We invested in Bombiix because we recognised the strength of its PLM offer and the impending EU requirement for Digital Product Passports.
With decades of experience investing in SMEs – from starting at 3i, to opening the Bahrain Development Bank and now co-owning Anticus – I’ve seen the challenges businesses face and the opportunities that come with them. Our role is to be a supportive investor, guiding Lucy in growing Bombiix and in future fundraising.
With experience across manufacturing, financial services, SaaS, e-commerce, and retail, I help Bombiix navigate growth while keeping a close eye on cash flow, performance and strategic alignment.
From the first time I met Lucy, I knew I wanted to work with her – she’s a breath of fresh air and the passion that fills her is infectious. It’s a pleasure to complement her skills in delivering the vision of Bombiix.
I make sure our software meets your needs, spotting areas for improvement and helping your team streamline and grow.
Having worked in hospitality, manufacturing, supply chain and agriculture, I bring a wealth of experience when it comes in creating digital solutions that tackle real-world challenges.
I joined Bombiix after being a customer – it’s hugely refreshing to see a platform that focuses on the needs of product people. After managing many global teams across multiple industries, including pharmaceuticals, FMCG, toiletries and cosmetics, sporting goods and apparel and fashion, I can see real potential in Bombiix, and I’m excited to lead the business and achieve it.
My experience is in garment technology, pattern cutting, product development and technical design and I understand the everyday struggles our customers face – the chaotic workflows, confusing email threads and out of date spreadsheets. So I created Bombiix to change all of that.
The concept for Bombiix was born from one product developer’s frustrations with outdated legacy PLMs. So, when we say we get it, we really do. Whether you’re a growing start up or experienced enterprise, our team is with you every step of the way with personalised onboarding and ongoing support. My experience is in garment technology, pattern cutting, product development and technical design and I understand the everyday struggles our customers face – the chaotic workflows, confusing email threads and out of date spreadsheets. So I created Bombiix to change all of that.
Manage your entire product lifecycle, from initial concept and design through to development, manufacturing and bringing it to shelves.
Automate your Digital Product Passports in a way that’s affordable, scalable and removes the need for multiple complex systems.
Unify all your product information with an automated PIM that ensures consistency and accuracy while reducing workload and manual data entry.
Organise, store and access all your digital assets into a single, easy-to-use hub so you can effortlessly find, share and use content whenever you need to.
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) for toys allows product teams to transform a creative idea into a safe, compliant toy on store shelves. It helps to take the stress out of toy-making, by taking the complex production journey of a toy and managing centralised information to simplify compliance and regulatory processes.
In simple terms, a PLM is the “digital brain” for your business. It is a single centralised platform that stores every piece of information about a product. PLMs are designed to store information about a product through its entire life cycle, from the very first sketch to the final safety certificate.
The importance of lifecycle information for a toy is extremely important because the process blends creativity and engineering precision into a single complex journey, with the final product needing to adhere to a number of safety standards.
Due to the complexity of a toy’s product lifecycle, relying on traditional methods for data storage and sharing can create a minefield of hidden costs and human errors. Data becomes fragmented and timelines get longer and longer before a toy is fit to be on store shelves.
This is where a PLM for toys can improve your processes and have a positive impact on the efficiency of your team’s workflow.
Safety in the toy industry is not just a check-box to fill at the end of a toy’s production. Toy safety compliance is multi-layered. It dictates every material selection and design choice throughout the process. There is a need for a toy to adhere to multiple global standards such as EN71 (Europe), ASTM F963 (USA), and ISO 8124 (International) which can place a big administrative burden on a toy’s launch.
If these are not managed with precision, the launch of a new toy can be completely derailed. Using manual systems to store data on mechanical testing, chemical and toxicological compliance, and flammability standards is very demanding, and leaves room for human error that can cause non-compliance of a product.
The toy industry doesn’t just have tight deadlines, it has a single quarter (Q4) of the year in which the vast majority of annual sales occur. If a new toy is not launched within this quarter, it will have to sit in a warehouse for a year until it can be launched in Q4 of the following year.
There is no such thing as a late release for a toy. This applies pressure on toy companies to keep their development cycles short, in order to hit seasonal peaks. Efficiency is a must.
Traditional data storage practices do not help to enable the required level of efficiency to get a toy launched within such a tight lifecycle. This is where the best PLM for toys can make the biggest difference.
The development process for a toy is not just a case of creating a single item. Most toys are assembled from multiple components such as molded plastics, electronic chips, and synthetic textiles. This requires the use of multiple suppliers across multiple countries which can pose significant challenges.
To ensure that the development of a toy is efficient and runs smoothly, the right components need to be available at the right time. This means that all suppliers need to be active within the process at the right points to work in harmony together.
Trying to manage this manually can quickly cause issues due to missed details that can put the rest of the process on pause. Not only does this delay the launch window for a toy, it also puts strain on the relationships your company has with its suppliers.
There are a few key features that a PLM should have, to make it effective for use within the toy development process.
These features are important for 2 parts of toy ‘product development’; design, collaboration and creative workflow management, and compliance tracking and testing management.
To allow for a product design team to work effectively with a truly efficient creative workflow, a PLM needs to have the following key features: technical specification & version control, direct supplier and factory collaboration, critical path management with milestone alerts, and DAM and PIM integration. We have detailed what makes each feature important below.
A key feature that is used to keep everyone singing from the same hymn sheet, technical specification and version control allows for the seamless management of CAD files, tech packs, 3D renders, and more.
This ensures that any changes to a toy are updated across all connected systems,preventing teams from having the wrong ‘source of truth’ and avoiding catastrophic errors such as a rejected prototype being used to create faulty products that are a waste of time, resources and money.
Because toy supply chains are global and involve multiple vendors, a PLM system needs to allow for collaboration via system integration. Instead of a product update being communicated through an email which can get lost in someone’s inbox, a supplier can make the update in the PLM system and every stakeholder within that toy’s development process will be notified.
With all toy companies aiming for Q4 as their release window, there is a greater level of importance in working backwards from a retail launch window, and setting development deadlines based on it.
This kind of tight scheduling can be derailed easily by a single delay, especially if it is not reported on a system quickly. PLMs with critical path management and milestone alerts help to keep everyone on track, and notify all parties if any kind of delay has been registered. This allows timelines to be more agile with reduced knock-on effects due to delays.
While a PLM can manage the lifecycle of a toy’s product development, it can not do everything on its own. To allow for the effective management of digital visual assets, it must be connected to a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system, and to allow for all product data to be collated into a product profile that is formatted for different stores and vendors, a PLM must be connected to a Product Information Management (PIM) platform too.
This allows for all digital assets to be found easily when creating a new toy, which makes the product development timeline shorter. It also makes it easy to push final product information for listings and packaging to the multiple stores and vendors, without the need for data to be rewritten for each specific store.
The product development process hits the most friction at the point of creating a testable prototype, based on an initial idea. This is due to the increased number of manual handovers that are required.
An effective PLM solves this issue by implementing real-time annotation of a product that is in development. This allows stakeholders to make decisions more quickly and communicate suggested changes without having to rely on emails that are not part of the product development loop.
A PLM can also calculate the costs attributed to the development of a product throughout the prototype phase. If the materials used to create a prototype are too costly, or if a product will just be too expensive to make, you can see this before a physical sample is created. This helps to save on money and wasted time on further rounds of prototyping.
The traditional approach to product development often has communication silos that are created by the gatekeeping of data. Different teams work in different systems and nothing is connected properly. This results in information gaps between teams which hits efficiency, and results in friction between different departments.
A good PLM acts as the single source of truth for all members of a product development team, regardless of which department they work within. Everyone sees the same thing in real-time, and there is no confusion about which file is the right one to use. This makes cross-team communication much smoother and results in more efficient workflows for everyone involved.
Cloud-based design tools enable multidisciplinary teams at toy companies to work concurrently, creating significant efficiencies throughout the product development process. Source: https://www.digitalengineering247.com/article/engineering-toysto-infinity-and-beyond
Unlike traditional PLM systems that are structured and rigid, Bombiix is an agile ecosystem designed specifically for product people, by product people. It is an excellent fit for the high-velocity, high-compliance world of toy development.
We are acutely aware of the difficulties that toy companies face when developing their products, and our solutions are designed to solve them.
The challenge of a single product consisting of multiple components requires more than a static, standalone solution that treats a toy as a single line item.
Our PLM, PIM, DAM, and DPP ecosystem connects all product data together, and centralises it to create a robust product profile for each toy. This makes every product that you develop audit-ready.
If the material of a component changes, the information is updated across all systems with no need for manual fixes.
Milestone notifications help to keep the development of a product on the critical path with fewer delays that have less impact, and our solution doesn’t take months to implement.
Many traditional PLM vendors provide tiered pricing that punishes you for success. The moment your company’s growth hits a certain level that moves you up a tier, the cost of your PLM solution increases dramatically.
At Bombiix we don’t believe in punishing success. Our transparent pricing model has subscription levels based on user numbers, and that’s all there is to it. No hidden fees or dramatic price increases, our subscriptions simply scale with you.
Traditional PLMs are also difficult to implement quickly. They often need a lot of information to be uploaded manually, with a lot of help from dev teams to get things up and running.
Our quick implementation is fully supported by product people within our team, who are easily available through live-chat services and real-time calls. Instead of taking months to set up your PLM, we can get you up and running in a matter of weeks.
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Today, Bombiix empowers product teams with cutting-edge, affordable technology that simplifies processes, reduces admin, and enables smarter, more ethical decisions.
