Obtaining and interpreting the right data is essential to the success of any company, regardless of the industry it serves and the size of its business. For manufacturers in particular, the best data is that which helps streamline product development and shortens time to market. This explains why several manufacturers use master data management (MDM) software, which minimizes the complexity of the data supply chain and ensures that product data is accessible to everyone who is responsible for planning.
Houston-based Goodman Manufacturing Co. L.P. has been using and benefitting from MDM software for several years. Founded in 1975, Goodman has been a subsidiary of the Daikin Group since 2012. Daikin is the world’s largest manufacturer of residential and light-commercial heating, ventilation and air conditioning products and systems.
Since the summer of 2015, Goodman has used the STEP MDM platform from Stibo Systems to create a single source of data for product and related digital assets. STEP also reduces the chance of incorrect product specification data, while allowing Goodman to replace and update data for in-house applications using various Excel spreadsheets.
Company management’s initial interest in STEP MDM was based on the platform’s ability to ensure data consistency for Goodman’s product line, which includes thousands of SKUs. But, meetings between Stibo representatives and members of the manufacturer’s IT, marketing, merchandising and digital asset teams led to a platform focused on customer acquisition, customer retention, and reducing risk and costs.
“Ultimately, we selected Stibo based on its proven expertise and success in product information management,” says Ken Landry, vice president of information technology at Goodman. “Their ability to demonstrate a typical ‘day in the life’ painted the perfect storyline around how we could realize value from STEP now and into the future.”
Another manufacturer that benefits from using STEP HDM is the Hach Co., which makes instruments, reagents and kits for water quality testing and analysis. Because their customers require extensive data for each product, Hach relied for many years on print catalogs to provide this data.
When Hach shifted its focus from print catalogs to an e-commerce platform, the company turned to STEP MDM to manage its product master data. The software not only enables Hach to quickly and seamlessly publish clean, accurate and up-to-date product information to the platform. It also provides detailed specifications and requirements for all products on its websites, and constantly synchronizes this data with that on the platform.
Equally important, the software stores, maintains and updates Hach’s digital asset library, which consists of more than 25,000 items. These assets are associated with each Hach product and include product images, application notes, manuals and data sheets. STEP’s built-in digital asset management component makes it easy for Hach workers to quickly search through the entire library.
Another benefit of STEP is it allows Hach to publish, update and maintain all its product information on more than 20 different language websites worldwide. Finally, the company has used STEP to establish a product information Center of Excellence to integrate and centralize data management across its business groups, so relevant data, services and processes can be shared among each of them, while they maintain autonomy for all marketing initiatives.
For more information on master data management software, call 770-425-3282 or visit www.stibosystems.com.
