crossbase | PIM, MAM and API server in use at Coltène AG

Altstätten, November 2nd 2017: Coltène AG is a global leader in the development, manufacturing and sale of dental consumables and small-size equipment. In 1990, Swiss-based Coltène AG merged with US-based Whaledent Inc. The company headquartered in Altstätten (Switzerland) has state-of-the-art production facilities in Switzerland, the US, Germany and Brazil. Its product range includes, among others, products for chemical and mechanical techniques, rotary tools and endodontics products. The products are marketed worldwide, primarily through sales partners and the company's own sales organizations.

Coltène has chosen crossbase's fully integrated solution for administering product information and media assets, automated catalog production and providing data for online channels and printed products.

Central functions of the solution

Interface to SAP and data maintenance with PIM and MAM

At Coltène, the crossbase PIM, MAM and cross-media solution is used for maintaining product and media information. More than 11,000 items are imported from SAP, with details including their product hierarchy, commercial master data, short texts, dimensions, parts lists, product status and price lists, via an XML data interface. In addition, the product managers responsible for each product segment maintain the relevant technical characteristics, marketing texts, suitable components, documents, photos, illustrations and videos, and these are currently translated into six languages. The product structure and inheritance concept are used for data maintenance, to minimize the time and effort involved. As soon as maintenance of the product has been completed, it is localized, with the involvement of the marketing structure and market-specific information, which varies according to language, country and region.

Workflow module for data maintenance process

Around 15 members of staff, including marketing specialists, product managers and market managers, are involved in the maintenance and release process. Tasks are generated for each product segment, and the relevant members of staff are informed, by a message, if certain defined events, including the following, occur:

New product or product line via SAP PIM interface
Change in the product life cycle via SAP PIM interface when, for example, items have expired
Change of maintenance status, e.g. for release
Missing mandatory fields
Upload of clinic report for release
Upload of media asset for keyword maintenance

Provision of data for Typo3 with API server

The data for the Inscript agency is currently being provided from the crossbase database via an API server. For details of how the language-, country- and market-specific online catalogs are created, please refer to https://www.coltene.com/products/. Technically, the website has been implemented using the crossbase API server, which provides data via REST services and Typo3 CMS. Users select products according to the application and products are displayed with descriptive texts and tiles. Detailed information is displayed about the selected product, including descriptive texts and images, parts lists and related products (which are linked), user documents, brochures, project reports, etc. In addition, products can be easily filtered and visually compared, see sample product comparison

Interface to print shop and media center

To reduce the amount of effort needed to coordinate the printing of brochures, flyers, etc., an on-demand interface has been set up to Eberl Print in Immenstadt. https://mediacenter.coltene.com/de/ To enable Eberl Print to print the publications, they are assigned a print shop ID and, where necessary, supplied online as a PDF (via the API server and REST service).

To reduce the amount of effort needed to make images and documents available, a media center has also been implemented. For details, see https://mediacenter.coltene.com/de/. In this media center, registered users can use the segment, product group, product line, language and media category filters to search for images and documents, and download them in selectable qualities.

Information distribution within the business

In the business itself, 30 users can access the stored product information and use it in Word, Excel and PowerPoint, over a direct interface, without needing to download it first. The modules for the Office link and the Excel configurator are used for this purpose.