August 14th, 2025

PMI Group Partners with Centric Software to Launch Food Packaging PLM Project, Boosting R&D Efficiency

“Centric stood out in a highly competitive selection process, demonstrating professional expertise that earned our trust.”

— Mr. Shen Bin

Director of PMI’s IT Department

PMI Group extends Centric PLM to its packaging companies, tackling diverse product lines across three divisions

CAMPBELL, Calif., August 14, 2025 – Centric Software® is pleased to announce that China-based PMI Group, a food ingredient and packaging supplier, has selected Centric PLM™ to build a unified digital R&D management platform for its packaging group. 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.

PMI Group is a renowned enterprise specializing in the design and manufacture of packaging, materials, ingredients and is also an alliance partner of Master Kong. As part of Ting Hsin International Group’s supply chain ecosystem, PMI operates across eight business divisions, including packaging, grain & oil, starch and freeze-dried food processing, with a total of 36 subsidiaries.

The association between Centric Software and PMI Group began in 2022 with a successful project involving Starpro, PMI’s raw materials business division. Building on this success, PMI is now expanding the partnership to all its packaging businesses, including three key packaging manufacturers: TingZheng, HeSheng and BingXin.

As the wave of Industry 4.0 accelerates worldwide, enterprises are undergoing a comprehensive shift from automation to intelligence. With AI-powered industrial transformation on the rise, digitalization has become essential to strengthening core competitiveness. PMI Group is proactively embracing technological change and is well-prepared for this digital transformation journey.

PMI Group wanted a unified digital R&D management platform to standardize product data, capture product knowledge and empower R&D to deliver greater business value.

Mr. Shen Bin, Director of PMI’s IT Department, remarks, “This project underwent more than a year of evaluation and planning. Thanks to the full support of the Group’s leadership, it is now officially launched. Centric stood out in a highly competitive selection process, demonstrating professional expertise that earned our trust. This project is one of the most significant investments of the year for PMI’s packaging divisions and a key step in our digital transformation.”

Mr. Huang Ruixiu, Director of PMI’s Central R&D Institute, states, “The Central R&D Institute was established in 2023, guided by the Group’s top strategic framework OPPIS (Organization, People, Process, Information System, Skills). Having mapped out our processes, we are now entering the information system phase, which requires building our own R&D information system.” He emphasizes the current challenges of data fragmentation and information silos across the Group, highlighting the urgent need to centralize data management and unlock value from raw data to actionable insights.

The groundwork for PMI’s packaging PLM project began in 2023 under the group’s digital transformation strategy. PMI formed a dedicated team comprised of IT and the three packaging divisions to set requirements and scope and drive the project forward. After executive approval, the timeline was 10 to 11 months.

Regarding expectations, Director Huang Ruixiu comments, “Facing increasing competition in the Chinese market, PMI must accelerate technological innovation, with R&D digitalization being the foundation. This PLM project marks an important starting point. Since Master Kong is also a Centric customer, we look forward to future system integration to achieve synchronized product and packaging development, enhancing R&D efficiency and maximizing system synergies.”

Chris Groves, CEO of Centric Software says, “We are proud that PMI Group has chosen to extend its partnership with us. It marks a solid step forward in PMI Group’s R&D digital transformation journey. PMI is set to implement a smarter, more efficient R&D management system, injecting new momentum into product development.”

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PMI Group

Centric Software® (centricsoftware.com)

From its headquarters in Silicon Valley, Centric Software provides the market-leading AI-enabled product lifecycle management platform for food & beverage manufacturers, grocery, brands and multi-category retailers. As experts in all fast-moving consumer goods, Centric Software delivers best-of-breed solutions to design, develop, source, comply, buy, make, package, assort, market and sell products. Centric Software solutions optimize the product portfolio, harmonize product offers and streamline product development by speeding time to market and innovation while enhancing quality control and ensuring regulatory compliance.

Centric PLM™ features integrated industry best practices and innovative, AI-enabled capabilities tailored specifically for food and beverage manufacturers, retailers and food service providers. Seamlessly manage the overall product lifecycle, from initial concept and formula development to packaging, quality, supplier collaboration, nutritional labeling, production, SKU rationalization and beyond. Results include up to a 50% improvement in productivity and a 60% decrease in time to market.
Centric Visual Boards™ are a visually oriented product portfolio optimization tool. A singular accessible workspace pulls in real-time data and imagery from multiple business systems. It is a new, visual way of working to ensure robust, consumer-right product offers, dramatically decreasing assortment development cycle time.
Centric PXM™ AI-powered Product Experience Management encompasses PIM, DAM, content syndication and Digital Shelf Analytics (DSA) to optimize the product commercialization lifecycle resulting in a transformed brand experience. Increase sales channels, boost sell through and drive margins.

Centric Software’s market-driven solutions have the highest user adoption rate, customer satisfaction rate and fastest time to value in the industry. Centric Software has received multiple industry awards and recognition, appearing regularly in world-leading analyst reports and research.