Company profile
BASF in Heerenveen is a leader in the fast-paced and demanding printing and coating industries. The company develops and produces water-based resins and dispersions that are environmentally friendly.
The challenge
Like many companies established in the late nineties, BASF in Heerenveen invested to keep up with digital transformation. The company’s asset information is managed in disparate sources from network shares, document management solutions and maintenance systems. BASF had also expended via acquisition, adding even more complexity to its existing structure.
For users finding asset information and related content has been time-consuming. Users spent too much time manually connecting to systems to find relevant data. Time which could be used more efficiently for other tasks. Even when they found the data, there was uncertainty whether data was accurate and complete.
“User were not always confident that they had not have found all of the relevant information, and wasted time looking in the wrong places…. Could they trust that what they were looking at was indeed current? Not always…”
The solution
To create a more connected, real-time system for data analysis BASF implemented Viewport at their Heerenveen location. With Viewport information from all connected systems is presented in a simple, accessible interface.
Viewport combines the information in various systems through advanced analytics, pattern recognition and hyperlinks into ‘a single point of truth’. With automatic update of the hyperlinks if there is a new version of a document, procedure or drawing.
Moving between information stored in the DMS (Meridian) and linked records in the maintenance system (Ultimo) all happens in the Viewport interface. There is no need for a user to log into any of the sources systems.
“I don’t need to think about where to start looking, I know Viewport will find what I need, even if I’m not sure where to start”.
Results and benefits
Viewport helps the users at BASF in Heerenveen to easily search and find all information related to an asset no matter the original source. This saves them time in pre-identifying where information is stored. Crucial asset information can now be retrieved in seconds, without users having to leave their desk. They can navigate through complex data connections by simply pointing-and-clicking. Even connections that may have been hidden or buried deep are brought to the surface, creating new opportunities for analysis.
Read more about this story on https://viewport.ai/resources/case-studies/basf-heerenveen