Fritz Barthel Armaturen GmbH & Co. KG, established in 1932 in Hamburg, is a third-generation family-owned manufacturer and distributor specializing in valves and fittings for shipbuilding and industrial applications. The company employs over 90 people and serves customers in more than 69 countries worldwide. Barthel produces JIS and navy valves, control valves, boiler equipment, and sampling systems, offering custom solutions tailored to specific industrial requirements.
Barthel Armaturen maintains a robust distribution network. The company collaborates with various partners and agents worldwide to ensure efficient delivery and support for its products. Notably, Barthel Armaturen is an official partner of GESTRA, a leading manufacturer of steam systems, and stocks a wide range of GESTRA products, including non-return valves, steam traps, and control valves
Unifying and Instantly Publishing Product Data for Shipbuilding Valve Manufacturing
Challenges
Barthel faced several key challenges in managing and publishing its extensive product data:
Overwhelming Catalog Production: Generating the main comprehensive product catalog was a multi-month process that involved manual layout and cross-referencing, limiting the frequency of updates.
Limited Customization: Creating smaller, targeted catalogs for specific product categories (e.g., 'JIS Valves' or 'Boiler Equipment') required significant manual filtering and compilation.
Static and Bloated PDFs: Electronic product documents and catalogs were often very large, making them slow to download and impractical for quick digital sharing.
Decentralized Data and Assets: Core product assets, such as technical drawings, high-resolution images, and compliance certifications, were stored in multiple locations, making maintenance challenging and error-prone.
Lack of Automation: Product sheets and catalogs had to be created manually, limiting scalability, consistency, and the ability to generate documents in different languages or for specific categories.
Goals
To address these challenges, Barthel aimed to:
Streamline Product Documentation: Enable automated, on-demand generation of product sheets for any item instantly.
Simplify Catalog Creation: Implement a 'one-click' solution to generate product catalogs for dedicated categories quickly.
Enable High-Volume Publishing: Successfully generate large catalogs of 500+ pages, complete with features like clickable tables of contents.
Optimize Digital File Performance: Reduce PDF file sizes without compromising print quality for easier sharing and distribution.
Enable One-Click Publishing: Allow marketing teams to create category-specific catalogs with a single action.
Centralize Product Data: Consolidate all product information, images, and associations in one system for better management and accuracy.
Solution
To achieve these goals, Barthel implemented a PIM solution with robust data management and advanced catalog automation capabilities.
Key solution features included:
Central Data Repository & Asset Management: The PIM serves as the definitive central repository for all product data, including detailed technical specifications, high-resolution product images and illustrations, and management of product associations such as accessories, spare parts, and compatible systems.
Advanced Catalog Automation: The publishing engine enables seamless generation of entire product catalogs (500+ pages) with dynamic, clickable tables of contents and index pages, as well as one-click generation of category- or product line-specific catalogs.
PDF Optimization: Custom logic reduces file sizes while maintaining visual and print quality, making documents faster to download and easier to share.
Centralized Single Source of Truth: All product information, images, illustrations, and associations are now managed in one system, ensuring consistency and accuracy across all outputs.
Results
Faster Catalog Creation: The PIM reduced the time to produce full product catalogs or category-specific catalogs from months to minutes, dramatically improving responsiveness to market demands.
Higher Data Accuracy: Centralized data ensures all documents pull from the same validated source, virtually eliminating specification errors.
Cost Reduction: Automation of large-volume print and PDF production reduced design costs and freed internal resources.
Enhanced User Experience: Optimized PDF sizes and clickable navigation (TOC) improved usability for B2B customers and sales teams requiring quick access to technical data.
Improved Data Consistency: Centralized management guarantees accuracy across all documents, channels, and outputs.
Greater Flexibility: Marketing teams can now generate tailored catalogs and product sheets independently, without IT support.
Future-Ready Infrastructure: The PIM equips Barthel to scale its product data operations efficiently as the business grows.
