CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
26 April 2011
Implementation Investments
Welker Engineered Products Increases Sales With PARTsolutions 3D Website
PARTsolutions, LLC introduced its PARTcatalog™ website solution at Welker Engineered Products, a leader in automation components. In addition to web-enabling its entire product line in 3D native CAD using PARTcatalog, PARTsolutions completely overhauled Welker Engineered Products' website by adding a product configurator and e-commerce solution. As a result, Welker has increased lead generation, resulting in a 10 percent increase in sales in just 4 months. Click here to see the website in action.
The availability of high quality product data in 3D native CAD online empowers Welker's customers -- including automotive and transportation, industrial, agricultural, oil & gas, marine and special machine companies -- to search, access, download, configure and purchase 25,557,811 orderable products anytime. All of these products are available in more than 85 native and neutral CAD and graphics formats, resulting in millions of different files being available, on time and in the right format at the time of online ordering. Digital product orders have grown dramatically since implementing the new fully integrated PARTsolutions 3D configurator website, increasing 1,410% on average in Q1 2011 versus Q1 2010.
"At Welker, we pride ourselves on the ability to assess the application needs of our customers and provide innovative solutions," said Jo Ann Terri, Operations Manager, Welker Engineered Products. "Partnering with PARTsolutions to enhance our website has enabled our customers to be almost completely self-sufficient, while greatly increasing our sales. It was an investment in our customers and our future, which has already paid off tremendously."
The new Welker site uses PARTsolutions' rules-based logic to quickly configure and download high-quality product data in native CAD, simplifying the previous time-consuming and complex manual process of configuring automation components for locating, clamping, sliding, lifting, ejecting, transporting, stopping and rotating applications. Previously, customers had to go online to see a one-dimensional rendering of a product. They would then call or email Welker's engineering team, who would have to mail each customer a flash drive with more detail and data. Welker's new website provides a customer experience superior in every way to "copy/paste" websites provided by template-based website solutions.
"During the economic downturn, Welker had the foresight to create a remarkable competitive differentiator," said Rob Zesch, president, PARTsolutions. "In teaming with PARTsolutions on its website and digital product catalog, the company can more easily and effectively deliver stellar customer service and increase sales, all while saving the valuable time and resources of its engineering and procurement teams."
In addition to increasing Welker's lead generation and sales, the new site has shortened design time and improved the customer experience, while enabling customers to more easily "Design In" Welker products directly into their proposals. In addition, the process has freed tremendous internal resources, allowing the Welker engineers to focus on their core competencies. An overview video of the Welker Engineered Products catalog can be viewed at: http://www.partsolutions.com/customer_examples/Welker_Engineered_Products/Website.
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