PIM for Complex Product Data and Print Automation

User Report by Brinkmann Pumpen - Cooling Lubricant Pumps for Every Application

Brinkmann Pumps was founded in 1950 and currently more than 300 employees are involved in the development, design and production of customized solutions, utilizing the latest technologies. The entire spectrum of coolant pumps is covered. Thus, Brinkmann Pumps offers everything from small cooling pumps for external cooling, to lifting and cutter pumps, to high-pressure pumps based on a centrifugal or screw pump. In addition to the headquarters in Werdohl Germany, Brinkmann Pumps also has international representatives in the USA and Japan, which collectively form the hubs of a global network.

Automatically generated print catalogs

Online Seminar: Customized Price Lists and Catalogs at the Touch of a Button

Nowadays, catalogs, price lists and data sheets are highly important, both in electronic and often in printed form. Furthermore, new customers are expecting increasingly customized content. One catalog is often no longer enough; in fact, many customers demand customer group- or market-specific print documents, as well as new product catalogs. This seminar will demonstrate how you can create these print documents 100% automatically.

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Project Overview

Project Goals

 

  • Efficient Product Data Management
    Before the implementation of ANTEROS, Brinkmann Pumps used 3 different editorial systems, one for Europe, one for the USA and one for Japan. Therefore, all data had to be amended three times per change. This procedure proved to be time consuming and error-prone. With ANTEROS, on the other hand, all languages can be managed and the web and print presentation can be maintained in just one system.

  • Layout Flexibility
    Prior to this, a layout had to be hard-coded into the editorial system each time, but with ANTEROS, a different layout can now be used for each print generation as needed.

 		  

  • Flexible Print Generation
    ANTEROS even makes it possible for Brinkmann Pumps to automatically generate print catalogs for Japan. In addition, product data sheets and customer-specific catalogs can be created on-demand.

  • Cost / Time Savings
    The old editorial system used by Brinkmann Pumps generated a PDF file for each print run that was not ready for printing. Therefore, a print shop had to prepare the file each time and this process usually took up to two weeks. With ANTEROS, print-ready PDFs are now created at the push of a button, saving Brinkmann Pumps the processing time and cost of a print shop.

 

From Editorial System to Flexible PIM System

The editorial systems previously used by Brinkmann Pumps were to be completely replaced by ANTEROS, which meant that all data had to be transferred on a onetime basis. Thereafter, new data is only created in the ERP system and regularly and automatically transferred by ANTEROS. To do this, a CSV file containing the master data is extracted from the ERP system and imported into ANTEROS. Brinkmann Pumps only maintains catalog-relevant data for the print generation of catalogs and flyers within the PIM system itself. Additionally, XML files are generated with web-relevant product data in order to create a web catalog with them.

Complex Data Model in ANTEROS

In order for Brinkmann Pumps to be able to maintain the data of their products even more efficiently, the data model in ANTEROS was configured in such a way that they can maintain the pumps and their motors as separate objects. This means that pumps can be specifically related to only motor objects and relationship attributes can be set between a specific pump and a motor. Thus, Brinkmann Pumps employees can efficiently enter in the PIM that a motor fits several different pumps and link motor dimensions to categories in the relation attribute "motor configuration". This relation is set at the factory for different purposes and countries.

 

This highlights the flexibility of ANTEROS and its suitability for technical industries.
It goes well beyond the categorization of other PIM systems.

“Thanks to ANTEROS, we can efficiently maintain our very complex products in the PIM system and derive the difficult pump catalogs fully automatically. The cooperation was excellent, we were able to implement the project to automate our catalog with 180 pages in 5 languages in only 2.5 months.”

Brinkmann Pumps
Dr. Abou Dayé,
Technical Documentation at Brinkmann Pumps

Data Maintenance in ANTEROS

Since the motors are a separate object type, there is a special menu item that only includes them. This makes it possible to maintain pumps and motors separately and to maintain the motor data efficiently. The pumps and motors are then linked to the „Motor“ relation on a pump product. The motor configurations can be entered for each motor and restricted to a pump.

Publication Assignment

With ANTEROS, it is possible to specify the publication relevant to each individual product family, category, engine configuration and engine. You can choose between print and web catalogs and specify a region. Brinkmann Pumps has two catalogs for each region of Europe, USA and Japan.

Online presentation of the relevant catalog data

XML Interface to the Web Catalog

Brinkmann Pumps works with a Typo3 service provider to set a default for a specific XML format for the web catalog so that product data can be integrated into the store. The specification was implemented by the INCONY team using an XML export described by the XPEL rule language. Thus, all relevant data is now transferred from ANTEROS to the Typo3 system once every night.

Automatic Parameter Calculation

As an internationally active company, Brinkmann Pumps is confronted with the problem that in some regions different measurement units are used, such as „mm“ in Europe and „inch“ in the USA. Therefore, some parameters are automatically converted by ANTEROS, such as the measurement from „mm“ to „inch“ or the weight from „kg“ to „ pounds“. For other parameters, like power, Brinkmann Pumps has reserved the possibility to enter the values separately themselves.

Generating Print Outputs of Complex Technical Catalogs: 100% Automatically

Coolant Pump Catalog

 

  • Product tables with data of pumps and matching motors
    Product tables with data of pumps and matching motors The main catalog of Brinkmann Pumps shows each pump family on a double page with photo, drawings, characteristic curves and technical data. All data for this comes from the PIM and the fairly complex catalog is generated 100% automatically. In the product tables, the pump variants and their characteristics are directly combined with the data of the matching motors. The catalog highlights the fact that several motors are suitable for the same pumps and yet their characteristics and relations to the respective pump and the relation attributes only need to be maintained once in the PIM.

 		  

  • Characteristic curves with language-dependent labels
    The characteristic curves for the pumps show labels on the x- and y-axis, such as head in m and flow in l/min. Thus, these drawings are actually language-dependent. However, Brinkmann Pumps only needs to maintain each characteristic curve once for all languages together. The axis labels are generated in the respective language by the ANTEROS-Printengine.

 
Catalog product data overview

Screwdriver Catalog

 

  • Product tables
    Pivot tables with different motor data, for example 2-pole or 4-pole, are listed here, which are then linked to motors in different variants, for example with submersible or foot-mounted design.

 		  

  • Cross Category Data
    Brinkmann Pumps maintain the dimensions of motor drawings on the page of the assigned category. In ANTEROS the dimensions are specified as an attribute in the relation between the category and the selected motor. In the catalog itself, the motors are divided into two independent tables, depending on whether they are Brinkmann's own motors or not.

 
Automated screwdriver catalog with ANTEROS

ANTEROS met all the Objectives of the Project

Brinkmann Pumps are impressed by the data and translation maintenance in ANTEROS, which can be carried out very efficiently, particularly considering the complex data model and, in some cases, complex type systems. In addition, the automatic print creation and data import into an already existing Typo3 web catalog not only saves time, but also money. Thus, all requirements set by Brinkmann Pumps were implemented by INCONY AG, who impressed with reliable support and quality project management.

ANTEROS Software Demo - Try it Yourself!

Do you want to introduce a PIM system in order to maintain your product data much more efficiently? Are you interested in what is possible with the technologically leading PIM system ANTEROS and how far you can optimize your processes with it? Are you interested in finding out what effective product data management and/or print automation can do for you and your company? Then request your free software demo now!

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