Knorr-Bremse relies on catalog management solution of Heiler for his e-procurement

Stuttgart, Mai, 21 2002 – Knorr-Bremse AG, globally leading manufacturer of brake systems for rail and commercial vehicles, applies the catalog solution of Heiler Software AG for its e–procurement throughout the whole group. Core of the solution are the Premium Business Catalog and the Premium Content Manager. Implementing the suppliers' catalog Heiler supports Knorr-Bremse with extensive services.

Knorr-Bremse AG, one of the leading manufacturers of brake systems for rail and commercial vehicles worldwide, implements an electronic procurement system based on Enterprise Buyer Professional (EBP), the e-procurement system of SAP. Its central component is the Premium Business Catalog, the catalog solution of Heiler Software AG, which, in the first step, processes the information of approximately 20 suppliers' catalogs and then, in the development stage, provides it to up to 4,000 users throughout the whole group.

This catalog solution is managed and controlled by the Premium Content Manager, the catalog management system of Heiler Software AG. It technically and commercially checks the data of the suppliers' catalog, it supplements them with user-specific information, e.g. product category specifications, it subjects the data to extensive tests and finally releases them for production.

Moreover the Premium Content Manager assigns the versions and archives the catalog information so that it is always comprehensible who modified when what part of the catalog. Thus the e–procurement solution also becomes reliable for auditing.

"The implementation of an e-procurement solution is not least a quite large-scale operation, because there have to be processed heterogeneous information of very different sources", says Werner Holzgethan, director strategic purchase at Knorr-Bremse Systeme für Schienenfahrzeuge GmbH." For this reason we have decided to go for a provider who does not only dispose of a powerful software, but who is also able to provide a large-scale service to the entire solution."

"Nowadays e-procurement is rather a question of management than of software“, explains Rolf Heiler, CEO of Heiler Software AG in Stuttgart. "It is only possible to realize the undisputed benefits of the electronic procurement concept, if the companies are able to efficiently process the various data of their suppliers according to their own requirements."

About Knorr-Bremse:
Knorr-Bremse is the leading manufacturer of brake systems for rail and commercial vehicles worldwide. As a kind of pacemaker the company decisively pushes the development, production and sales of most modern brake systems for different applications in the field of rail and commercial vehicles since more than 95 years. Thus Knorr-Bremse essentially contributes to the security on rails and streets. Further fields of production are door systems for rail vehicles and torsion vibration dampers. In the fiscal year 2001 more than 9,200 employees worldwide made a revenue of 1.6 billion euros.

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