Woolworths South Africa, part of Woolworths Holdings Limited, has implemented a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution to help transform end-to-end product development and provide a platform for collaboration.

Woolworths South Africa offers a mix of food, fashion, beauty, homeware and financial services. The group said it chose to implement Centric PLM to address challenges related to its growth.

“Our previous product development process was inefficient and time-consuming,” explains Shane Butlion, head of central business optimisation, Woolworths Fashion, Beauty and Home. “We lacked visibility across our product development lifecycle. Our business has evolved significantly, with expanded sourcing and trading regions, creating additional complexity in the management of these new channels.

“We approached this as a transformational project, not just a system implementation. With Centric’s guidance and best practice experience, we have introduced future-fit improvements to our ways of working. From our initial rollout, we expect to see improved collaboration and teamwork in product development, costing efficiencies, better visibility, improved supplier collaboration, a single source of the truth for data, a full audit trail and improved milestone management.”