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Centric Software is pleased to announce that First Tactical, a leading functional apparel and gear brand for first responders, has selected Centric PLM™ to transform product development to meet increasing demand for its purpose-built gear. Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to plan, design, develop, source, comply, buy, make, price, allocate, assort, market, sell and replenish fashion, luxury, footwear, outdoor, home, cosmetics & personal care products as well as multi-category retail, to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.

Headquartered in Modesto, California and in operation for 10 years, First Tactical was founded with a clear mission, to create purpose-built gear that empowers those on the front lines. Its range of functional apparel and gear, designed for first responder professionals including law enforcement, fire rescue and emergency medical personnel (EMS), undergoes rigorous field and fabric testing and is created to enhance capability, mobility and confidence. First Tactical sells its products through e-commerce channels and select dealers in the US and Europe.

First Tactical’s product development complexity is vast. Product specs must be tightly controlled as they are often written into customers’ uniform policies and government bids. Rigorous testing cycles span up to two years and product SKUs are complex, with sizes ranging from 28 to 74 with multiple inseams, creating large BOM matrices. Operating in spreadsheets and email threatened efficiency with limited visibility, time-consuming manual work and version control issues.

“We are a small product development team of three and there’s a lot of work that goes into changing labels and tech packs that are stored in spreadsheets dating back to 2014,” says Merrick Vernon, Director of Technical Design at First Tactical. “We just don’t have the bandwidth for that.”

In response to these challenges, Vernon spearheaded the search for an actionable source of truth to streamline product development, enable accuracy and agility, enhance visibility at each stage and power collaboration internally and with vendors. “We were looking for one source of information for product data and reporting and wanted to implement a PLM before expanding the team. Centric PLM is that,” says Vernon.

First Tactical selected Centric PLM for its robust out-of-the-box capabilities, workflow alignment, calendar features and scalability. It will deploy Centric PLM to its product development and technical design teams in phase one of the project and expects to dramatically shorten timelines and improve efficiency with PLM’s centralized data, automated workflows and project visibility.

“I spend 10 to 15 percent of my day checking in on projects. It will be a gamechanger to have a workload tracker to quickly generate updates for our President,” says Vernon. “I think the biggest benefit will be having the most up-to-date and correct tech packs for our vendors. Right now that’s our chokehold.”

First Tactical also plans to onboard key vendors through Centric PLM’s vendor portal to seamlessly upload measurements, track samples and oversee costs. “Enabling vendors to upload costing information directly into PLM and having that information in one location, rather than searching for it in spreadsheets are key,” explains Vernon.   

Vernon also expects PLM to simplify rigorous product testing procedures. “Regulations for testing requirements change annually, so we need to change care and warning labels each year. The stability and security of using PLM for that will be an enormous benefit,” says Vernon.  

The team is most excited about Centric PLM’s calendar management module. “We have a lot of hands in shared drives and that causes issues with version control and tracking. Having one source of truth, visibility and the project tracking feature is exciting,” concludes Vernon.  

Fabrice Canonge, CEO of Centric Software says, “We are proud to welcome First Tactical to the Centric Software family. We look forward to Centric PLM empowering them to streamline product development and create innovative, safe gear for critical first responders.” 

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