Transforming product development at Ten Acre Gifts with Centric PLM

We were just keeping up with spreadsheets and it got messy. A lot of data discrepancies, having to update something on 20 different spreadsheets and communication issues made our work increasingly complex.”

Product Development Team Leader, Madeline Huling at Ten Acre Gifts describes the situation prior to Centric PLM™. She continues, “We were saving over each other’s files and it was becoming impossible to track the most current information.” Today, there is a single source of truth for product information, departments have real-time visibility into product data and are collaborating efficiently. What were the steps that led to this state?

Ten Acre Gifts

Founded in 2020, and headquartered in California, Ten Acre Gifts is a leading branded food gift company. Its mission is to provide retailers and consumers with branded food gifts by designing, developing and delivering top performing products. Emphasis is on curating on-trend gifts that are ’better for you’, bring comfort and joy and make memories.

Rapid rise

Having experienced rapid growth, scaling from $4 million to $20 million in annual sales within just four years, the organization operates with a lean team of 12 employees, serving multiple distribution channels across various markets. The product portfolio is consumer goods, with a focus on creating innovative solutions that meet evolving consumer needs. The growth trajectory came with operational challenges. The teams found themselves increasingly overwhelmed by the complexity of managing product information across multiple platforms.

Manual work

There was much manual work. “We were a small company with big ambitions,” Huling recalls. “Every new item, every new customer meant creating multiple spreadsheets, updating countless files and constantly fighting against data inconsistencies.” The team would spend hours cross-referencing information and verifying costs. The company wanted to address several pain points: eliminating data discrepancies, creating a centralized information repository and streamlining cross-departmental communication.

Previous experience with Centric PLM at a prior organization made the selection process straightforward. “Our CEO had used Centric at a previous company,” Huling explains. “We always knew that by year four, we would need a more structured product development software process.” The decision wasn’t just about technology; it was about creating a sustainable infrastructure for growth.

Implementation

The implementation had two phases: the initial configuration, followed by refinement. Huling shares, “The Centric team helped us reconfigure some critical processes, ensuring the system truly met our unique business needs.” Centric Software®’s customer support team played a crucial role in the success, receiving praise for their responsiveness and technical expertise.

Benefits all around

The company is realizing the efficiencies they expected, like establishing a ‘single source of truth’ for product information, eliminating communication silos between departments and creating real-time visibility across sales, design, and operations teams.

Each department also enjoys unique benefits since the implementation. Sales has access to centralized cost information, operations leverages seamless ERP integration for precise order matching and design teams have comprehensive tracking mechanisms for artwork and revisions.

“Our design team, who were initially skeptical, now love the system,” Huling enthuses. “They have all their reports built out, tracking every detail of artwork and revision processes.” The operations team similarly transformed their workflow, using PLM to match customer orders with purchase orders with a level of accuracy previously unimaginable.”

A helpful hand in challenging times

The most dramatic impact, however, came during recent global trade challenges. “With tariffs this year, PLM has been a lifesaver especially with the constant changes in costs. Instead of manually recalculating everything, we were able to update the tariff for each country directly in PLM. The new costs were automatically reflected, allowing us to quickly analyze and share accurate pricing with our customers,” explains Huling. The system’s ability to perform instant calculations and provide real-time margin analysis has become a strategic advantage.

By the numbers

The quantifiable benefits are significant. The company estimates a 50% time reduction in both internal and customer costing processes. A sophisticated lookup table for shipping metrics and container rates enables more precise costing calculations. “We always say it’s our single source of truth,” Huling says. “When we log into PLM, we know the data is the most up-to-date.”

What’s ahead

Looking forward, Ten Acre Gifts plans to explore additional Centric modules, including visual boards and vendor portals. “This summer, we’ll start discussing potential enhancements with the Centric team,” Huling says. “We view Centric PLM not just as a software solution but as a strategic growth enabler.”

For other growing companies, Huling offers pragmatic advice: “Be prepared to reconfigure the system to fit your unique business needs. Invest in admin training and remain flexible in your approach.”

“Centric is concise, organized and truly a game-changer,” Huling concludes. “We are so thankful for PLM this year! It has transformed how we manage our product development process.” As Ten Acre Gifts continues its ambitious growth trajectory, Centric PLM stands as a critical infrastructure supporting their vision—turning complex, manual processes into a streamlined, data-driven approach to product development that promises to fuel their future success.