Maintain Spare Parts for Construction Machinery in PIM

User Report by Klickparts - Vendor of Spare Parts for Construction Machinery

Klickparts is a strategic start-up company founded by a German construction equipment retailer and has been operating an online store for construction equipment spare parts, construction site equipment, construction PPE and workshop supplies since 2019. They provide solutions to a number of the problems customers face when looking for spare parts in this industry. These include, among others, the customer needing spare parts from different suppliers for a mixed construction equipment fleet. Finding these spare parts often takes a very long time, as many suppliers require delivery times and prices to be requested beforehand, often by telephone. Very few suppliers are “digital” and with “analog” suppliers, searching for spare parts is often lacking in transparency when it comes to prices, delivery times and cross-references.

 

Klickparts therefore also aims to set a standard with their store and to become a kind of “TecDoc” for construction machinery. To realize this goal, the Klickparts online store is designed as a one-stop shop and offers various types of spare parts for almost all makes of construction machinery. In keeping with the slogan “fast, easy, intuitive and transparent”, customers can find the direct way to their desired spare part in the store and always have full transparency regarding the different spare part quality levels and prices. The OXID eShop features a highly appealing responsive design and multi-browser capability.

Klickparts provides spare parts for construction machines

Why a PIM System is Essential for Klickparts

Due to time constraints, Klickparts initially started without a PIM system, instead compiling the first product data for the store using Excel. In doing so, they encountered the following limitations:

 
  • Big Data
    Currently, the online store includes about 500,000 items, with plans for one to two million in the medium term. Here, the data includes master data, texts, parameters, documents and other media files.
  • Complex object dependencies
    A multitude of cross references are used for the spare parts store. On the one hand, one must know which part fits into which machine, but also which part fits into multiple different machines and which parts belong together. Furthermore, accessories and spare parts (parts lists) are compiled.
 		  
  • ETL process challenge
    The ETL process (Extract-Transform-Load) is about combining data from several - possibly differently structured - data sources in a target database. The challenge here is that the data from the various suppliers arrive at Klickparts in different forms, often unstructured, incorrect or incomplete, and data preparation, checking, supplementation and enrichment are necessary.
 

Why Klickparts Chose ANTEROS by INCONY

Impressed by ANTEROS

After intensive PIM research and software presentations of several providers, Klickparts decided on the PIM system ANTEROS from INCONY AG. In addition to the flexible data model, important functions for the efficient maintenance of product data of technical industries and a great price-performance ratio, the fact that another subsidiary in the group already had positive experience with ANTEROS spoke in favor of our PIM system.

 

ANTEROS flexible data model is already used by some automotive suppliers via the automotive standard TecDoc and a similarly complex data model was also required by Klickparts to manage exactly which part belongs to which construction machine from which manufacturer and which alternative parts from other manufacturers can also be used for this application - the so-called cross references.

PIM data model for Klickparts is complex

Convinced by the INCONY Team

Due to their numerous previous projects in the TecDoc Automotive sector, the INCONY team has extensive experience with complex data models. In addition, the INCONY staff has many years of experience with projects in technical industries and demonstrated a good understanding of Klickparts' requirements. Klickparts was positively impressed not only by the competence of the INCONY staff, but also by the project speed: the first test environment with the provided product data was installed and imported within just one day.

 

Klickparts was positively surprised that they can independently carry out configurations on the ANTEROS PIM software with their own IT staff and without the intervention of external consultants.

“The INCONY team have proven that they have experience with complex data. They showed a very good understanding of our special data requirements and the work was done quickly and very competently. What convinced us about the ANTEROS PIM software was not only the flexible data model and the functions for efficient data maintenance and setting various data relationships, but that we were able to implement interfaces and some configurations independently at our request.”

Klickparts
Marko Wötzel,
Category Manager at Klickparts

Online Seminar: Product Information Management (PIM)

Product data is becoming steadily more important in the course of digitization. Create growth through high-quality product data. PIM software helps you maintain your product data far more efficiently, achieve high data quality, and output the centrally maintained data to other channels (print, web, app, and exports).

Register free

ANTEROS in Action at Klickparts

Import

Klickparts uses two separate ANTEROS environments. The ANTEROS test environment is used as a pure preparation system, in which the incoming supplier data is prepared and cleaned. Subsequently, all “polished” data is loaded into the production system, in which all product data for the store is maintained and from which all ERP-relevant master data for SAP is exported.

Preparing suppier data for PIM at Klickparts

​​​​​​​Connection to the ERP System

The data relevant for the ERP system SAP is managed in a separate tab in the ANTEROS product editor. Configuration of the tab including all fields was configured by a Klickparts employee on their own. The data is managed as parameters in this tab. Data changes as well as new article data are regularly transferred to the SAP system via an interface.

​​​​​​​INTERNAL Tab

Similar to the SAP tab, the INTERN tab was configured independently by Klickparts. In this tab, internal comments of the product management are saved to product data, such as translation notes and hints.

Relations

ANTEROS' ability to create various product relations means that spare parts can be assigned to individual construction machines very easily and quickly. For this purpose, a relation is created in ANTEROS between the product and the corresponding model series of the vehicle application, whose backward direction, i.e. from the model series to the spare part, is automatically set or deleted by the system.

Klickparts configured ANTEROS by itself, e.g. with new tabs

Relation Cross Reference

In addition to the relations from the parts to the construction machinery models, Klickparts makes extensive use of the ANTEROS cross references. Klickparts uses them to link products of the same construction or use. This way, the original part numbers of the construction machinery manufacturers are stored on the identical parts of other manufacturers. With the help of the cross references, customers can specify the original part number in the online store and receive the parts from different suppliers in different quality and price levels.

REST Interface from ANTEROS to OXID

Other systems can be deeply integrated into ANTEROS via the ANTERO REST interface. With this feature, Klickparts is able to let their OXID store access all PIM data via API. Thus the store has access to products, manufacturers, model ranges, parameters and media assets. The importer for this data transfer was also written by Klickparts itself. Changes in ANTEROS are automatically transferred to the store once a minute. Klickparts deliberately wanted to transfer its data changes from the PIM to the store in such a timely manner.

Summary: Successful PIM Implementation!

Klickparts' conclusion is that they were able to implement a professional store thanks to the ANTEROS software and the INCONY team, and that they have mastered the topic of Big Data. Specifically, they are particularly impressed by the extremely efficient maintenance, of even complex data, which is characterized by simple operation, a sophisticated range of functions and the clear presentation of relationships. The functionalities of ANTEROS are perfectly complemented by the competence of the INCONY team, meaning that the implementation for Klickparts could be realized within only 6 months without any previous knowledge in the PIM area and with a rather small team.

 

By using ANTEROS and the resulting efficiency gain, data consistency and "know-how" storage, Klickparts aims to establish themselves as a "TecDoc" for construction machinery spare parts.

 

Thanks to the possibility of ANTEROS to create various product relations, spare parts can be assigned to the individual construction machines very easily and quickly. To do this, a relation is created in ANTEROS between the product and the corresponding model series of the vehicle application, whose backward direction, i.e. from the model series to the spare part, is automatically set or deleted by the system.

 

In summary: a successful PIM implementation!

Software Demo of the PIM System ANTEROS - Try it Yourself!

Are you planning on introducing a PIM system in order to maintain your product data much more efficiently? Are you interested in finding out what is possible with the technologically leading PIM system ANTEROS and how far you can optimize your processes with it? Then request your free software demo now and try it for yourself!

Free Software DemoMore about ANTEROS