Case Study: ACCO Brands cuts product change cycle time by over 50% and speeds time to market with Aras Corporation's Aras Innovator

Boosts Innovation Collaboration Cuts Cycle Time in Half

ACCO Brands, the global maker of Swingline, Kensington and other office products, faced slow, fragmented product development and change processes that hindered innovation and time to market. Product change approvals averaged about two months, documents circulated by FTP and email created versioning errors, and supplier corrective actions relied on manual communication—so the company needed a single, consistent product lifecycle approach to reduce cycle times, cut costs, and improve quality.

ACCO implemented Aras Innovator on a Microsoft platform to create a centralized, web-based PLM system with automated workflows and supplier collaboration. The solution established a single source of truth for specifications and designs, eliminated file-version chaos, and automated change and corrective-action workflows—cutting product change cycle time by more than 50%, speeding time to market, and delivering measurable gains in innovation and product quality (for example, a redesigned stapler with reduced jamming).

ACCO Brands