Brooks Sports, Inc., a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and a large manufacturer and marketer of running footwear and apparel, will implement PTC Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) technology. The implementation will enable Brooks Sports to move to a single system to streamline product development, materials management and sourcing requirements.
“Brooks Sports wanted to standardize on a footwear and apparel-specific PLM technology foundation to support our growth plans”
Brooks Sports is experiencing rapid growth across its product lines. To accommodate this growth, Brooks Sports realized the need to redefine business processes and product development initiatives to deliver products to market faster. PTC PLM technology will enable the company to reduce cycle times through improved operational efficiency from initial concept to store delivery, ultimately improving overall profitability.
According to the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Retail Product Life-Cycle Management (PLM) Applications 2012 Vendor Assessment report, “PTC has the largest share of the retail PLM market and generally makes the short list of large retailers looking specifically for apparel, footwear, and hard line PLM solutions.” The report continues, “PTC Wind-chill FlexPLM offers a broad set of out-of-the-box capabilities that cover merchandising and line planning, product development, sourcing, costing, quality, compliance, and supply chain.”
“Brooks Sports wanted to standardize on a footwear and apparel-specific PLM technology foundation to support our growth plans,” said David Bohan, president and chief operating officer, Brooks Sports, Inc. “We chose PTC Windchill FlexPLM because it will give us visibility early in the development cycles and will enable us to share design, materials and costing information between ourselves and our suppliers to achieve our growth plans.”
In addition, Brooks Sports was particularly interested in the proven processes and practices enabled by out-of-the-box capabilities of PTC Windchill FlexPLM. The PTC Windchill-based enterprise solution for the Retail and Consumer industries is designed to address both industry-specific challenges, as well as everyday business pressures.
It offers a high-performance platform that provides line planning, specification management, merchandising, product development, sourcing, costing, quality and compliance with full supply chain collaboration capabilities for managing the complete product lifecycle.
