Modultek

Nearly every company has deficiencies in data quality. In particular, the quality of item data often leaves much to be desired, as new items enter the database through company acquisitions with description fields that are incongruous with the existing item data.

Item data can also become unwieldy through the company's own actions. If the desired item is not found, new ones are created in a hurry, resulting in duplicate items. These increase the inventory value and incur unnecessary quality costs throughout the delivery chain.

This problem is widely acknowledged, but due to large numbers of items companies are usually resigned to the belief that there is nothing that can be done.

With its nearly 20 years of experience in item management, Modultek has created a new product, the Aton CodeMaster, which can efficiently analyze even millions of items and highlight duplicate ones.

CodeMaster can also be used to harmonize description fields and property definitions. This allows the company's entire existing item set and other master data, such as supplier, customer and contract data, to become uniform.

Paroc Takes Advantage of ERP System Project to Fix Item Data

The leading supplier of insulation products in the Baltic region, Paroc Group, combined the information contained in the production control systems of its different plants into one, group-wide ERP system. “We began harmonizing the product data in conjunction with the implementation of the ERP system, choosing Aton CodeMaster as the right tool for the job”, describes Juha-Pekka Nenonen, Director, Information Systems. The system was later expanded into the main database for Paroc’s items.

In addition to item data, the control and harmonization of company-level partner information such as customer and supplier data becomes critical in conjunction with major ERP projects. Many business benefits sought through an ERP investment, such as the global centralization of acquisitions, cannot be achieved until the master data related to partner information has been brought under control at all levels of business operations.

Dispiritingly often, ERP project schedules fail due to poor master data. On the other hand, if the data quality cannot be improved, the new ERP investment will be practically wasted.

CodeMaster Harmonized the Data of Metso Minerals

Metso Minerals carried out an SAP implementation project in which CodeMaster was used for data conversion and harmonization in Finland, India, Brazil, the United States and Canada.

“We have around 80 different master data objects in SAP, and an enormous quantity of data. It is our view that the harmonization requirements will bring direct business benefits. From the beginning, we sought an approach for the harmonization and conversion work in the style of CodeMaster, in which data is centrally managed in an efficient database, allowing the data being moved into SAP to be validated and corrected beforehand”, explains Mikko Vepsäläinen, Director of Business Process Development at Metso Minerals.

New Partner, Ineo Group

Handling master data and bringing it under company-wide control is work which requires expertise not usually found in companies.

In Metso’s case, the project was made easier by its expert partner, Ineo Group, which was responsible for training Metso Minerals’ project team in the work methods and processes required. “Utilizing, for example, CodeMaster, we can offer a master data conversion project to our customers at a fixed price. Additionally, we are able to shorten the conversion lead time and better meet global harmonization requirements. In other words, we have been able to considerably increase the manageability of our deliveries. All this brings significant competitive benefits to Ineo, and is a factor which fundamentally decreases the investment risks of our customers”, enthuses Niclas Grandén, Business Area Director of Ineo Group’s Master Data business area.

“A common cause of trouble in an ERP project is based on problems related to master data. As one of our customers so aptly put it, master data is at least as important a factor in the success of the project as the system itself”, Grandén continues.

No Major Investments – A Flexible Rental Product

Aton CodeMaster also differs from traditional software products by not being bought; it is rented.

“There is now a long-sought-after service package on the market: a high-quality tool with customer-friendly pricing, allowing the analysis of huge amounts of data, and an expert partner who knows how to handle such things”, summarizes Jukka Salovaara, CEO of Modultek, with respect to the cooperation agreement between Modultek and Ineo.

“CodeMaster is an excellent addition to our Aton product family, which includes PLM solutions for handling item data in the various operative processes of a company”, states Jukka Salovaara, explaining the new market.

Typical applications for CodeMaster include:

• Taking control of item data resulting from a company acquisition
• Harmonization of maintenance department’s spare parts data
• Analysis and quality improvement of the existing item set
• Conversion of master data in an ERP implementation project
• Conversion of product data in a PDM implementation project
• Harmonization of customer and supplier data between different systems