Platform about design and technology in the kitchen, home, and bathroom industry
Designing, manufacturing, selling and delivering a kitchen requires a great deal of product information. For example, color combinations, cabinet layouts, price lists, drilling patterns and delivery times. New information is needed at every step in the process from design to delivery.
Traditionally, each process step uses a (software) tool that must be provided with its own product information. This creates inconsistency between the tools and causes a lot of duplication of effort. Exactly this challenge - how are we going to get this done - led a Dutch software company almost 20 years ago to the idea of developing tools that work from one central product model.
We are talking to Wibo Smeerdijk, director/owner at PrimeFact Nederland BV. He says: "After gathering years of experience in the German kitchen industry, we started offering software for Dutch kitchen manufacturers in 2004. In the first years the focus was on kitchen production, but the tools soon developed towards sales and delivery. With every module that was developed, one aspect was paramount: all the necessary data had to come from one and the same product model."
The first kitchen manufacturer to deploy PrimeFact's central product model was Bruynzeel Keukens. This was soon followed by Bribus and later Keller Kitchens. "With that, we can say today that our tools are used for the sales and production of by far the most kitchens produced in the Netherlands. Quite something to be proud of!"
The concept also struck a chord with countertop manufacturers, Wibo continues. "Among others, Dekker Zevenhuizen uses our software. Consequently, most worktops produced in the Netherlands are made using PrimeFact software."
Producers who use the central product model quickly achieve major benefits:
- Fewer people are needed to enter and maintain the data;
- The data is consistent which reduces errors;
- Assortment improvements can be made faster.
In 2020, PrimeFact decided to repackage the developed product model, and all the software modules hooked up to it, in a modern format under the name Cuision. This stands for innovative software for kitchen manufacturers based on one central product model. A characteristic of the Cuision model is that the central product model is in the cloud and thus directly accessible to all stakeholders.
"Cuision has several tools for selling kitchens. It is a process, also called order entry. Each tool has its own target audience. For example, there is one that allows experts to design any setup they want, but there is also a tool that allows a consumer to configure a kitchen themselves, on their own tablet," Wibo concluded. "The latest addition to the tree of order-entry tools is the OptionPlanner. This makes it very easy to choose from a selection of the range. The OptionPlanner is used, for example, by housing associations and by future residents of new construction projects."
The Cuision website is now available in several languages and provides an overview of all business processes supported by the central product model. Videos of several processes are available that give a good idea of how the software works.
Check the Cuision website for more information on the central product model.
