Successful HIT/MANTED digita­li­sa­tion project for MAN Truck & Bus SE

MAN Truck & Bus SE is a provi­der of trans­port soluti­ons and one of the leading commer­cial vehicle manufac­tu­r­ers in Europe. The company offers a broad product portfo­lio ranging from trucks, buses and vans to diesel and gas engines.

The global online platform MANTED (MAN Techni­sche Daten) and the company’s inter­nal HIT (harmo­ni­sa­tion and integra­tion of techni­cal databa­ses) workflow manage­ment system was launched in 1999 by pro et con and MAN Truck & Bus SE and has been conti­nuously develo­ped ever since.

Both closely linked systems, which can be acces­sed by custo­mers via https://www.manted.de, have led to the exten­sive digita­li­sa­tion of count­less work proces­ses at MAN and thus ensure the relia­ble, effici­ent, timely and audit-proof delivery of a wide variety of vehicle-related documents to MAN customers.

Requi­re­ment: the lifespan of a commer­cial vehicle is accom­pa­nied by a multi­tude of various data and documents. Be it an offer for special custo­mer requests, manufac­tu­rer confir­ma­ti­ons for planned conver­si­ons, vehicle-related documents, confir­ma­ti­ons of new or modified vehicle software or even design speci­fi­ca­ti­ons, data sheets, drawings and much more. MAN provi­des all this data on request. At the begin­ning of the MANTED/HIT develo­p­ment, custo­mers sent their requi­re­ments to MAN by letter, fax, telephone or e‑mail. The result was loads of paper­work which was diffi­cult to process and archi­ved in huge filing cabinets. Documents and notifi­ca­ti­ons were sent to the custo­mer in a similar way. Large-format techni­cal drawings had to be delica­tely folded and sent to the reques­ter by letter.
Funda­men­tal requi­re­ments for the MANTED/HIT develo­p­ment were a steadily incre­asing number of appli­ca­ti­ons, a reduced or at most constant number of proces­sors, combi­ned with the desire to have all infor­ma­tion available not only locally in one file folder, but digitally throug­hout the company.

Reali­sa­tion: the fulfilm­ent of these requi­re­ments was only possi­ble through a catego­ri­cal techno­lo­gi­cal change in proces­sing custo­mer enqui­ries at MAN. As part of the MANTED/HIT develo­p­ment, document invent­ories were first digitised.
With MANTED, a web portal was created, enabling custo­mers around the world to submit requests to MAN. These appli­ca­ti­ons are automa­ti­cally forwarded to specia­li­sed proces­sors, who handle them comple­tely digitally in HIT. Documents and notifi­ca­ti­ons are sent to the custo­mer electro­ni­cally. A signi­fi­cant increase in the effici­ency and quality of work proces­ses is just as much a result of these forward-looking develo­p­ment strate­gies in MANTED and HIT as the signi­fi­cant reduc­tion in vehicle downti­mes. Core of the MANTED/HIT system is the pecFLOW tool develo­ped by pro et con. Further details on the techni­cal requi­re­ments can be found here.

Result: over the last 10 years, the number of enqui­ries recei­ved by MANTED and HIT has almost quadru­pled. In contrast, the number of employees proces­sing appli­ca­ti­ons has remained virtually unchan­ged, which indica­tes a signi­fi­cant increase in effici­ency. MANTED and HIT provide for count­less inter­faces to MAN-inter­nal and exter­nal systems that obtain data from MANTED/HIT. Milli­ons of documents are managed by MANTED/HIT. The forward-looking develo­p­ment of the overall system, combi­ned with a strictly modular struc­ture, provi­des a relia­ble guaran­tee that MANTED/HIT is future-proof, fulfils the latest techno­lo­gi­cal requi­re­ments and is up to all future tasks.