Printdata management – best practice by Merten & euroscript

A feature at the IRD conference in Basel was the successful cooperation between euroscript and Merten, manufacturer of intelligent building systems, within the context of an innovative project for workflow integration and introduction of CMS. It highlighted the key advantages for service providers who have comprehensive knowledge of all the steps in the documentation process.

At the Networking Congress of the Institute for Rational Management in the Printing Industry (IRD), held in Basel on 16 and 17 September 2004, over 30 companies presented their "best practice" solutions. Discussions were held on the "Efficiency of modern print media production" through the creation of company-wide total solutions (www.ird-online.de, www.printradar.net).

In the opening speech, Prof. Peter Zec of Design Zentrum Nordrhein-Westfalen cited emotional communication as central to companies' success. Communication means mutual understanding. According to Prof. Zec, only when service providers and customers develop a common success strategy and an inner attitude, or a common world view, will this lead to a win-win situation.

euroscript Deutschland presented the conference topic "Printdata management", part of the main subject area "Efficiency through workflow integration", together with the Wiehl-based company, Merten (www.merten.de), producer of intelligent building systems. In a bid to reduce expenditure during conversion to XML-based CMS solutions, Merten and euroscript worked out the success criteria for the project. In addition to preliminary terminology work, these include the optimization of source texts, adaptation of editing systems in multilingual applications, a common project platform based on modern translation management tools (Teamworks from Trados), and in particular open communication between all those involved in the project.  

Owner of uu-support and former project manager at Merten, Mr Ufer highlighted the constructive cooperation with euroscript, which saw production times shortened from six to two months during the pilot project phase (Chinese catalogue) and total costs reduced by half during the process. Break-even is possible after the production of five foreign-language catalogues.