Industry: Jewelry Product Design, Retail
Services: Airtable Database Design, Airtable Automations and Integrations
Airtable Use Cases: Product Lifecycle Management, Collaboration, and Reporting
Introduction: Meet Vitaly
Vitaly is a jewelry brand under the umbrella of Compound Studio, a Toronto-based accessory design studio that specializes in direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands such as Vitaly, Clocks and Colours, Etah Love, and Every Heart.
Vitaly thrives on a digital-first approach, releasing new jewelry designs weekly to its online audience. Driven by its fast-moving and highly iterative product lifecycle management process, Vitaly was looking to standardize operations and enhance collaboration across its teams. Its existing methods, which heavily relied on email, Slack, and spreadsheets, were becoming increasingly challenging for its expanding operations.
In this success story we explore how Vitaly, with the strategic assistance of Claribase, revolutionized its Product Lifecycle Management system, improved its operational efficiency (saving hundreds of hours per year), and reduced its product development cycle from nine months to six months.
The Challenge: Vitaly’s Need for Product Lifecycle Clarity
Vitaly operates on a fast-paced, DTC business model characterized by a highly iterative and accelerated design-to-market manufacturing process. Their operations involve a continuous pipeline of hundreds of jewelry designs, managed by multiple teams working together.
Their process begins with the creative team, which manages ideation, sketches, concept development, and sampling. Over several months, initial sketches and concepts are transformed into digital drawings. These digital drawings are then converted into detailed CAD files, which undergo multiple rounds of revisions and feedback. Once the CAD files are finalized, physical samples are produced. These samples go through multiple iterations until they are approved. Finally, the approved designs are handed off to the production and marketing teams for manufacturing and market launch.
Through this process, each piece undergoes a complete journey, passing through four teams —from conceptualization to launch—and results in a substantial amount of data, including photos of sketches, digital design documents, and hundreds of notes and comments.
Unfortunately for Vitaly, their current system (reliant on email, Slack, and spreadsheets) was straining under the pressure:
“When we first came to Claribase, we were looking for a way to improve our product life cycle management system. We always have a large number of potential pieces in our pipeline at any given time, but it was becoming really hard to track our products as they were being passed between our teams.”
At any given time, there are hundreds of ideas in various stages of product development, and the entire system was reliant on each team maintaining its own spreadsheets and communicating product updates over slack/email. With manual handoffs, for hundreds of products, the workflow made data accessibility and real-time updates incredibly challenging. They were envisioning a centralized system that would allow us to easily track and manage the development cycle of their new physical products. They hoped for a solution where all our data would be up-to-date and easily accessible, and eliminate the need for constant communication and manual updates.
The challenges for Vitaly extended beyond updating data. The absence of a unified system to track the development of each product also posed a significant hurdle to internal status and visibility, and was causing internal frustrations with planning and timelines:
“Tracking revisions, scheduling production timelines, and coordinating marketing efforts was always difficult. If a timeline moved it would need to be updated in multiple spreadsheets and manually communicated to other team members. This often led to missed communications and errors. We needed a single source of truth to streamline our processes and ensure everyone was on the same page.”
Vitaly knew their first step was centralization, but also had goals for automation:
“We also knew we wanted to trigger events within Slack and email as tasks progressed. A large goal of the project was to reduce manual entry, and automate as much of the task status, creation, and assignment as possible.”
Recognizing these challenges, Vitaly understood the need for a more sophisticated and integrated approach to managing its product development cycle
“We knew we needed to make a change.”
The Project: An Airtable Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) System
When the Claribase team met with Vitaly, the first priority was to deeply understand the core challenges and unique requirements of Vitaly’s product lifecycle management.
After a collaborative discovery process, Claribase and Vitaly aligned on a clear shared objective: to rebuild Vitaly’s product lifecycle management (PLM) system from the ground up within Airtable.
The Claribase team began by identifying which systems and processes would be replaced by Airtable and developed a shared vision for the system overhaul. They identified two core objectives:
- To create a shared data hub and centralized PLM for Vitaly.
- To streamline and automate communications across teams about project status, progress, and critical dates.
The project was structured in two phases:
Phase 1 – Airtable Database Design
In the first phase of the project, Claribase worked with Vitaly to develop a new Airtable base to manage the product lifecycle process for their jewelry designs across the phases of ideation, development, sampling, production, and shipping.
They started by identifying core fields, status’, common formats, and key product details. They mapped out the review and revision process and worked collaboratively with Vitaly to define standards around communications, and formats between the teams.
This customization involved setting up a structure within Airtable that mirrored the flow of Vitaly’s operations and now facilitated seamless handoffs between different stages of the product lifecycle. From initial sketches to final production, data was now organized in a cohesive manner—and at the completion of the base design, team members had up-to-date and complete information on a potential jewelry designs, no matter where it existed in it’s lifecycle.
Phase 2 – Customized Automations
The second phase involved introducing sophisticated automations focused on eliminating as much of the manual, repeating tasks as possible.
Claribase developed a series of automations that generated Airtable tasks based on specific triggers within Vitaly’s PLM flow. They also set up communication automations that used real-time data to send notifications, emails, and updates. This minimized— and in many cases eliminated—repetitive, manual tasks that Vitaly staff had been performing.
During the second phase, Claribase also supported the client in building up Airtable expertise in the the client team so Vitaly can maintain their own databases with confidence. Eventually, the system for Vitaly was extended to manage all the brands at Compound Studio.
The Result: Concept-to-market Reduced by 3 Months and Hundreds of Hours Saved Yearly
The introduction of the Airtable PLM tool transformed Vitaly’s operational capabilities in multiple significant ways:
“The outcome of the project has been great. It’s saved us hundreds of hours each year in the business compounded over the year. Before Airtable, our time from concept-to-market was 9 months, but now with Airtable, we can achieve a launch in as little as 6.”
Vitaly’s relationship with Claribase continues to be a valued resource. Team members have great things to say about the support and training provided:
“The experience working with you was great.
Not only did you help us learn a new tool [Zapier], but our team has really benefited from the training, and having an expert show us, this is how you build a system
Also, because of all the training and the coaching, improving the base has felt seamless. Any time we want to make a bigger change to the base, with a new feature or a new process, we have the confidence to make the change.
Whenever new challenges or needs arise, we often ask ourselves, “What would Claribase do? Thanks to what we’ve learned from Claribase, we’ve even integrated a number of our bigger projects into Airtable, ourselves.”
Vitaly went on to comment, that the project has also led to other positive organizational benefits because of the system migration:
“You didn’t just help us create a system. Moving to Airtable has also really set our internal processes in stone.”
Overall, Vitaly comments that the project has been a great success and has overwhelmingly achieved the goals of coordination, visibility, and automation.
Experience Working with Claribase: Professional Service and Exceptional Airtable Training
When asked about their experience working with Claribase, the team emphasized the seamless nature of the entire process.
“Our experience working with Claribase was seamless. We onboarded, we talked about the problem – which was very nice because although we were in a rush, your team really got us to slow down and ask the right questions.
Which now looking back, I can now say, was incredibly valuable… because if we kept going at the speed that we were, we definitely would have overlooked a lot.”
The team concluded by sharing this about their experience with Claribase:
“Honestly, if you are looking to save time and save money. Talk to Claribase, it never hurts to have a consultation. Having an expert come into the business and look at your processes and systems, I can’t recommend it enough. And depending on your size, they can save you hundreds of thousands of hours.”
When asked about if they had any closing thoughts about Airtable, Vitaly shared the following:
“If you want to create to build systems and processes, or you want to automate things – Airtable is the way to go. And the moment your team really understands how to use it, it truly is a limitless tool. “
Key Outcomes: A Powerful Example of Airtable for Product Lifecycle Management
Through Claribase’s expert assistance, Vitaly was able to save significant time and consolidate its systems into a robust product lifecycle management solution built on Airtable.
The project delivered substantial improvements across various aspects of their operations, resulting in:
Integrated Project Lifecycle Management: Vitaly now operates a fully integrated PLM system that tracks every stage of the jewelry design process, and provides a single source of truth for their data. It’s improved consistency, streamlined operations, and reduced redundancies.
Significant Efficiency Gains: The reduction in the product development cycle from nine months to six months and the automation of manual tasks have cumulatively saved significant resources and time. These efficiency gains have allowed Vitaly to bring products to market faster, respond to customer needs more quickly, and allocate resources more effectively.
Empowered Teams: With better tools and processes, Vitaly’s teams are now more aligned, collaborative, and efficient. The streamlined workflows and enhanced communication have fostered a more dynamic and productive work environment, enabling teams to focus on innovation and high-value activities.
In conclusion, Vitaly’s collaboration with Claribase Consulting has delivered substantial benefits, transforming Vitaly’s operational capabilities and positioning them for future growth and success.