Based in Durban on the shores of the Indian Ocean, Ninian & Lester is a vertically operated textile and clothing manufacturing operation that was founded in 1936. In 1951 it was awarded the South African franchise for the world-renowed American Jockey® underwear, fashion and lifestyle brand. Starting out with menswear, in the 1980s the ladieswear range was introduced and the brand has continued to grow becoming the leading underwear brand in Southern Africa with over 90% of the product and its raw materials still manufactured in the region.
In a competitive world facing ever-changing regulatory and customer expectations and disruption, Ninian & Lester was looking for new approaches to evolve the way it works and build the capabilities to deliver on its strategy such as reducing lead times to stay ahead in both local and export markets. “We needed to better integrate our teams and enhance on-trend design efficiency to deal with dynamic ‘quick-response’ scenarios, assess risks, improve decision-making and reduce our time to market,” says Manfred Paeper, Business Process and IT manager at Ninian & Lester.
As a top innovative manufacturer and an award-winning company, Ninian & Lester was looking for the best possible partner that could adapt to their needs – “one with bold ambitions and deliberate about getting there.”
“We desired a PLM solution to support our passionate self-managed teams driving best practices in design thinking while exhibiting extensive innovation potential. We anticipate Centric 8 enabling us to engineer ‘step-change’ improvements into our business far beyond the limitations imposed by more rigidly architected options we investigated. Centric 8 quickly rose to the top of our evaluation shortlist and remained there despite our best efforts to find weaknesses. The product functionality demonstrated via superb customer service from the Centric team prevailed valiantly.”
“We recognized that Centric Software is also an award-winning company and offered us a comprehensive, intuitive, easy to use solution with a simple yet powerful cross-platform mobile and desktop customizable interface view encouraging high end-user adoption. Our goal is to harness digital technology throughout the value chain, building cross-silo and cross-channel capabilities connecting IT, machines and people in real-time in order to manufacture products better and faster, leveraging business intelligence for the demands of omnichannel retailing, our workforce and the future of manufacturing. Centric’s configurable solution will allow us to shorten cycle times, enhance delivery, bring visibility and transparency into the supply chain, and ultimately expand the value we deliver to our customers,” continues Paeper.
Centric’s responsiveness and Agile MethodologySM approach encouraged us as did the growing install base and local support partnerships. “Centric teams worked long hours and were really dedicated to the cause. Centric’s Iterative Deployment approach was a key differentiator. People at Centric grasp Agile principles well compared to other PLM vendors who showed us only traditional hierarchical ways of working.“
Centric PLM will enable Ninian & Lester teams to better manage information assets, and collaborate in their development ecosystem with suppliers to add flexibility, control, ‘what-if’ analysis, insight and continuous improvement feedback loops to their processes. As Paeper concludes, “By providing one, actionable version of the truth, Centric PLM will bridge our creative, development and business teams to bring desirable products to the market faster, sustaining competitive advantage and building stronger, more enduring customer relationships. Equally important is that the Centric PLM product roadmap will grow with us as we continue to innovate.”
“We are delighted to welcome Ninian & Lester to the Centric family,” says Chris Groves, President and CEO of Centric Software. “By bringing constant innovation and value products to the market, we are confident that they will continue to be successful. We are looking forward to partnering with them to help drive their business growth.”
