What's new?
You will notice that the Data Lifecycle Management content has been moved to a new main area called "Insights", accessible from the main navigation. This will be the new home for all the insights we generate for your material master based on our matching with product information from more than 5,000 manufacturers and suppliers.
The product update improves the discovery of insights grouped in three categories:
- Data enrichments
- Duplicates
- Discontinuations
New detail pages have been added for each Insights category, making it easier to review your product data. Duplicates are now displayed in groups for easier comparison and the overview is improved with a review status per insight. In addition, the export feature gives you easy access to the generated insights further review, collaboration with stakeholders, and processing into your ERP system.
Our Master Data Insights Categories
1. Data enrichments
Our data cleansing is becoming more powerful and is therefore now called "Data Enrichment". In this section, you will find all materials that we have uniquely identified with the help of our matching algorithm.
On the insight detail pages you find a side-by-side comparison of all the information we have about the product from original manufacturers and the one in your material master. Differences between your and the original manufacturer's data are highlighted (see Gif below). After reviewing the differences, you can enrich your material master with the original manufacturer and supplier information from the SPARETECH App.
Our app suggested you to enrich your data with information from our database?
You can deal with it in two ways:
- Manually review insights one-at-a-time: Use the review status to keep track of your work and changes of the data in your ERP system.
- Export all insights to review many-at-a-time: Decide what enrichment suggestions you would like to take over to your material master and transform the file into the required format to smoothly process it into your ERP system.
One of the next product updates will make the review and processing of changes even more efficient: We want to further reduce the manual work for you and deliver the change directly in the ERP-ready format.
2. Duplicates
In this section, you find all the duplicate materials we have identified in your material master, all grouped by the product in the SPARETECH database they are matched to.
This overview should allow you to quickly assess the duplicates at a glance. You can always click on the material reference number in the first column to view material details that go beyond the available information in the table.
Each duplicate group has a review status so you can keep track of your de-duplication work inside our app.
To give you full flexibility in this complex and highly collaborative process, you can create an export with all the information you see in the table.
Identifying duplicates is the very first step of a de-duplication process that can take up weeks, months, or even a year. Most likely multiple stakeholders are involved in the process, many decisions have to be made and different documentations need to be updated, in different systems but also physically in storage locations.
3. Discontinuations
In the discontinuations tab, you will find all identified materials where we have received product discontinuation information from the manufacturer.
Product Status and Discontinuation Date
On the insights detail pages, you can view the product status (discontinued or discontinuation announced by the manufacturer) and the discontinuation date.
Successor Products
In addition, you will find information about the successor product (if available) and whether it already exists in your material master. This way you can create the successor product directly in the app if required.
You can also export all of this information together with your material master data.
With all information at hand, you own the rest of the process: Decide if and what counter-measures need to be taken to secure the availability of the spare part when you need it.
Tasks status
Have you completed the work? Keep track by updating the status of these findings to "Done".
You’re still reviewing, need to clarify correct next steps, waiting for others to complete their actions, or cannot implement all counter-measures right away? Just set the status to “In Review”. This way you can focus on what is “New” and keep the overview.
You can do that separately for each insight in the table, in all categories.
What's next?
What other insights about your material master would you like to learn about? What else do you need to apply the insights to your material master?
Let us know at product@sparetech.io so we can shape the future of Data Lifecycle Management together!
