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Adidas group uses PLM to achieve company-wide strategic collaboration

“Easy collaboration, a single repository for product information and supporting multiple business models by brand is vital — but incredibly difficult for a company of our size and enormous product volume.” — Peter Burrows, CIO Emeritus, adidas Group

 
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ROI of Product Lifecycle Management

Feature Article

At adidas Group new products are simultaneously developed and introduced on a continuous basis to meet the needs of the most discriminating professional athletes, teams and consumers. Yet the company faced a specific need to implement a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) technology architecture that would allow for strategic collaboration across the multi-brand, multi-product
type, customer-focused organization.

Challenges included:

  • Islands of information on unique systems meant data could not be easily shared across groups and led to high cost of ownership
  • Some legacy technologies made it difficult for factories to collaborate and share product information
  • No single repository for materials management resulted in data integrity concerns and duplication of data entry
  • Unable to easily move people across divisions; complete systems retraining required, which decreased productivity and efficiency

With a strong PLM foundation, adidas Group is able to ensure product availability in the correct size, color and high quality as well as provide game-changing technical innovation.

When adidas acquired Reebok in 2006, it also acquired its use of PTC's Windchill FlexPLM solution
designed for the Retail, Footwear and Apparel industries. This Web-based platform successfully brought globally distributed teams together through a simple, yet complete user interface. More specifically, FlexPLM provided line planning, costing, specification management, merchandizing and many other capabilities. adidas has since extended its PTC footprint, leveraging not only FlexPLM, but Windchill, PTC’s comprehensive Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software.

Peter Burrows, CIO Emeritus, adidas Group, says “By implementing Windchill, we have designed new apparel and graphics and have them in manufacturing within 24 hours. That speed allows us to create demand and continually focus on high-performance product innovation.”

By implementing PLM as its foundation platform, adidas now has:

  • A single database for all product information and a single repository for materials management increased design and development efficiencies
  • The ability to easily collaborate with external partners across geographies made it possible to cut down cycle times
  • The ability to more accurately design to cost — focusing on a “global one time” methodology the company is able to design faster with fewer changes
  • Support for multiple business models and product calendars with flexible workflows — allows adidas to use the same implementation approach across brands and focus on out-of-the-box features.