Lemahieu, a manufacturer of family- and environmentally friendly knitwear clothing and underwear, has selected Centric Software®’s Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution. Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to plan, design, develop, source and sell products such as apparel, footwear, sporting goods, furniture, home décor, cosmetics, food & beverage and luxury to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.
Since 1947, Lemahieu has been designing and manufacturing sustainable and ethical clothing and underwear in its ateliers in Saint-André-lez-Lille in the Hauts-de-France. Products – boxers, panties, t-shirts, menstrual underwear, etc. – are knitted on site, then cut and assembled by a team of 70 seamstresses.
Lemahieu is both a manufacturer and a retailer and is committed to creating a positive social and environmental impact. The manufacturer’s mission is to Make the cleanest garments in the world.
Lemahieu distributes its own brands: Achel and Hekla, and also manufactures products for brands that have environmentally sustainable practices and values including Le Slip Français, les petites culottées and 1083. Lemahieu manufactures a million units per year, but its characteristic is to handle projects with low volume manufacturing, starting from 200 units.
Since Martin Breuvart and Loïc Baert took over the company in 2018, Lemahieu aims to relocate textile production in France, and the company has an ambitious CSR plan for the future — to become a Certified B Corporation by 2024 and be carbon neutral by 2030. Lemahieu has been experiencing rapid growth, with e-commerce sales increasing tenfold since the pandemic and almost doubling their employee base from 90 to 150 in less than three years.
Martin Breuvart and Loïc Baert knew that they needed a digital transformation solution when they embarked on updating the company’s mass production legacy ERP system from the late 1990s. Internally, knowledge of the tool had been lost. They were partnering with more brands and needed an agile system to manage diversified production on a small scale. They began the process of upgrading their ERP system in March 2021 and quickly realized the system was limited. They needed a solution which could both support the entire product development lifecycle and their CSR strategy.
Loïc Baert, Director General of Lemahieu explains, “Centric PLM takes costing into account. It will help us to more accurately measure the industrial cost price. Given our CSR objectives, we needed additional robust units of measurement, including carbon impact and a two-level accounting system, which analyzes accounting in Euros and environmental accounting in CO2.”
“We assessed multiple PLM solution vendors and selected Centric PLM based on their expertise in the fashion and knitwear industry and easy to use interface,” he continues. “Centric’s reputation and renowned customer references also made a difference.”
Lemahieu expects Centric PLM to easily integrate with their ERP system, free up valuable time for their design teams, and propel their CSR vision. Their web team will use PLM to deliver visual data and product descriptions instantaneously. Lemahieu’s B2B customers will be able to follow the progress of their orders and validate the products in real time like they would do using a Product Information Management solution (PIM).
“Our goal is to improve communication and information flow, easily update our cost prices, better manage design planning and support our online strategy,” says Baert.
“Lemahieu is a flagship of the French textile industry and we are proud to support its strategy of preserving textile know-how, relocating textile production to France and social and environmental responsibility goals,” says Chris Groves, President and CEO of Centric Software. “Centric PLM will empower Lemahieu to streamline its product lifecycle management solution and meet its ambitious CSR goals.”
