Centric Software® is pleased to announce that Freda, a leading cosmetics company in China, has gone live with Centric PLM™. Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to design, develop, formulate, source, comply, buy, make, package, market and sell consumer goods products in food & beverage, grocery and multi-category retail to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.
Shandong Freda Biotech Co., Ltd. (referred to as “Freda”) is a subsidiary of Freda Pharmaceutical Group. Founded in 1998, it is a leading enterprise in Shandong’s cosmetics industry and a trailblazer in China’s hyaluronic acid skincare sector. Today, the company focuses on skincare technologies such as hyaluronic acid, microbiome, oil-based and precision skincare. Freda continues to introduce patented ingredients and exclusive formulas, building a portfolio of well-known brands including RELLET, Dr. ALVA, eprhan, SHENAN, UMT, SHREDA and Key C.
As consumer demands in the cosmetics industry continue to evolve, the number of product Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) has grown rapidly. Traditionally, the product development process involved numerous sub-processes, with information scattered across different documents, lacking full lifecycle and project asset management capabilities. The absence of a complete “initiation – planning – execution – monitoring – closing” workflow made it difficult to ensure process integrity.
Facing these challenges, Freda proactively defined the overall objectives for PLM, outlining its full end-to-end product lifecycle management needs. Freda is optimizing its existing product development management framework. The digital system standardizes and regulates the entire process from project initiation, formulation development, testing and registration, to mass production. Through predefined standardized product launch workflows, Centric PLM enables automatic task transitions, reduces manual effort and implements alerts to detect and resolve potential issues in a timely manner. The resulting impact of this digital transformation project is significantly improved product development efficiency and new momentum into the company’s high-speed growth.
The PLM project follows a clear, phased roadmap, structured around the stages of “Support, Optimize and Lead” to progressively enhance the digitalization journey. The first phase focuses on building the platform to achieve systematic and collaborative business operations and on unifying data standards for centralized information sharing. The official system go-live was May 2025.
Key achievements of the first phase include:
- Linear management by product: Establishing a unified workflow to ensure end-to-end consistency in product development, approval and document management.
- Visualized project progress tracking: Ensuring timely project follow-up and delivery, standardizing business processes and embedding them into the system for transparent tracking and issue monitoring across the entire development lifecycle.
- Enhanced internal and external collaboration: Reducing the workload of product managers in process coordination and communication, allowing them to focus more on product innovation, creativity and strategy.
- End-to-end demand management: Building a scientific product knowledge repository with structured data, enhancing knowledge integration and continuous improvement.
Ms. Yang Suzhen, Deputy General Manager of Freda, comments, “By integrating the entire product development process onto a single, actionable platform, we have achieved efficient cross-departmental collaboration, enabling real-time teamwork around product projects. The PLM system’s integrated management capabilities have significantly enhanced R&D efficiency. The success of the project from initiation to go-live is the result of the dedication of each participant, especially the commitment of the implementation team. Moving forward, we aim to further optimize existing processes, deeply integrate AI technologies, explore more innovative application scenarios and fully unlock the potential of digital management.”
Fabrice Canonge, President of Centric Software says, “This digital transformation initiative by Freda not only strengthens their competitive edge in the industry but also raises the bar for digital transformation in the cosmetics sector, driving the industry toward greater efficiency and intelligence. We are proud to partner with them.”
