We offer a big congratulations to our partner Briggs & Stratton on their incredible parts book publication productivity, enhanced by Data Manager.
“They [ARI] are a true partner to us, not just another vendor.”
John Piechowski, Director of Customer Experience at Briggs & Stratton
What is Data Manager?
Data Manager is part of the PartSmart Connect suite of products. With Data Manager,
parts data and catalog content can be authored and published in seconds. Manufacturers
and distributors can work more efficiently and provide their customer networks with instant
access to up-to-date parts data:
- Reduce time to market by publishing in real time
- Repurpose content as needed to create new variants
- Publish to web-based interactive parts catalogs
- Improve consistency across catalogs through editing tools
- Create customized PDF parts books quickly and easily
Prior to incorporating Data Manager into their parts book publishing,
Briggs & Stratton was using SAP automation to force the creation of parts catalogs—a process that took 14 to 21 days from start to finish. The Briggs & Stratton team had to release a whole family of parts books at a time, which meant that if one of the parts books experienced issues or needed to be updated, the release of the other parts books had to be postponed, too.
What prompted the decision to move forward with Data Manager?
“We were already using Data Manager in other areas of our production process. Ultimately, we decided to incorporate Data Manager into our parts book publishing process instead of using another system because our dealers are already familiar with PartSmart, and we have been very impressed with ARI’s responsiveness to our data authoring and publishing needs.
Our biggest reason to extend our use of Data Manager is the ability to re-use assembly drawings and other data—this is a real time-saver, and it’s been a game-changer for our publication process.”
John Piechowski, Director of Customer Experience at Briggs & Stratton
After extending the use of Data Manager to their engine parts books,
Briggs & Stratton has seen a great improvement in their parts book publishing and releases. Instead of releasing parts books in family groups, Briggs & Stratton can now release a single parts book, as well as changes to individual assemblies or parts, without holding up the production of other parts books.
This quicker, more nimble process has also generated an increase in content quality. With less time spent on mass parts book publications, Briggs & Stratton has the bandwidth to fulfill customers’ needs for specific parts books and address customer feedback.
“Data Manager helped us streamline the parts book release process. Now there are fewer moving pieces for our technical publications people. We trimmed the overall process down to 4-5 days, and we’ve been using that extra time to address dealer and customer requests that we hadn’t had the time to look at before. Overall, we’ve seen a 70% increase in productivity.”
Michael Arthur, Manager of Technical Publications at Briggs & Stratton
What might the future hold for Briggs & Stratton’s partnership with ARI?
“They [ARI] are a true partner to us, not just another vendor. In the next year or so, we’re looking at incorporating the full PartSmart Connect platform into our workflow. We are always looking to optimize our connection with our dealer network, and we see a lot of promise in the PartSmart Connect products.”
John Piechowski, Director of Customer Experience at Briggs & Stratton
Briggs & Stratton
Briggs & Stratton, LLC, headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is focused on providing power to get work done and make people’s lives better. Briggs & Stratton is the world’s largest producer of gasoline engines for outdoor power equipment, and is a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of commercial lithium-ion batteries, power generation, pressure washer, lawn and garden, turf care and job site products through its Briggs & Stratton®, Simplicity®, Snapper®, Ferris®, Vanguard®, Allmand®, Billy Goat®, Murray®, Branco® and Victa® brands. Briggs & Stratton products are designed, manufactured, marketed and serviced in over 100 countries on six continents.