7mesh Streamlines Product Development and Speeds Materials Management with Centric PLM

7mesh, a rapidly growing Canadian performance apparel brand, turned to Centric PLM™ in 2021 for a structured digital foundation to scale the company. As demand grew for its premium technical gear, so did product development complexity, exposing inefficient workflows, disparate data and disjointed communication that threatened product quality, rapid innovation and the ability to scale.

Since implementing the product lifecycle management (PLM) solution Centric PLM, 7mesh has the foundation to scale, cut material ordering time by 50%, automated production workflows, streamlined product development and driven innovation through Centric PLMs actionable source of truth.

Structured growth from day one for cohesive teams and scalable workflows

7mesh knew the strategic importance of a streamlined workflow and setting a digital foundation to scale in the early stages of growth.

We thought it was a good idea to onboard Centric PLM when we were quite small because it was still manageable to input data and grow the system from there.” shares Kirkpatrick.

Although 7mesh is a lean team with 23 employees, it has a significant product range with approximately 35 winter SKUs and 40 summer SKUs. The brand is also planning to expand beyond cycling with a new Gore-Tex range scheduled to be released soon. A priority for Centric PLM was to streamline workflows for key product users and the resulting in impressive efficiency gains.

Teams save time and speed innovation

“Our technical designer creates size charts, measurements and tech packs and inputs comments in Centric PLM. That information flows through to our design developer who then pulls the colors. Together, they have a streamlined workflow in PLM for BOMs and tech pack output,” explains Kirkpatrick.

7mesh has achieved a dramatic 50% decrease in time spent on material ordering thanks to Centric PLM’s automation.

Each season, we download yield and forecast reports in PLM and calculate how much fabric we’re going to need. It’s a huge time saver because it was a long process to manually create those reports before PLM,” says Kirkpatrick.

Kirkpatrick continues to share how BOM templates in PLM have drastically reduced manual updates across seasons, saving time and reducing spreadsheet chaos.

“Being able to carryover styles and products into the next season in PLM is so helpful,” says Kirkpatrick. “Data points are in one centralized location and the Centric PLM search configurations are incredibly innovative. I’ve saved a significant amount of time by not having to update BOMs every season and by pulling colors directly from PLM.”

7mesh has also saved time by streamlining lab dips approvals and color development.

The path to sustainability with compliance and real-time tracking

Kirkpatrick shares how Centric PLM’s materials tracking and reporting features are fueling the brand’s sustainability goals and path to reduce the use of “forever chemicals,” such as PFAS in their products.

“We had the Centric team set up specialized fields so we can run materials reports and track our transition out of using PFAS materials,” explains Kirkpatrick. “We mark on the garment and the material whether they are compliant or not and PLM enables us to track this in real-time. We’ll ensure inventory is fully compliant when regulations come into play.”

With growing regulations around PFAS and PFCs, the team uses Centric PLM’s custom fields to track compliance by material and product.

Today, they’ve reached 86% PFAS compliance – an industry-leading achievement at a time when many apparel brands are only beginning to map PFAS across their supply chains. Full traceability in Centric PLM continues to guide the transition with a goal to achieve 95% by the end of the year.

A bright future ahead

The 7mesh team is thrilled with the results achieved to date with Centric PLM, streamlined workflows, enhanced materials management, improved collaboration and stronger compliance tracking have set a solid foundation for growth and innovation. Looking to the future, they see an opportunity to expand PLM to their vendors with the Centric PLM vendor portal and continue to grow with Centric Software.

As we grow, we definitely want to explore more of the capabilities of Centric PLM and how we can continue to create workflow efficiencies, establish more data-point tracking and onboard our vendors,” says Kirkpatrick.