Time is money
One important target group for MISUMI is the custom engineering sector, an area where time is a particular driving force. It often happens that the time from the initial inquiry right up to the finished product is just eight to twelve weeks. In order to make it easier to keep to these short response times for its customers, MISUMI decided in 2004 to offer its design engineers a special service.

Not only were they going to be able to quickly order their components, but they would receive the relevant CAD data for their designs too. With this aim in mind, the company’s entire catalog containing over 2,000 pages had to be put online.

“As creating CAD data is not part of our core skills, we decided to get in an external service provider,” recounts Stefan Pulver, Sales & Marketing Manager. “Then add to this that we needed to provide an extensive presentation of our products, as they can be configured in 0.01 mm steps. And of course, the designer must be able to clearly recognize the shape and size of the desired components.”

After going through a thorough selection process, MISUMI opted in the end for TraceParts, a consulting-oriented software developer, headquartered in Amberg, in south-east Germany. This company is part of the French Trace Software Group founded in 1989 and has a high level of expertise along with many years of experience in the CAD sector and in dealing with engineering parts catalogs.

“The deciding factor for us, ultimately, was that TraceParts could guarantee us very rapid response times for creating CAD models; after all, we add around 1200 new components to our portfolio every year. The other factor was that the company enjoys a high level of acceptance on the market. Given that we are still relatively unknown in Germany, the high level of awareness that TraceParts enjoys has made our entry into the market significantly easier.”
Stefan Pulver
Manager Sales & Marketing

„My TraceParts“:
Flexibility is the clincher
“The particular challenge involved in putting MISUMI’s catalog online was about how to logically integrate the presentation of the products with the ordering process and how to design the site in a very clear and user-friendly way,” recalls Christian Baumgärtner, TraceParts manager.

As there were up to a million different combinations available because of the numerous configuration options MISUMI products have, the company and TraceParts chose a three-part view option for each component: as a 2D or 3D picture, as a CAD model and as a PDF in the printed catalog.

This also means that customers are free to choose the option that suits them when ordering. For example, if customers know the article type of the product they want they can enter this in their search, then download the CAD data immediately, and order the component.

However, given that many designers do not know the article types, they can also use the CAD model as a starting point. After they have configured the CAD model for the product they want, they are automatically given the relevant article number for the order. The order process itself offers the same flexibility too.

Customers can decide whether they want to order directly from the online catalog, or whether, after they have made their selection, they want to export their shopping basket and insert it as a text document in their company’s ERP system.