Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) integrated with Global Sourcing for Greater Margin Contribution

NEW YORK : Arigo announces the Arigo STM Suite™ version 9.0 with PLM including robust Digital Asset Management, Product Portfolio Management, and Line Planning capabilities.

This latest version of Arigo STM, representing the industry’s greatest investment in a sourcing and trade management solution, delivers new functionality that enables manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers to achieve greater agility, efficiency, and profitability across the supply chain through integrated concept initiation, product development, line planning, global sourcing, and import management.

From Concept Initiation to Delivery in Single Solution

As efficient, rapid, and globally-distributed product development is an essential component of modern competitive strategies, Arigo Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) supports the natural processes already resident in advanced organizations. When integrated with the Arigo STM Suite™, Arigo PLM creates a framework for aspiring organizations to apply best practices to Total Cost Management. For both hard- and soft-lines, Arigo PLM provides image sorting and classification, specification management of colors, styles, fabric, fit, components and concepts, preparation of both simple and complex line plans, and alternate sourcing scenario analyses.

Arigo STM v9.0 augments and improves the creative process with close connection to product development, sourcing, and financial goals reducing organizational silos and rapidly bringing products to market with greater margin. Key business benefits include:

* Build better products (faster cycle time with higher quality, and greater margin)
* Accelerate product introductions and growth in private label business
* Achieve efficient handoffs between product design, development, production, merchants, and procurement
* Improve responsiveness to trends through accelerated innovation
* Increase productivity and savings across the enterprise and supply ecosystem
* Support many-to-many enterprise collaboration
* Aggregate view of component usage for cost transparency
* Establish a nexus for process, information, and people – a single source of the truth

Specifically, Arigo PLM supports the following primary functionality:

Concept Initiation to accelerate product introduction using collaborative tools to conceive, refine, and innovate around product ideas and designs. This includes Digital Asset Management to better manage and organize concepts, sketches, images, and inspirations.

Product Development to systematically improve and document product designs and selected components to achieve compliance, best cost, and highest margin.

Line Planning and Execution to focus on product costs and ‘what-if’ scenarios to achieve optimal product mix and business results. Combine historical performance and up-to-date product information to accelerate plan-to-revenue.

Collaboration & Workflow Management to promote global collaboration and interaction to accelerate product introduction, improve designs and reduce development cycle times using a highly-visual desktop environment enabling automation of workflows, alerts, and tasks. This allows for proactive exception management to head-off budding problems and optimize organizational processes.

“Through Arigo’s deep visibility into the supply chain, their customers are experiencing a multifaceted impact on their business performance – improvements in margin, quality, and time to market - translating into millions of dollars in annual savings and a strong ROI. At times like these, when you need to squeeze every dime, Arigo’s configurable ecosystem of integrated PLM, Sourcing, and Trade Management modules will drive millions of dollars in savings to the bottom line” commented Nancy Johnson, President at Optimyze.

“Through Arigo’s deep visibility into the supply chain, their customers are experiencing a multifaceted impact on their business performance – improvements in margin, quality, and time to market - translating into millions of dollars in annual savings and a strong ROI. At times like these, when you need to squeeze every dime, Arigo’s configurable ecosystem of integrated PLM, Sourcing, and Trade Management modules will drive millions of dollars in savings to the bottom line” commented Nancy Johnson, President at Optimyze.

“Arigo STM v9.0 marks a sharp departure for Arigo as the development pace has been dramatically accelerated yielding improvements in user interface, navigation, display, reporting, image manipulation, access to legacy data, business intelligence, and customer requested features on a Services Oriented Architecture“ said David Diamond, CEO at Arigo.

“By having an accurate depiction of your supply chain, you can identify a variety of parameters that may contain excess you can trim - and improve your bottom line. Arigo goes beyond the quick ROI and enables millions of dollars in annual savings. Even with low or no CAPEX budget, Arigo makes our customers heroes through our creative business and financing models for a guaranteed win/win scenario” said Lars Rohrberg, Vice President of Sales at Arigo

Arigo is the proud recipient of the Supply & Demand Chain Executives 2008 Pros To Know Award. Arigo's customers include: Home Depot, JC Penney, Staples, Bon-Ton, Argos, Timberland, Target, Gear for Sports, Hanes Brands, RadioShack, Macy's, Payless, Stride Rite, Lenox, and more.

Availability

Arigo STM v9.0 will be available Q2 2009. For further details about the release or to learn more about Arigo’s six solutions that comprise the Arigo STM Suite™, please contact Arigo at info@arigo.com or visit www.arigo.com.