Slingshot Sports Launches into Efficiency with Centric PLM

The sport board brand uses PLM to set themselves up for further growth

CAMPBELL, Calif., March 31, 2022 – Slingshot Sports, the sport board company, has selected Centric Software®’s Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution, Centric PLM. Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to plan, design, develop, source and sell products such as apparel, footwear, sporting goods, furniture, home décor, cosmetics, food & beverage and luxury to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.

Founded in 1999 by brothers Jeff and Tony Logosz, Slingshot Sports is an innovative company that began with kite boards and expanded to wake, windsurf, stand up paddleboard, wing surfing and foils on the various boards. Slingshot’s parent company, 7 Nation, brought in Ride Engine, maker of the revolutionary hard-shell, customizable form-fitting kite boarding harness. Ride Engine also has a line of watersports equipment, wetsuits, bags and accessories. The products from both companies are sold in numerous countries around the globe.

Greg Kish, Product Line Manager at Slingshot Sports describes the company’s expansion into different categories. “We started with kite boarding, followed by wakeboarding, wake surfing and paddle boarding. And then a few years ago, the foil boarding trend started to really hit. That kind of shifted the business; everybody wanted hydrofoils so Slingshot embraced that with a product called the hover glide, a modular foil platform that crosses all the sports.”

With the expansion of categories came the need for better project management. Kish says, “As the sports, the brands and the SKU list grew, it has become extremely difficult to manage all that information off of line cards, Excel documents, and then trying to get that into our ERP system. And manage our supply chain, suppliers, accounting and all that communication as well.”  Add to that the complicating factor that boards from each discipline are measured differently. Kish notes, “Wakeboards are measured in centimeters. Wind surfboards and wing surfing boards are measured in liters. Surfboards are measured in feet and inches, and all those differences must be captured and tied to the various categories.”

Slingshot looked at different vendors, narrowing the field down to three candidates. After several demos where the team evaluated features and talked to references about all the potential providers, they selected Centric PLM. Centric’s experience with hardgoods, the large number of references in sporting goods plus the rest of the ratings tipped the scale in Centric’s favor.

Of the Centric team Kish says, “They did a great job. Our sales rep answered a lot of questions and our implementation team has been awesome—very patient with us.”

Slingshot is looking forward to getting all the remote design and development information in one place, a single source of truth for product development. Says Kish, “Centric PLM provides visibility into the end-to-end process and houses data and designs so none of it is lost if someone leaves the company. Having that library of information, being able to access it and have transparency in our development process, is huge. Our hope is that we’re going to be able to develop products more efficiently and at a better cost structure in the future.”

Chris Groves, President and CEO of Centric Software says, “We are pleased to have such an innovative company place their trust in Centric PLM. With the complexity of Slingshot and Ride Engine’s product offerings, we are excited to be working with them to meet their needs and drive efficiency into their workflows.”

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Slingshot Sports (www.slingshotsports.com)

Founded in 1999 by brothers Jeff and Tony Logosz, Slingshot Sports is an innovative company that began with kite boards and expanded to wake, windsurf, stand up paddleboard, wingsurfing and foils on the various boards. Today, they are a global leader in watersports equipment, with innovation at the forefront of product development. The people that make up the company are adventurers. Tinkerers. Inventors. Free Spirits. Bold and hungry to explore, fueled by the desire to experiment, defy convention and create firsts on the water. The parent company, 7 Nation was formed to serve both Slingshot and Ride Engine among other brands. This new structure will allow for each brand to maintain an independent brand identity. It will also allow each brand to independently leverage their specialized core competencies while maintaining a sharp focus. 7 Nation will serve to find cost savings and other natural synergies on the back end. Our new 7 Nation brand strategy encourages B2B transparency while boosting our end user experience for each brand.

About Ride Engine (www.rideengine.com)

Ride Engine was founded by Coleman Buckley. An avid surfer and tinkerer, Buckley developed the revolutionary Armor harness. The buzz about the hard-shell, fully customizable form-fitting harness spread quickly among enthusiasts. In the fall of 2014 Buckley joined forces with 7 Nation, parent company of Slingshot. With significantly more resources and collaborators from multiple industries at its disposal, Ride Engine quickly had the ability to branch out and develop new product lines crossing over to other action sports. Ride Engine launched three models of highly-refined Armor harnesses to international markets in the summer of 2015 and followed with a full line of wetsuits the same season. Today, Ride Engine has a full line of artfully and thoughtfully designed watersports equipment, bags and accessories focused on sustainably growing into the future.

Centric Software (www.centricsoftware.com)

From its headquarters in Silicon Valley, Centric Software® provides a Product Concept to Replenishment Digital Transformation Platform for fashion, retail, footwear, luxury, outdoor, consumer electronics and consumer goods including cosmetics and personal care and food and beverage. Centric’s flagship Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) platform, Centric PLM™ , delivers enterprise-class merchandise planning, product development, sourcing, quality and product portfolio optimization innovations specifically for fast-moving consumer industries. Centric Visual Innovation Platform (CVIP) offers highly visual digital board experiences for collaboration and decision-making. Centric Retail Planning is an innovative, cloud-native solution powered by Armonica Retail S.R.L., that delivers an end-to-end retail planning process designed to maximize retail business performance. Centric Software pioneered mobility, introducing the first mobile apps for PLM, and is widely known for connectivity to dozens of other enterprise systems including ERP, DAM, PIM, e-com, planning and more as well as creative tools such as Adobe® Illustrator and a host of 3D CAD connectors. Centric’s innovations are 100% market-driven with the highest user adoption rate and fastest time to value in the industry. 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, 2018 and 2021.

 Centric Software is a registered trademark of Centric Software Inc. All other brands and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.