management. It’s a transformative solution that supports all critical aspects of product development, launch and retail of health and beauty, skincare, haircare, toiletries, supplements and non-formulated products as well as packaging. With an effective PLM solution in place, cosmetics and personal care brands, retailers and manufacturers optimize new product development, drive cross-team collaboration and make better, more strategic business decisions.

  Read our full article: What is Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and PLM Software?

• Why use PLM for cosmetics and personal care?

  

  PLM is an enterprise solution, which means it works by connecting groups of people across the end-to-end product development chain to streamline efficiency, speed time to market, reduce costs, cut waste, improve product quality and drive innovation. Teams don’t have to rely on multiple email communications, numerous spreadsheets and siloed data management systems to oversee new product development. With PLM, cosmetics and personal care companies can now collaborate, share information and track changes and approvals from a single digital interface.

• Who uses PLM for cosmetics and personal care?

  

  Cosmetics and personal care retailers, brands and manufacturers all use PLM to bring new and updated health and beauty products to market faster while responding to consumers wants and needs and ensuring customer safety and compliance with regulatory standards. Anyone involved in product development—from R&D, Procurement and Specifications to Merchandising, Packaging, Quality and Compliance and Retail—leverage PLM to boost efficiency, drive innovation and accelerate new product creation along with product updates and refreshes that meets market demand.

• Is PLM hard to implement?

  

  Not at all and deployment can be done remotely PLM is a company-wide initiative, so teams participate in the project and generally see a very fast time to value.

  Want more info on implementation? Check out our Agile Deployment methodology, Centric’s uniquely fast path toward R.O.I.

• Is PLM the same as ERP?

  

  No. PLM is a tool to facilitate and streamline product ideation and creation. ERP is a solution that tracks those products once they’ve left the manufacturing floor.

  Read our blog: Is ERP Software for Cosmetics the Best Technology Investment?

• Does PLM manage product specifications for cosmetics and personal care?

  

  Yes! In fact, specifications management is an essential capability of PLM for cosmetics and personal care brands, manufacturers and retailers. With access to ingredient and raw material, color, artwork and other libraries, formulation data and supplier quotes, users can manage product specifications quickly and easily while ensuring data accuracy and adherence to quality, marketing, branding and other requirements.

• Can packaging engineers and designers use PLM for cosmetics and personal care products?

  

  Yes, to both! Product development teams can connect with packaging and label designers through PLM’s centralized platform. Plus, if PLM offers integration with third-party tools like Adobe Illustrator or 3D Connect, then packaging engineers and graphic designers can work exclusively within one digital environment to streamline workflows.

• Does PLM streamline formulation management?

  

  Of course! Product formulation software is another key capability of PLM for cosmetics and personal care. With the touch of a button, all product development stakeholders can access health and beauty product formulation data per individual product, making it quick and easy to review ingredients and raw materials specifications, product claims, allergens and cost of goods sold. Users can also leverage this capability to modify existing formulations for new product introductions.

  Read more here.

• Can PLM benefit cosmetics and personal care companies when responding to product recalls?

  

  Definitely! Because PLM platforms keep a digital record of all product-related data and formulation methodologies, teams can track and trace any item affected by a contaminated ingredient or issue of non-compliance, remove them from store shelves and put a halt to further production.

• Can PLM improve quality for cosmetics and personal care products?

  

  A resounding yes! PLM solutions come equipped with end-to-end traceability, so users have control to track compliance across the product development cycle. This helps to eliminate inefficiencies, improve product formulation and ensure product integrity.

• Can PLM boost trust among cosmetics and personal care consumers?

  

  Absolutely. PLM solutions provide instantaneous, real-time connection with each and every stakeholder across the product development chain. This enterprise connection allows users to initiate collaboration among teams and drive product innovation. On top of that, PLM tracks compliance data and claims validations with pinpoint accuracy, so consumers can trust what beauty products they’re buying.

• Are there mobile apps available for cosmetics and personal care PLM?

  

  There sure are. In fact, Centric was the first company to develop convenient, UX-friendly mobile apps for PLM, which help enlarge the scope of product development contributors, including product testers, sales and more.