Mizuno USA Transforms Product Development After Implementing Centric Software’s PLM
Centric Software is delighted to announce the release of a success story about its customer, Mizuno.
Mizuno USA is a subsidiary of Mizuno Corporation, the sporting goods giant founded by two brothers in Osaka, Japan in 1906. Originally selling Western sports sundries such as baseballs, Mizuno began manufacturing athletic wear to order in 1907 and launched its famous range of golf clubs in 1933. Mizuno opened its first American factory in Los Angeles in 1961 and American Mizuno, known today as Mizuno USA, was born.
Tim Rumer, Director of Product Lifecycle Management at Mizuno USA, recalls that line planning and product development at the sports brand used to be a headache.
“We used to have what I called the ‘ta-da moment’. Product managers would work on their collections and then reveal them at the last moment. No-one had any idea what was in the pipeline unless they were intimately familiar with the category. There was little to no visibility of development. We wanted to know what was in the pipeline and set realistic launch timelines.”
Today, things look very different. Mizuno USA now uses Centric Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) across all of its divisions and 28 product categories. Centric has been adopted enthusiastically by users and has become the standard platform for communication and product development across the organization.
Since implementing Centric PLM, Mizuno USA has ditched painful product development, increased the capacity of category managers by up to 75%, and boosted SKU numbers in one division by an impressive 10.2% in just one year.
How did they get here?