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| masterpiece /mäs ‘t∂r-pés/ n. The most outstanding work of a craftsman |
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| Service Description |
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The 6 aspects of Masterpiece are described in more detail below:
• Target Data Structures
• Data Acquisition
• Automated Data Cleaning
• Task Allocation and Workflow
• Return of Clean Data
• Ongoing Maintenance
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Target Data Structures
At the core of Masterpiece is our engineering dictionary, Maxonomy, which allows you to implement a highly granular descriptive structure for your data, and to control and publish it from one place, globally! You can provide your own taxonomy, choose the one provided by sparesFinder, or implement any other international or industry standard.
Our dictionary operates in multiple languages and can cross-reference automatically to multiple spend classification schema such as eCl@ss, UNSPSC, eOTD, or your own corporate variation.
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Masterpiece brings
structure to
your spares
inventory
data |
The database uses the typical noun, modifier and multiple attributes structure to describe items, and our consultants can advise on what is best for your individual circumstances. For example, where an item is sourced from a single supplier, we would question the value of describing an item other than by the OEM Name, Part Number and enough descriptive data to confirm the type of part and spend classification to the depth required. For common components, however, and higher value interchangeable items such as motors, the investment in full attribution of the item offers greater rewards. |
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| Masterpiece also offers the ability to upload and maintain data from your key supplier's own catalogues. This can dramatically accelerate a data cleaning project by using high quality data provided by your suppliers, and also offers considerable benefits by ensuring that your and your supplier's data is tightly aligned, reducing purchasing errors and enabling more effective e-procurement. |
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"On demand"
system reduces
requirement
for
IT input |
Data Acquisition
In common with all our tools, access is via a simple web browser, and data is acquired using our Parts Data Uploader software. The standard upload routines include all the same data normalisation of key fields used for our VPI and Insight solutions. Moreover, they ensure that during and afterwards during the data maintenance phase, users are always working on a current mirror of the inventory records contained within your live systems. This is a particularly important feature as projects approach switchover, and ensures a smooth transition of current data.
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Automated Data Cleaning
As data is uploaded, Masterpiece runs regular automated scanning routines to ensure that all data is matched and categorised to the currently approved target data structure. During every project sparesFinder's technical specialists conduct a series of analyses, often in conjunction with our customers' own category specialists, to optimise the scanning algorithms for each particular data set and to attain the best possible result.
Our automated processes are robust, reliable and repeatable and only extract data with a very high degree of certainty. Where there is ambiguity, the system sends these items to a different section of the workflow.
Task Allocation and Workflow
Once the automated processes have been run on legacy data, a clear picture will emerge of the difference between the legacy data and the required standard. Masterpiece breaks down the tasks involved in completing the data cleaning in many ways according to the work required, and offers System Administrators the ability to allocate tasks to individual users and track their progress.
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Being web-based, Masterpiece can be made available to a user instantly, anywhere in the world, so the person best able to complete the work on time and most cost-effectively can be chosen, for example:
• Category experts who know your operating environment and can leverage their knowledge across the aggregated requirements of the whole company, rather than at a single site.
• OEMs and Suppliers who know what they sold you, even when your records are incomplete
• Local inventory managers who know their stores and can quickly check and inspect a few items at zero travel cost
• Third party data cleaning companies where a rapid, bulk cleaning project is required, or remote office based research is a viable option - sparesFinder has partnered with specialist companies and can provide a turn-key solution if required
A very high quality of work is ensured by the granular and tightly controlled nature of our tool, which we can readily demonstrate to prospective customers. It even enables users to work on data supplied in different languages. All users access the same database, so there is no risk of duplicated effort, and indeed many time-saving features are built in to ensure maximum efficiency during manual data enhancement.
All significant activity is recorded within the Masterpiece audit files, and reports are available within the tool to track progress at individual, factory, country, regional and corporate levels.
Return of Clean Data
Masterpiece has been designed to offer exceptional leverage from your clean data. For example, once an item has been categorised and attributed in a single language, the system can output many different descriptive fields (e.g. Short and Long descriptions) according to your detailed syntax rules, and be translated to several languages as required.
We expect to provide a different output file structure for each customer, according to their own particular needs, and several delivery options are offered for the return of clean data, from straightforward single flat text files, through regular daily updates of approved data to ongoing web service enabled feeds to your inventory systems.
Ongoing Maintenance
Too often in the past, data cleaning projects have been conducted as one-off events, with scant regard for maintaining data standards and embedding processes to prevent future item duplication. As a result, data quality deteriorates over time, with customers achieving fewer benefits than forecast, and in need of another cleaning project all too soon.
Masterpiece offers a data maintenance module which enables many distributed users to add new inventory items to your master data using all the quality control features of the system to ensure no duplication is created and standards are adhered to. Workflows can be incorporated where you have complex approvals process to establish, but the job of a central material control team becomes forward looking and strategic rather than catching up with the inevitable backlog of item requests or fixing all the local data entry mistakes.
Where the OEM catalogue functionality has been enabled, Masterpiece allows you to manage item obsolescence and supersession data centrally and reflect the changes across your company using a standard, automated process.
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