June 19th, 2023

Great Kitchens Turns Up the Heat on Product Development Efficiency with Centric PLM

A pizza and flatbread company saves time and effort with PLM for seamless project management, quality assurance, regulatory and more

CAMPBELL, Calif., June 20, 2023 – Centric Software® is delighted to announce the release of a success story about its customer, Great Kitchens.

Based in Romeoville, IL just southwest of Chicago, Great Kitchens is a pizza and flatbread company with flexible manufacturing lines to create a wide range of pizzas and flatbreads for their private-label customers. They serve major names in all North American channels: grocery, convenience stores, warehouse clubs, QSR, foodservice.

Director of Commercialization at Great Kitchens, Barb Parks, describes how she had to manage projects prior to implementing Centric PLM®: “I would go through the paper list and have to chase people down in the hallway or send them an email and then have to follow up on the email.”

During Great Kitchens’ search for an ERP, it brought to light a gap in how R&D and their product lifecycle was managed. IT Director Steve Staniszewski says, “We have so many different ingredients, our existing workflow is somewhat chopped up and data is stored so it’s chopped off. Our overall goal is to have that centralized workflow, to communicate, to know where things are in our process.”

Selection of the PLM provider came down to Centric’s easy-to-use out of the box functionality that gave Great Kitchens everything they were looking for. Parks marvels at the ease with which she is able to manage projects after Centric PLM. Using regulatory as an example, Parks says, “You can track tasks and see how long it takes to complete each one. It eliminates having to go back and search through emails for the needed information; everything is in one central location.” And manually following up is a thing of the past. “Now, I hit a button, and it sends out the tasks to everybody. It’s faster, it’s convenient.”

Read the full story to find out what sealed the deal for Great Kitchens to choose Centric Software, how easy it is to make changes to templates (spoiler: no custom coding necessary!) and an amusing anecdote about the help desk…

Read the full story

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Great Kitchens (www.gkitchens.com)

Based out of Romeoville, just southwest of Chicago, Great Kitchens has been supplying private label, take & bake pizza since 2005. Recently acquired by Brynwood Partners in December 2020, we have the unique capability to innovate through recipes, toppings, crust types and baking profiles and our flexible manufacturing lines allow us to provide our customers with a premium pizza product. We pride ourselves on providing the highest quality in every aspect of the pizza process and provide solutions to both retail and foodservice customers.  Our pizzas are proudly served in 9 of the top 15 food retailers in North America and 6 of the top 10 global food retailers. We serve all major channels: grocery, supercenter, limited assortment, convenience stores, warehouse clubs, QSR, foodservice and E-commerce. Our flexibility sets us apart from many of our competitors and allows for quick speed to market for new products. Our pizzas have an excellent track record for quality and have been recognized by several of our customers as “Best in Class.” We also pride ourselves on safe and sustainable business practices.  Both our Romeoville and Chicago Heights plants are BRC GSFS A+ rated and we have a global supply network of top quality suppliers allowing us to leverage their R&D capabilities for our customers.” Our people are our strongest asset and we proudly employ over 700 employees.

Centric Software® (www.centricsoftware.com)

From its headquarters in Silicon Valley, Centric Software provides a product concept to launch platform for consumer goods such as fashion, retail, footwear, luxury, outdoor, consumer electronics, cosmetics & personal care and food & beverage. Centric Software’s flagship Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) platform, Centric PLM®, delivers enterprise-class merchandise planning, product development, sourcing, quality and product portfolio optimization innovations specifically for fast-moving consumer industries. Centric Visual Boards™ offer highly visual, touch-screen experiences for collaboration and decision-making. Centric Planning™ is an innovative, cloud-native, augmented-intelligence solution delivering end-to-end retail planning to maximize retail and wholesale business performance.  Centric Market Intelligence™, powered by StyleSage™, is an AI-driven market insight platform for data-informed decision-making on pricing and product assortments to maximize revenue and margins. Among many other market-driven innovations, Centric Software is widely known for its connectivity to dozens of other enterprise systems, including ERP, DAM, PIM, e-com and more, in addition to creative tools such as Adobe® Illustrator, a host of 3D CAD connectors and sustainability tools, such as Higg. Centric Software has the highest user adoption rate, customer satisfaction rate and fastest time to value in the industry.   

Centric Software is a subsidiary of Dassault Systèmes (Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA), the world leader in 3D design software, 3D digital mock-up and PLM solutions.  

Centric Software has received multiple industry awards and recognition, including being named by Red Herring to its Top 100 Global list several times. Centric Software also received five excellence awards from Frost & Sullivan over the past decade.  

Centric Software and Centric PLM are registered trademarks of Centric Software, Inc. in the US and other countries. All third-party trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners.  