Julius Blum GmbH

More service and advice thanks to electronic spare parts catalogue

In accordance with the philosophy "Perfecting motion", the company Julius Blum GmbH produces high-quality solutions for the furniture industry and the trade - primarily for kitchen furniture. The high standard of their own products is reflected in the choice of CATALOGcreator® for the electronic spare parts catalogues. By switching to the creation with CATALOGcreator®, the quality and handling of the electronic spare parts catalogues could be increased considerably.

BLUM - a strong brand

Blum makes opening and closing furniture an experience and increases the comfort of movement in all living areas, but especially in the kitchen. Around 5,000 employees worldwide work to implement the pursuit of perfect movement in Blum hardware systems. In doing so, they focus on the kitchen user and his or her needs.
Blum hardware systems impress with their well thought-out function, recognised design and long service life. They are designed to inspire enthusiasm and make working in the kitchen an emotional experience.
Blum supports its partners with a comprehensive range of services. In order for Blum to be able to work in a targeted manner, the employees are in constant dialogue with kitchen manufacturers, carpenters, dealers and kitchen users all over the world.
For the clear presentation of processing aids, an electronic spare parts catalogue was to be created with the CATALOGcreator® software.

Initial situation

Until 1997, spare parts information was taken from CAD drawings. This process was very time-consuming and fraught with errors. Blum also had to have the drawings prepared externally. In 1997, the first spare parts catalogue was created and consisted of a PDF file with interactive links and illustrations. It was about 360 pages long. The creation of the PDF file - especially the linking of the illustrations with the spare parts data - represented a high effort. As a result, the updating of the spare parts catalogue was always delayed and several versions of the PDF file were in circulation. There was no control over access to the data and the status of distribution. Users had considerable problems identifying spare parts.

In order to be able to create and maintain spare parts catalogues more easily and quickly in the future using the existing CAD data, Julius Blum GmbH decided on a new solution - CATALOGcreator®.

Requirements

The products shown in the spare parts catalogues - namely the processing aids - are distributed worldwide by the Blum subsidiaries and agencies. Maintenance and service are provided by the Blum subsidiaries. Blum's objective was to create an electronic spare parts catalogue using the existing 3D and 2D data. A high degree of identifiability of the spare parts with mapping of the parts structure was to be ensured.

It was also important for Julius Blum GmbH that no own programming effort is necessary. The electronic spare parts catalogue, created with CATALOGcreator®, was to fulfil these requirements.
In terms of system technology, the product and CAD drawing data first had to be prepared for CATALOGcreator®. The parts lists are taken from the ERP. The CAD data, which is created at Blum with SolidWorks and managed and versioned with SmarTeam, is converted into highly compressed XVL models with the XVL Converter and prepared with the XVL Studio. Thanks to their small file size, the XVL models are excellently suited for use in spare parts catalogues and can also be animated and rotated for use in training courses or assembly instructions, for example.

Thanks to the high flexibility of the CATALOGcreator® software, data from different software environments can be easily integrated into the electronic catalogue. Blum has chosen a password-protected Internet solution as the output form of the spare parts catalogue, which is only accessible to registered customers. Distribution is carried out by the "Blum E-Services" department.