FINDING THE BEST PLM FIT
MARINE LAYER SAVES TIME AND IMPROVESDATA MANAGEMENT WITH CENTRIC SMB©2018 Centric Software Inc. All rights reserved.

A ‘SEVEN-DAY WEEKEND’ LIFESTYLE BRAND
Marine Layer was founded in 2009 by two friends, Mike Natenshon
and Adam Lynch. The San Francisco-based company began by making
just one product: a super-soft shirt, made from a recycled beechwood
fiber and cotton mix. This unique fiber is used to create clothing thatis ‘absurdly soft’ and comfortable, designed for a casual, ‘seven-dayweekend’ lifestyle.
Marine Layer now produces a large range of clothing and accessories
for men, women and children, from button-down shirts to bathingsuits. MicroModal, the beechwood fiber mix used in over 25 custom
fabrics developed by Marine Layer, is eco-friendly and sustainable. The
company mainly uses production facilities in San Francisco and Los
Angeles, keeping supply chains short and local. More technical styles
are handled by overseas manufacturers that adhere to strict ethical andsustainable standards.
Marine Layer has grown at a rapid rate, and now has 35 retail stores
across most major cities in the USA as well as a thriving online business.

SUPPORT FOR A SCALING BUSINESS
To support Marine Layer’s expansion, the company decided to invest ina PLM solution to manage data and support operations from productdesign and development to retail.

“We needed a place to store all of our shared information that people
could access quickly and easily,” she continues. “We wanted everybody to
be on the same page and have a history of products from past seasons.
So, we started looking for a PLM solution.”

FRICTIONLESS ADOPTION
Marine Layer organized several demos from leading PLM vendors, andultimately selected Centric Software’s SMB solution, a flexible, cloud-based
system designed specifically for growing small to medium enterprises.
“We did a bunch of demos, but we felt that Centric was the best fit,”says Eddings. “The possibility of viewing data from different angles was
our favorite thing from the beginning, and still is today. You can give
each team customized views, depending on their specific needs, and notwaste time searching through heaps of other data.”“The ability to configure the system ourselves is great,” Eddings continues.
“We’re on SMB for smaller businesses, and the system is set up to scalewith us. We’ve been able to easily add extra attributes and workarounds
to suit our particular way of working.”
Marine Layer took just two months to implement Centric SMB, and went
live on the system in November 2016.
As Eddings says, “It’s super user-friendly, and now that our everyone
knows how it works, we can onboard new users quickly. It can be ascomplex or as simple as you need it to be. Once we got up and runningon the system, adoption went smoothly.”©2018 Centric Software Inc. All rights reserved.

“CENTRIC SMB HAS
CHANGED THE WAY
WE OPERATE. IT’S LIKEHAVING A WHOLE OTHERPERSON ON EACH TEAM,EVERY SINGLE DAY. IT’S
HARD TO IMAGINE LIFEWITHOUT CENTRIC NOW.

“

“Before we selected a PLM solution, we had information stored in a
lot of different places,” explains Megan Eddings, Director of ProductDevelopment and Production at Marine Layer. “We had tech packs
and BOMs in Excel sheets and information scattered across various
documents and emails. People would waste time looking for informationand get confused about what was confirmed. We had printed line
sheets with handwritten notes that were a ‘bible’ of up-to-date data, but
obviously these were not widely and immediately accessible so it wasn’t
an ideal solution.”

CHALLENGES++ Data scattered across different documents
and formats++ Teams wasted time searching for
up-to-date information++ Number of stores and product style
growing rapidly++ Needed a complete history of products frompast seasons++ Depending on printed sheets for mostup-to-date data

MORE TIME TO CREATE NEW STYLESRESULTSMarine Layer has experienced substantial time savings since
implementing Centric SMB, and anticipates that the wealthof data building up from previous seasons will help to further
increase efficiency in the future.

++ 10-15% time savings for all teams“Having Centric in place saves everyone about 10-15 percent of
their time on a day to day basis, mainly because people don’t
have to spend time searching for the right answers, asking
questions and re-confirming whether information is up to date,”
explains Eddings. “Obviously it still takes time to put together
tech packs and gather comments, to take just one example, but
Centric has helped us to manage data and make that work more
efficient and effective.”++ 174% increase in the number of styles in a yearand half++ Vendor reporting function makes it easier toassess vendor performance++ Enhanced ability to pinpoint prototyping errors++ View functions make it possible for teams toaccess most relevant information++ Able to efficiently store and manage historicaland current product data

“Now that we’re building up a database of previous seasons,
it’s easier to just press go on repeats, or access templates thatcan be adapted for new items,” she continues. “The first season
we put onto Centric had 178 styles, and now, a year and a halflater, we have 488 styles. Our product range is expanding at avery fast pace, and that wouldn’t be possible without the data
management functions of Centric SMB. We can now easily repeat
tried and true styles so we can spend time and energy focusing
on new and original products.”
Centric SMB has also made it easier for Marine Layer to assess
the performance of vendors and pinpoint prototype errors,
which contributes to better efficiency in product development
and manufacturing.

“Since we started using Centric, the vendor reporting
capabilities have helped us to assess the performance ofour suppliers,” notes Eddings. “We can gauge the efficiency
of individual vendors and whether they consistently
deliver on time, which helps us to structure our businessin a way that collaborates more effectively with vendors.”“Now that we keep records about prototypes in one
accessible digital location, we can track prototype
iterations and pinpoint any resulting errors more quickly.
Centric helps to maintain that information so we can reactwith speed.”

FLEXIBLE FOUNDATION FOR GROWTH
Centric SMB is designed to scale as Marine Layercontinues to grow, and the soft fabric pioneers see
Centric’s PLM solution as an important foundation for
managing historical and current data.
“We expect that Centric will continue to support ourworkload and data management needs as we grow,” says
Eddings. “The bigger we are, the more important it is tohave a history of what we’ve made.”
She concludes, “Centric SMB has changed the way weoperate. It’s like having a whole other person on eachteam, every single day. It’s hard to imagine life without
Centric now.”º©2018 Centric Software Inc. All rights reserved.

ABOUT MARINE LAYERMarine Layer locally designs and manufactures its own line of casual apparel. We sell through our website and our retailstores throughout the US of A. We are a fast-growing company whose success has been built on a small, passionate
team that works hard and has a lot of fun.

ABOUT CENTRIC SOFTWARE
From its headquarters in Silicon Valley and offices in trend capitals around the world, Centric Software provides a Digital
Transformation Platform for the most prestigious names in fashion, retail, footwear, luxury, outdoor and consumer
goods. Centric Visual Innovation Platform (VIP) is a visual, fully digital collection of boards for touch-based devices likeiPad, iPhone and large-scale, touch-screen televisions. Centric VIP transforms decision making and automates execution
to truly collapse time to market and distance to trend. Centric’s flagship product lifecycle management (PLM) platform,Centric 8, delivers enterprise-class merchandise planning, product development, sourcing, business planning, quality,and collection management functionality tailored for fast-moving consumer industries. Centric SMB packages extended
PLM including innovative technology and key industry learnings tailored for small businesses.
Centric Software has received multiple industry awards, including the Frost & Sullivan Global Product Differentiation
Excellence Award in Retail, Fashion, and Apparel PLM in 2016 and Frost & Sullivan’s Global Retail, Fashion, and Apparel
PLM Product Differentiation Excellence Award in 2012. Red Herring named Centric to its Top 100 Global list in 2013,2015, and 2016.
Centric is a registered trademark of Centric Software. All other brands and product names may be trademarks of theirrespective owners.

Centric Software UK | 222 Regent Street | London | W1B 5TR | UK
Phone: +44 (0)20 7156 7819 | centric@centricsoftware.com

www.centricsoftware.com©2018 Centric Software Inc. All rights reserved.