The 5 main benefits of classification for electrical product management
16 March 2021
Excellent product data management provides great benefits. Especially in electrical engineering, where comprehensive product knowledge is needed and where electrical products form the heart of every process or machine.
Do you face difficulty with this topic? Then you are definitely not alone!
The electrical engineering industry in the Netherlands has been struggling for years to get product information and associated information flows in order. As such, it has to contend with high management and failure costs, resulting in a great amount of frustration. All the more reason to change it now. Classification of your product data not only gives you uniformity, cost savings and convenience. It also gives you a huge lead in the market compared to competitive companies.
But what exactly is product classification? Product classification or classification of data is the recording of product information in an unambiguously established manner. Classification standards are set up in such a way that they can be applied throughout the entire supply chain. The so-called ‘chain standard’. This notation is used for product data from manufacturer to end-user. Standardized product group names and characteristics describe the product with its associated properties.
“Realize time savings and give a quality impulse to your (electrical) product data”.
The 5 main benefits of classification for electrical item management:
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Search easily, filter and sort quickly
The use of classified data makes it possible to search for articles quickly and in a modern way. For instance, think about how you perform your search at Amazon. You no longer have to search by a type number, instead, you can simply search based on product properties. Are you looking for items with a UL mark or products from a particular manufacturer? You easily have them in one click. Based on provided characteristics, the corresponding products are presented. The option to filter and sort by characteristics makes it easier and certainly more valuable to perform an online search. Yet, this principle of searching only works when the product characteristics are always described in the same way. Therefore, only classified data can make this possible..
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Find replacements faster with classified data
If you work with classified data, it is possible to quickly search and find replacements for an obsolete product. For example, imagine a motor protection switch with a specific setting range. The use of classified data will make you find a replacement for such an item in no time. When the chosen product is no longer available (obsolete), you will see alternatives of all manufacturers in a split second. Classified data also enables a comparison between multiple electrical engineering products to be made. By putting products next to each other in a clear comparison screen, you can easily see the difference between the characteristics. Essentially, with the advent of loT, as such by innovations such as panel shop automation and higher requirements for safety, the circulation rate of electrical products keeps increasing. Hence, standardized product management is crucial to find the right replacements easily.
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Genereate product descriptions for uniformity
Uniform product descriptions are a big wish for many companies. Each manufacturer gives its own description of its products. These are reflected in various systems, documents and electrical diagrams. These descriptions are then translated by almost every company into its own characteristic product description. However, this is more difficult than expected; because we often forget which characteristics we want to see in the description, the order in which we placed them and whether we made use of a capital letter or not. In short, this takes a lot of time and leads to a fair share of frustration. This problem can be solved by automatically generating descriptions. How? By developing a description per product group based on the already inserted standardized characteristics. In other words, based on classified data!.
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Generate translations
By making use of an internationally applied classification standard for product data, product group names and characteristics are standardized in a multilingual manner. The use of these multilingual features in your product descriptions immediately ensures uniform and unambiguous translations. The generation of translations saves you a lot of time and effort to translate descriptions or characteristics..
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Select products automatically in the project
For some still far away, for others already reality. Structured data makes it possible to automatically select (electrical) products based on parameters that are partially predetermined and project-specific. For example, a frequency drive to control a conveyor in the field differs per application mainly on the motor data, such as the nominal motor voltage and the nominal motor power. The smart use of classifications makes it possible to work smarter and even automatic selection can take place.
Would you like to see one or more of these examples in practice? We give weekly webinars in which we share our knowledge when it comes to classification and management costs of product data. We also tell you how to achieve a quality impulse
We are happy to share our vision!