DEUTER FUELS FASTER DECISION MAKING WITH CENTRIC PLM
GERMAN BACKPACK COMPANY GAINS FULLVISIBILITY AND TRANSPARENCY©2019 Centric Software Inc. All rights reserved.

“For the past 25 years, we have had one longstanding manufacturing
partner in Vietnam who makes all of our backpacks and our developers
travel there a lot. Often decisions about products are made there, onthe spot. In the past, these changes were not always documented very
well for our teams back home. This has now totally changed. People candiscuss product alterations at the factory and enter these decisions inCentric PLM while on the road so that everyone can see them. It has verymuch improved our style of working.”
Marco Hühn, Quality Manager at Deuter, recalls how the backpack company
was challenged by a lack of transparency and coordination across internalteams in the US and Germany as well as with their suppliers in Vietnam.
Product data was distributed across different document formats, and withover 600 increasingly complex designs to produce, the right information
was not always available to the people who needed it at the right time, likewhen travelling.
Since implementing Centric 8 PLM, life has changed at Deuter. Teams spend
less time searching for and entering data, enjoy improved transparency
throughout the supply chain with a bird’s-eye view of each product’s lifecyclefrom concept to store, and are able to efficiently maintain a high levelof quality.

BACKPACK PIONEER GROWING AT
FULL SPEED
Deuter Sport GMbH is a leading German producer of backpacks, sleeping
bags and outdoor accessories. The company was founded in 1898 andbegan by supplying mailbags and post sacks to the Bavarian Royal Mail. Overthe years, the company evolved into a renowned provider of backpacks andsleeping bags for outdoor adventurers, hikers, cyclists and mountaineers,
as well as specially designed backpacks for schoolchildren.
Deuter is now part of the Schwan-STABILO Group and has its headquarters
in Bavaria, as well as a US outpost in Longmont, Colorado. Deuter sells
products in 54 countries across five continents. Deuter has also recently
launched an online shop that will cater to customers in Europe in its
initial phase. The company has grown significantly in recent years, andthe number of products they offer is also growing. In addition to its 600
branded products, Deuter has a private label business that adapts designs
from its main collections to create specially made-up products.

“WE WANTED A

BETTER OVERVIEWOF PRODUCTIONSCHEDULESAS WELL AS
DEVELOPMENTSCHEDULES, AND
CENTRIC PLM HAS“How did Deuter decide that Centric PLM was the right solution to boost
innovation, maintain high quality standards and help them shift towards
more sustainable production methods?

MADE IT HAPPEN.

INNOVATIVE AND QUALITY-DRIVEN
TO THE CORE
Deuter’s products are becoming more complex because of the rapid rate of
new product introduction and the technical and the innovative development
they require. It was difficult for the company to share and store information
about materials, product specifications, and Bills of Material (BOMs) in away that was accessible to everyone while using a system of PDFs andExcel spreadsheets.
The company needed greater transparency — real-time access to all datawith improved visibility on each product’s status within the development
cycle — and a form of data management that would help teams stick todevelopment schedules while creating the innovative, high-quality designs
customers expect, so they began researching PLM solutions.
“When looking for a suitable PLM system, our main business aims wereto stay innovative, keep a high level of quality, maintain a well-balanced
production schedule even with more complex and ambitious products,
develop partners with sustainable and modern production methods
and create transparency throughout the supply chain,” says Hühn. “Ourproducts are at the heart of Deuter, so the efficient handling of data about
them is crucial.”©2019 Centric Software Inc. All rights reserved.

CHALLENGES+ Increasing numbers of complex,
technical products+ Lack of transparency in development
and production schedules+ Unable to collaborate efficiently while
visiting manufacturer in Vietnam+ Information scattered across different
documents and offline materials+ Need to maintain high levels ofinnovation and quality

Deuter’s hands-on approach to working with the company’s manufacturing
partner in Vietnam means that accessing accurate product data across locations
in real time is a key reason to use PLM.
“Working directly person to person makes product details easier to understandand avoids a lot of time caught up in explanations and misunderstandings,”
explains Hühn. “While working onsite, you can agree on things that need to bechanged or developed, and design ideas are much more transparent. We neededa system that could capture that information and make it instantly available topeople working on those products back in Germany.”

A MODERN, INTUITIVE SOLUTION
Deuter went through a thorough two-year selection process before selecting
Centric 8 PLM in 2017. Hühn cites Centric’s ease of use and flexibility as keyfactors that swayed their decision.
Hühn says, “We think Centric has the best solution. It is very efficient in handling
data and very user-friendly. Centric is quite a modern system so it has not got a‘development backpack’, a heavy load from old versions, which slows down theflexibility of other systems.”

RESULTS+ Better overview of production
and development schedules+ Transparency improved withcentral, real-time source ofproduct data
+ Time saved searching for
product information+ Organized, accessible,
detailed materials
information and BOMs
+ Ability to communicate
changes from Vietnam
factory immediately“Centric’s system is easy to configure and maintain, and it handles intuitively. Centric also has great knowledge and understandingof the processes and needs specific to companies that handle textiles. It’s a very flexible solution that we expect will be adaptable toupcoming challenges. Another interesting benefit is that Centric’s future innovations, even when developed with other brands, arebrought into the system for all users to benefit from.”

REACHING THE SUMMIT: ACHIEVING FULL TRANSPARENCY
Deuter went live with Centric PLM a year ago and is experiencing the benefits of increased efficiency, transparency and accessibilityof real-time product data in an organized, intuitive format.
“When we began this project, we had one main goal – transparency,” says Hühn. “We wanted a better overview of production
schedules as well as development schedules to improve workflow among our teams and with our manufacturer in Vientam, andCentric PLM has made it happen. We now know much more about all of the materials we use, our BOMs are in a consistent anddetailed format, we can collaborate in real time while traveling and we can see everything necessary to develop the product andapprove it for production.”“Where some companies might have a designer, a product developer and a product manager, at Deuter these three roles arecovered by one person, a developer. These developers have a lot of information to handle, but they have a much better overview
than before. We used to work with books of swatches and documents. Now this information is available to all of the developers at thesame time. They just have to click on a material to see its performance indicators, price and the products it was previously used for.”Hühn explains that Deuter’s product development process is not focused on speed, but on quality and technical innovation.
“Our products are highly technical and can take up to two years to develop because they require certification and the manufacturingof specialized components, such as steel frames. Centric PLM is helping us to document that process better and more transparently
in order to improve the quality of product development and track every step of the process before the product is approved.”“It has changed our way of working,” he adds. “We used tohave BOMs that were mixed up with instructions and otherdocuments. Now we have separated out and defined these
documents within PLM and we are able to go into BOMs inmuch more detail. People also save a lot of time than theywould have spent searching for information across different
documents and systems.”

THE ROAD AHEAD
Deuter is carrying out a global IT project, currently working
on implementing its recently-acquired Product Information
Management (PIM) system and new Enterprise Resource
PLanning (ERP) solution. There are plans to connect Deuter’smarketing team with Centric PLM to help produce hang tagsand point of sale material using up-to-date product details andimages from the system, and to roll out PLM for the private
label side of the business.
“We want people to have a better life at work and a better experiencemaking products. Centric is helping make that happen”©2019 Centric Software Inc. All rights reserved.

ABOUT DEUTER
Deuter is one of the leading backpack and sleeping bag companies worldwide. It is known for innovative products,
unmatched quality and original design. Deuter also looks back on a history of more than a hundred years in the business.
Founded in 1898, Deuter’s headquarters is still located near Augsburg, Germany. Deuter also has a subsidiary in theUnited States and exports to more than 50 countries worldwide. Deuter’s vision reaches beyond making exceptional
products. They create the exhilarating feeling of surpassing their own limits while in harmony with nature.

ABOUT CENTRIC SOFTWARE
From its headquarters in Silicon Valley, Centric Software provides a Digital Transformation Platform for the most prestigious
names in fashion, retail, footwear, luxury, outdoor and consumer goods. Centric’s flagship Product Lifecycle Management(PLM) platform, Centric 8, delivers enterprise-class merchandise planning, product development, sourcing, quality andcollection management functionality tailored for fast-moving consumer industries. Centric SMB provides innovative PLM
technology and key industry learnings for emerging brands. Centric Visual Innovation Platform (VIP) offers a new fully visualand digital experience for collaboration and decision-making and includes the Centric Buying Board to transform internalbuying sessions and maximize retail value and the Centric Concept Board for driving creativity and evolving productconcepts. All Centric innovations shorten time to market, boost product innovation and reduce costs.
Centric Software is majority-owned by Dassault Systèmes (Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA), the world leader in 3D design
software, 3D Digital Mock Up and PLM solutions.
Centric Software has received multiple industry awards and recognition, including being named by Red Herring to its Top
100 Global list in 2013, 2015 and 2016. Centric also received various excellence awards from Frost & Sullivan in 2012,2016 and 2018.

www.centricsoftware.com©2019 Centric Software Inc. All rights reserved. Centric is a registered trademark of Centric Software.
All other brands and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.