Case study · Elevation Labs
What's it like to deploy and work with Worldover?
“We've accomplished in 4 weeks what would have taken a traditional development cycle 4–6 months to complete, and we're just getting started.”
Jason Uphoff, Technical Lead at Elevation Labs (one of the United States' largest contract manufacturers), shares his experience of a Worldover implementation in his own words, including the parts that didn't go to plan. This is an abridged version. Read the original here.
4 weeks
to reach the current implementation point
Work Jason Uphoff says would have taken a traditional development cycle 4 to 6 months.
4–6 months
the traditional comparison
The equivalent development-cycle estimate from Elevation Labs' Technical Lead.
Under a day
to explore new features
Customer Success can turn workflow requests into features for review with engineering support.
Flexibility as a manufacturing strategy
Elevation Labs is a nearly 30-year-old cosmetic contract manufacturer. Its position in the market depends on flexibility, speed and responsiveness to customers, not only cost or customisation. That strength had grown around what Jason describes as a “beautiful, terrible spider web of processes”, powered by committed people and extensive legacy software customisation.
One legacy tool had reached its limit
A single on-premise system had been customised over roughly 20 years to cover PLM, formulation and project management. It gave Elevation Labs valuable resilience, but the business was approaching the end of what that system could support.
Replacing it wasn't a simple software swap. Elevation Labs needed to preserve the flexibility that made the business competitive, avoid recreating a costly customisation trap, and keep cloud tools connected to an ERP that would remain on premise during the transition.
A partner willing to configure around the operation
Elevation Labs evaluated established PLM providers after its first selected tool didn't work out. Worldover entered the process through an unusually credible recommendation: an auditor at the Colorado location heard about the challenge and suggested the team take a look.
The distinction was configuration rather than another rigid platform. Worldover could retain one connected core while shaping the workflows, interface, approvals and integrations around Elevation Labs' requirements.
“Then we met with Worldover, and the difference was very clear, these folks were thinking very differently about how to approach our business.”
The first implementation didn't meet the objective
This isn't a case study that hides the difficult part. Elevation Labs' first Worldover implementation was used every day, but it didn't deliver the process value both teams had set out to create. Jason points to an incomplete scope and a team composition that favoured big-picture architecture over breaking work into usable increments.
Worldover responded without blame. The team ran the retrospective, listened, adapted and changed the people around the work. Sean Ruane-Rodriguez joined as Customer Success Leader, translating the operating vision into smaller workflows the business could test and use.
“I truly believe the only time failure should be reprimanded is when it is repeated, and Worldover has shown us that they believe in this philosophy through their actions.”
From a database to workflows that move the business forward
The rebuilt implementation keeps Worldover's substance-aware core, including AI document ingestion, regulatory data and validation, then adds configurable workflows on top. Elevation Labs can now turn its own operating requirements into approval processes, API pushes, branded interfaces and checks that preserve flexibility while adding control.
Customer Success can shape new features through Worldover's AI development approach, with engineers supporting the work. Elevation Labs can review a feature in under a day, change it on the fly and keep it connected to the same live operational record.
Four weeks in, the pace is the proof
Elevation Labs is still implementing the rebuilt system, and Jason is explicit that both teams expect more learning along the way. The proof point isn't a polished claim of instant perfection. It's the speed at which the partnership can turn operational detail into working software and improve it together.
In four weeks, the teams accomplished work Jason estimates would normally take a four-to-six-month development cycle. For a contract manufacturer whose advantage depends on responding quickly without losing control, that is what software that fits like a glove looks like in practice.
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