From QMS to AI-Powered Product Record: MaryRuth's Propel Journey | Propulsion 2026

Most companies sit on powerful platforms and never unlock their potential. MaryRuth's decided that was not an option, and the results speak for themselves.

Diana Sehawneh, Senior Project Manager of Continuous Improvement, and Jen Kavan, PMO Director, both from MaryRuth's, share the unfiltered story of how a digitally native, fully remote supplement brand with 300-plus products turned a modest QMS implementation into a unified, AI-ready product record generating 1,500% annual ROI. Starting in August 2022 with complaint management and quality events, their team methodically layered in PLM, PIM, label management, change management, and a supplier audit system, all while compressing product development timelines to nine to twelve months in an industry where eighteen to thirty-six months is the norm.

The numbers from their Nucleus Research case study are hard to argue with: every dollar invested in Propel returns seven, with $3.6 million in measurable business value generated over four years. What made it possible was equal parts technology, strategy, and the willingness to find common ground between business and technical teams. This session covers exactly how they did it.

Key Takeaways

Start Small, Prove Value, Then Scale Relentlessly

MaryRuth's launched Propel with a single QMS use case and expanded only when each phase delivered clear results. That discipline, solving one problem at a time, is what made every subsequent build faster and stickier.

From Six-Plus Month Cycles to Nine to Twelve Months, End to End

In a CPG supplement market where development cycles run eighteen to thirty-six months, MaryRuth's compressed their timeline from ideation to warehouse-ready to under a year. Propel's change management and traceability infrastructure made that speed possible without sacrificing compliance.

25,000 Data Points and a Single Source of Truth

PIM rollout across the entire company, including marketing and sales, eliminated the constant cross-team pinging and email chains. When people start saying "I checked Propel first," you know the platform has earned its place.

ROI You Can Actually Take to Leadership

1,500% annual ROI. $7 back for every dollar invested. Payback in under a month. The Nucleus research study validated what Diana and Jen had built, and gave them the business case to keep going. Competitive pricing made the sell to leadership straightforward from the start.

Finding Your Champion Changes Everything

Jen was Diana's toughest skeptic before becoming her biggest advocate. That dynamic taught both leaders something critical: cross-functional buy-in, not just technical build quality, is what determines whether a platform lives or dies inside an organization.

The Roadmap Ahead is Even Bigger

MaryRuth's is now moving into Propel One, Propel's AI-powered unified platform, alongside supplier community and ERP integration. Together, these next phases are designed to deliver full end-to-end traceability and a true product lifecycle feedback loop, from the first spark of an idea all the way to SKU retirement.

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Learn More

Want to dive into the data behind MaryRuth's implementation success?

Explore the MaryRuth's case study to learn how a lean team turned a single QMS use case into an ROI engine, and what their four-year journey with Propel can teach your organization about building a product record that actually scales.

About Propulsion 2026

‍Propulsion brings together everything product and manufacturing leaders need to know in one place. Bringing you Propel’s boldest platform reveals, critical AI and market insights from top industry analysts, and real customer results. These sessions are designed to cut through the noise so you can put what matters most to work immediately.