Tommy John has successfully gone live with Centric Software’s Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution. Tommy John was founded in 2008 by Tom Patterson, a former medical device salesman. Frustrated by the discomfort of wearing traditional men’s underwear, socks and undershirts in his life on the road, he set out to redesign men’s base layers from scratch with a focus on fabric, fit and function.
Stephanie Schulz, Business Analyst at Tommy John, explains that the company’s rapid growth and desire to expand into new products led them to invest in a new PLM solution.
“Tommy John is ten years old, but in some ways it still feels like a startup, as we have had such high levels of growth and success in the last five years,” says Schulz. “We’ve recently launched our women’s division, and we’re expanding into new categories such as lifestyle, loungewear and athleisure. Using our old combination ERP and PLM system, data had to be exported and managed offline in spreadsheets and emails, which caused issues with data consistency and visibility. It took our teams a long time to update tech packs and make changes on the fly. We needed a solution that could scale with us, matching our growing numbers of teams and products in development.”
Tommy John investigated several PLM solutions, but references from Centric customers swung the balance toward Centric PLM.
“Our consultant had experience with Centric PLM and helped to guide our decision,” says Schulz. “We looked at Centric’s client list and saw how many large, reputable brands use it, and we set up calls with other companies who had recently implemented Centric PLM. Throughout the vendor selection process, the Centric team was very dedicated in terms of walking us through demos and answering all of our questions. On a functional level, we were impressed by Centric’s agility, configurability and welcoming user interface. It’s refreshing compared to the archaic systems we were dealing with before. It’s also very flexible, and we need a system that supports our business processes rather than slowing us down.”
Tommy John implemented Centric PLM in a little over seven months, and went live on the system in May 2018.
As Schulz notes, “The big win is that all of our users have visibility. They’re all connected to one version of the truth within the system. It’s transforming the way we develop styles and create tech packs, as information that was previously offline is now instantly accessible in Centric PLM. Mass functionality is very important, saving our teams time and allowing us to work together at a much faster pace. We’re also excited about the new features that Centric adds on all the time with new service packs and upgrades.”
“The Centric team have been so helpful throughout the implementation and great at coming up with solutions to map the system to the way we work,” concludes Schulz. “We really like the creative and proactive responses from the Centric team, who are always looking to grow and innovate. It’s something Tommy John and Centric have in common.”
“We are proud to have Tommy John as part of the Centric family, and happy to hear that Tommy John is already saving time and working more efficiently with Centric PLM,” says Chris Groves, President and CEO of Centric Software. “Tommy John is an innovative and dynamic brand with a commitment to making premium products and we are very excited to partner with them as they continue to grow.”
We use cookies to help provide you with the best possible online experience.
By using this site, you agree that we may store and access cookies on your device.
You can find out more and set your own preferences here.
