voestalpine Product Data System

Initial situation

In 2020, the digital platform eva (“enjoy voestalpine”) was launched to digitalise the ordering and service processes of the voestalpine Steel Division. Developed in collaboration with Netural, “eva” comprises a Product Data System, a webshop and a Customer Service Centre.

The Product Data System (PDS) supports users in finding the right steel for their specific requirements. It consolidates the entire flat steel product range of the voestalpine Steel Division – from hot-rolled strip to organically coated strip steel – in a clearly structured, responsive web application.

As the first of the three core functionalities of “eva”, it has now received a comprehensive technical and functional update. The aim was to create new features, shorten loading times, improve the user experience and increase the performance, resulting in even greater process efficiency as well as improved communication and interaction with external users and potential customers.

Development & Implementation

Development was carried out in close cooperation between the Netural team and a project team from the voestalpine Steel Division, consisting of a Product Owner, technical leads and the specialist department. Our long-standing partnership, characterised by high levels of trust, clear responsibilities and short decision-making paths, ensured efficiency at every level.

The modernisation focused particularly on:

• An intuitive user experience for internal and external users with a seamless search function and extensive, intelligent filtering options that allow users to search the steel assortment by wear resistance, formability, sensitivity, strength and much more.
• A modern, well-structured data architecture that ensures no sensitive data is disclosed through clearly defined data access points and access rights.
• The provision of highly up-to-date technical information as well as short loading times even for large data volumes.
• Support for sales through a dedicated sales dashboard and simple contact options that allow interested parties to be converted quickly and easily.

A central task was the fundamental redesign of product data access: external users were to receive controlled real-time access to product information in order to reduce time-consuming and error-prone manual enquiries and responses.

A number of challenges had to be addressed during implementation:

• clarifying roles and approval rules for internal and external users
• evaluating processes to optimally support working methods
• managing the high volume of data and the complexity of data structures
• considering correlations and dependencies between data
• presenting complex data volumes in a clear visual form with intuitive filters
• integrating the system into the existing solution landscape, including SAP

Solution

With the relaunch of the Product Data System, the voestalpine team has taken a decisive step towards a future-proof digital infrastructure.

Thanks to the intuitive interface with role-based approval, internal users such as technicians and engineers gain access to the full spectrum of steel product data, while external users only see a defined subset. This data strategy strikes the perfect balance between transparency and the protection of sensitive information.

The expert search for internal technical users has also been developed further to make retrieving and comparing steel grades even more intuitive, while existing customers can now access not only generally available steel products but also those developed specifically for them.

In parallel, the use of dcupl ensures extremely fast loading times and maximum stability – even for very large data sets: Thousands of data records can be searched and filtered within milliseconds. At the same time, error susceptibility has been drastically reduced and system availability significantly increased.

Conclusion & Outlook

The Product Data System creates a solid digital foundation for the further development of the “eva” platform and fundamentally transforms the way product data of the voestalpine Steel Division can be searched and used.

The combination of powerful technology, a clear data strategy and outstanding UX design makes the Product Data System a prime example of efficient, user-centred industrial software. It provides fast, reliable and intuitive access to complex product data and ensures:

• a performance uplift without long loading times,
• greater transparency for internal and external users,
• improved usability despite highly complex content,
• and faster processing of enquiries.

In doing so, it strengthens the position of the voestalpine Steel Division as an internationally leading provider of high-quality steel strip.

We are proud to be part of such a successful project and are already looking forward to the (further) development of other functionalities of the “eva” platform.