To ensure our continued delivery of these things, we needed to revise our existing PIM system, catalogue module and eShop. This involved not only redesigning our media, but also creating interfaces to industry databases and providing new practical features such as filters, improved search functions, clear representations of products, descriptive properties and additional content.
“We realized very quickly that ECLASS would provide us with a classification system that would help us refine our data.”
Regulations in the cleaning products and food packaging industries require us to provide product attributes and relevant certifications. ECLASS’s property structures have also made this much easier to deliver. In preparing for these requirements, we submitted to ECLASS – together with PBS Consulting GmbH, an ECLASS IT service provider – the structures needed for the food packaging field which, at the time, did not exist.
With the large quantities of data that we request, receive and use every day via different channels, by integrating ECLASS into our PIM system, we can handle and process this information more quickly and clearly.
Our product range is structured in ways similar to the ECLASS classification structure. Thanks to the structure’s clear organization, products can be immediately and correctly assigned and linked. By using templates at the lowest classification level, we already have ready-made templates with the correct properties of the corresponding product groups. Only the data contents require maintenance. The task of having to compile properties is rendered more or less obsolete. By using ECLASS 6.2 and ECLASS 9.1, we can work with different ECLASS versions.
“It’s hard to imagine our company today without ECLASS.”
By using ECLASS, master data maintenance is significantly simplified. With ECLASS, we can ensure that articles from different sources (scope, capture quality) are ultimately rendered identically in our various media such as catalogues, brochures, flyers, on our eShop, or when providing data for eProcurement systems.
We no longer have to manually maintain or update many of the properties. Thanks to the classification standard, the same properties apply to the same products and can therefore be adopted without manual input.
Working with PBS Consulting as an external partner proved extremely productive. Their extensive ECLASS and industry know-how combined well with with our specific expertise.
This route has proved to be beneficial for us. We will therefore continue to be involved in the food packaging subject areas 20 (Packaging materials) and 29 (Housekeeping) and contribute to the standard's further development.
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