Mopar Selects Accuro ACP
The accessories portfolio team of the Mopar division for Daimler Chrysler US, manage all the accessories for the Chrysler Group vehicles: Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge. Twice a year Mopar is responsible for the production of three versions of their accessories catalogue (referred to as databooks) US, Canadian-English and French-Canadian.
With each databook containing more than 2,000 accessory products, Mopar needed to ensure accuracy and consistency and had to find a way to cut back on the time and cost it took to translate , proof and design the two Canadian databooks.
The Old Process
Once the US databook was complete it was taken apart and translated into both Canadian-English and French-Canadian. This process meant hours of manual work; handwriting all translations into the completed databooks, which were then given to their advertising agency who manually entered the content into Quark. The content was then handed back for proofing which was then amended again in Quark before the process was complete. With each new databook containing only 20% new content, work was being repeated; 80% of the content that had not changed was being translated again with each issue.
Due to the comprehensive translating and proofing process it would take Mopar three to four months after the US databook was released to complete the Canadian-English databook. By this time an average of 5% of the content was out of date or incorrect and the new US databook would only be 2 months away from release.
This process was also proving to be costly for Mopar, pre-production costs for the Canadian databooks were as high as US$50,000 per databook.
Accuro to the Rescue
When David Haslam, Database Systems Manager for Mopar, met Michael Halter from Absolute Data Group at a conference in May 2004, he was surprised to find a possible solution to his databook issues. “You know how people discuss great ideas on bar napkins? Well we did the modern day equivalent, with our lap tops instead of bar napkins. Michael took data from my lap top, placed it into Accuro and voila, I was impressed.”
The Project Begins
At the end of July 2004, all the information from the US databook was imported into the Accuro server at ADG’s head office in Brisbane, Australia. The translators in the US and Canada were able to access the Brisbane base server remotely from their own work place. This meant no more handing over content, the translators and Mopar could simultaneously work on the databooks. Once translation on a part was complete, it could be Quality Assured instantly. In the Accuro Client, radio buttons were selected when translating and Quality Assurance tasks were complete. Searches could be made on products that were translated but not Quality Assured. This ensured a far more controlled proofing system and guaranteed a better accuracy rate.
User requirements changed on the fly
Accuro’s “zero maintenance” Client was also configured along the way to meet the needs of Mopar, blank text boxes were added for easier translating; the untranslated content could be pasted on the same section to where it was being translated, this stopped the need to switch from tab to tab and made the translating process even quicker. Once additional fields were enabled on the server, the users simply performed a “refresh” on the Accuro Client to access all new fields, no software updates on desktops were required.
Power Publishing
“Accuro offers out of the box features that cannot be achieved when publishing from standard databases” said David. Such features include:
- The easy to use “zero maintenance” Accuro Client interface
- Advanced search functionality in Accuro Client
- Use of formatting properties such as Bold, Italic, Bullet Lists inside Accuro Client
- One click publishing to XML with automatically compiled DTD to match your data
- Option to publish data as a single XML file, or as multiple XML files for each record in the database
- CALS compliant table structure and attribute features
- Indexing and footnote functionality
A Driving Success
The Canadian-English databook was completed using Accuro in October 2004 with flying results:
- Pre-production of each language databook will now cost only US$1,000 down from US$50,000
- Proof reading time is down from 500 hours to 50 hours per databook
- Reduced production time has reduced the error rate from 1000 parts to approximately 10 parts
- Flexibility in output has allowed fields not required in the Canadian databook to be removed and alphabetical sorting of the French-Canadian data.
Looking Towards the Future
Due to the success of Accuro, Mopar have been able to change their objectives for the next 12 months. Taking into consideration the time the translation process took the first time around, Mopar expect their next Canadian-English databook to take just three weeks to complete after the US databook is released. Due to this quick turnover, Mopar can expect the error rate in the Canadian databooks to be improved dramatically. “Under the old system, the delay in production meant as many as 1000 parts had changed before release. Under this new system we are expecting as little as 10 parts,” said David. “That’s an error rate improvement of 99%.
Mopar are not stopping the improvements with the Canadian databooks, they are now looking to produce other language databooks using Accuro. “International databooks were such a rarity due to their high costs,” said David, “now we are planning Mexican, European and Asian databooks on a more frequent basis at a lower cost”.
“If all new objectives are met within the next 12 months, Mopar looks likely to save at least US$300,000 on pre-production and printing costs from using Accuro”.
Tags: ADG