Optimized print production at MHZ Hachtel

Initial situation

The impetus for optimizing print production was the introduction of a new product area and thus another brand. As this should of course also be listed in the new product catalog, the effort involved in creating the various language and country variants increased. To significantly simplify and speed up this process, new functions were developed and implemented with crossbase.

Procedure

Basically, the items with relevant attributes are created and managed in MHZ's crossbase PIM system. There is a link to the crossbase.print print print publishing module so that the maintained product information can be used in the extensive product catalog.

The company uses multiple attributes to reduce the manual effort involved in data maintenance. This means, for example, that different color variants of a product do not have to be created multiple times as separate items. Instead, multiple colors can be assigned directly to a single item as attributes (e.g. color "silver anodized" and color "white powder-coated"). A customer-specific function in crossbase.print automatically recognizes the attribute values and associated images and places them on the appropriate catalog page.

It is also possible to determine and update image information and to place product models with the same image categories. These functions simplify and accelerate the retrieval of the desired results. In addition, crossbase automates the creation of language-specific graphics and the compilation of complex content in space-saving matrix tables.

Special requirements in foreign language production, such as foreign language-specific units, are also taken into account. For example, the conversion of units of measurement (e.g. from "cm" to "mm" for the French language version) is carried out via automated attribute value generation.

A customer-specific extension ensures that article prices are automatically colored according to a logic stored in the system. Using the standard functions in crossbase.print, these prices can be updated quickly if required.

Result

Thanks to the automated and customer-specific functions, the high-quality product information directly from the PIM system and the automatic adaptation of language and price-specific content, MHZ saves a lot of time and money when creating the high-quality product catalog.