Leading PPE and Hardware group achieves early-stage results from its global digital platform project with Centric Software

CAMPBELL, Calif., February 11, 2025 – Centric Software^®, the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) market leader, is delighted to announce that the global Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) leader, Hultafors Group, has successfully completed the first phase of its Centric PLM™ implementation.  Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to plan, design, develop, source, buy, make, price, allocate, sell and replenish products such as fashion, luxury, footwear, outdoor, home and related goods like cosmetics & personal care and food & beverage as well as multi-category retail to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals. 

Hultafors Group is one of Europe’s largest companies with a premium portfolio of personal protective equipment and hardware solutions. Driven by a shared vision to improve how the world works, the group maintains an unwavering commitment to quality, sustainability, and innovation at every level. With a heritage that dates back to 1883, Hultafors Group has built a reputation for excellence through customer-focused product development, earning its brands international recognition and leadership in their markets.

In November 2023, it adopted Centric PLM as part of its global, company-wide digitalization program to achieve ambitious growth and sustainability goals. Two of its major brands, Snickers Workwear and Solid Gear, went live on time with Centric PLM in February 2024 marking a significant milestone in their journey toward more efficient and transparent product lifecycle management while attaining valuable key learnings for the continued rollout with more brands from both brand segments.

“The first KPI of our Centric PLM project, which we achieved, was to have all high level BOM (bill of materials) information entered into the system,” says Jenny Falk, Digital Growth Manager at Snickers Workwear. “As part of a larger digitalization journey, having structured and accessible data is crucial.”

Falk shares that housing all BOM and certification documentation in one single repository has dramatically reduced manual data entry as well as powered efficiency and speed. In addition, “The entire BOM process is now a lot more structured and much faster and that’s really helped us with sustainability reporting,” shares Falk. “In January 2025, a key provision of the AGEC (Anti-Waste and Circular Economy) law will come into effect in France. The law, which aims to reduce waste and promote recycling, mandates stricter rules on the traceability of products, especially in terms of their environmental impact and their lifecycle management. Without Centric PLM, we would not have been able to meet this legislation — this is a huge benefit to us.”

Falk explains that Centric PLM’s single source of truth ensures all information is up to date and has greatly improved the workflows.

“In the past, we collected information from many different systems and the teams had to spend time double checking data,” says Falk. “Now, the information is available to everyone, at any time, in a single place. This is one thing that Centric PLM has really improved in our way of working.”

Falk comments on the project implementation process and relationship with the Centric Software team over the past year.

“The workshops and onboarding sessions with the Centric Software team have gone very well and they were extremely responsive,” Falk comments. “They heard what we were asking for and helped us define our requirements.”

Nearly one year into its Centric PLM rollout, Falk reflects on lessons learned and shares advice for companies embarking on a digital transformation project.

“Centric PLM is redefining our company’s ways of working. My first piece of advice is to take time to clean and reorganize data, the second is to leverage Centric team’s expertise and the third is to start working in the system as soon as possible to really understand the power of the tool,” advises Falk.

“We are thrilled that Hultafors Group has had a successful experience with their Centric PLM implementation that has laid the groundwork for a great part of their global digitalization project,” says Fabrice Canonge, President of Centric Software. “We look forward to a long-term partnership with this innovative and sustainable company.”

Hultafors Group (www.hultaforsgroup.com)

Hultafors Group is a house of premium brands, joined by a shared vision: improving how the world works. On group level, our purpose and goal are to be a growth platform for business success by providing a world-class backbone, taking care of all joint systems and processes – so our brands can focus on what they do best – empower professionals with the most durable and high-performing products on the market.

Hultafors Group consists of major and specialty brands in two main segments, Personal Protective Equipment and Hardware Solutions. The brands are our pride and main offering to our customers. They drive their own value chain from product development and supply chain to marketing and sales.

Hultafors Group has 1,800 employees, sales offices in 16 countries, and products available through e-com, partners and dealers in 70 markets worldwide.

Snickers Workwear (hultaforsgroup.co.uk/our-brands/snickers-workwear)

Snickers Workwear offers innovative, technical workwear with uncompromising safety that work together with today’s craftsmen and women wanting the most durable and style-conscious solutions available. We lead the industry in style and design by emphasizing safety, functionality, longevity and comfort – inspiring demanding professionals to a smarter and safer work life.

Solid Gear (hultaforsgroup.com/our-brands/solid-gear)

Solid Gear Footwear is the frontrunner in innovative and athletic safety footwear. We develop light, comfortable, and sporty safety shoes and work shoes for high-performance work in demanding conditions. Our revolutionary high-quality safety footwear offers supreme comfort, agility, and quality.

Combining cutting-edge technology and high-quality materials with a focus on performance and design, Solid Gear Footwear continuously raises the bar in how safety footwear performs, feels, and looks.

Centric Software^® (www.centricsoftware.com)

From its headquarters in Silicon Valley, Centric Software provides an innovative and AI-enabled product concept-to-replenishment platform for retailers, brands and manufacturers of all sizes. As experts in fashion, luxury, footwear, outdoor, home and related goods like cosmetics & personal care as well as multi-category retail. Centric Software delivers best-of-breed solutions to plan, design, develop, source, buy, make, price, allocate, sell and replenish products.

• Centric PLM^TM, the leading PLM solution for fashion, outdoor, footwear and private label, optimizes product execution from ideation to development, sourcing and manufacture, realizing up to 50% improvement in productivity and a 60% decrease in time to market.
• Centric Planning^TM is an innovative, cloud-native, AI solution delivering end-to-end planning capabilities to maximize retail and wholesale business performance, including SKU optimization, resulting in an up to 110% increase in margins.
• Centric Pricing & Inventory^TM leverages AI to drive margins and boost revenues by up to 18% via price and inventory optimization from pre-season to in-season to season completion.
• Centric Market Intelligence^TM is an AI-driven platform giving insights into consumer trends, competitor offers and pricing to boost competitivity and get closer to the consumer, with an up to 12% increase in average initial price point.
• Centric Visual Boards^TM pivot actionable data in a visual-first orientation to ensure robust, consumer-right assortments and product offers, dramatically decreasing assortment development cycle time.

Centric Software’s market-driven, best-of-breed solutions have the highest user adoption rate, customer satisfaction rate and fastest time to value in the industry. Centric Software has received multiple industry awards and recognition, appearing regularly in world-leading analyst reports and research.

Centric Software is a subsidiary of Dassault Systèmes (Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA), the world leader in 3D design software, 3D digital mock-up and PLM solutions.

Centric Software is a registered trademark of Centric Software, Inc. in the US and other countries. Centric PLM, Centric Planning, Centric Pricing & Inventory, Centric Market Intelligence and Centric Visual Boards are Trademarks of Centric Software, Inc. All third-party trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners.

Media Contacts:
Centric Software
Americas: Jennifer Forsythe, jforsythe@centricsoftware.com
EMEA: Kristen Salaun-Batby, ksalaun-batby@centricsoftware.com
APAC: Lily Dong, lily.dong@centricsoftware.com