An equipment manufacturer keeps reliable technical data in PLM and ERP: drawings, product composition, engineering characteristics, SKUs, prices. But the distributor and its e-commerce team do not need raw fields from SAP; they need a ready specification with marketing attributes, descriptions, units of measure, and media - in multiple languages and in each partner's required format. The gap between data as it exists in engineering and data as the sales channel expects it is where manufacturing loses weeks preparing catalogs.
Below is an open breakdown of what Akeneo PIM does for this task. This is not a KT.Team case study, but a review of the tool's capabilities based on public sources.
What boundary does PIM close between PLM, ERP, and the channel
PLM and ERP are source systems, while PIM is the enrichment and publishing layer. According to Akeneo itself, PLM takes a product from concept to manufacturing and launch, while PIM handles marketing and sales when the product is ready to go to market; PIM can and should incorporate data from PLM, including technical data (Akeneo: PIM vs PLM).
In practice, this means a specific data flow:
- from PLM come engineering characteristics, product composition, technical parameters;
- from ERP - SKUs, prices, stock, availability;
- in PIM, these fields are enriched with descriptions, marketing attributes, keywords, dimensions, and digital assets (photos, videos, documentation);
- ready-made specifications, price lists, and catalogs go out in the formats required by each channel and region.
Akeneo explicitly positions the platform as able to ingest data 'from many sources, including suppliers, ERP, DAM, MDM' and says it manages data 'for e-commerce, print catalogs, distributors, dealers, and direct sales from a single source of truth' (Akeneo PIM overview).
Business result: a catalog in 18 hours instead of 6-8 months
The most illustrative public example is electrical equipment manufacturer ABB (motors and generators division). Their '501' catalog is 600 pages, 8,000 products, and up to 600 attributes per item. Before implementation, the catalog was assembled manually: exports from SAP, copying into spreadsheets - this took 6-8 months per year.
After connecting Akeneo PIM (linked to SAP via API for batch import) with the InBetween catalog generator, the net catalog generation time was 18 hours — reduced by more than 99%. Data could be updated daily instead of 1-2 times a year, new products could be added instantly, and localization into multiple languages became practical (Akeneo: ABB case study).
For manufacturing, this is the process that can be improved: preparing technical documentation and specifications is no longer a bottleneck before publishing a catalog for the partner network. The time to launch a new SKU into the channel is measured in hours, not quarters.
Technical attributes as an international standard, not custom fields
The key risk for a manufacturer is inventing a proprietary attribute structure that every distributor will later have to remap on their side. This is where the mature international ETIM standard (European Technical Information Model) comes in - an industry classification for technical products in electrical engineering, HVAC, plumbing, and building materials. ETIM's strength is that each class is tied to a validated set of features, values, and units of measure that buyers use to compare and choose products; ETIM and ECLASS act as a common language between manufacturers, distributors, and end users (Pimcore: ETIM, ECLASS, and Classification Standards).
Data is transferred through the BMEcat format - XML for exchanging electronic catalogs that carries ETIM classification, business master data, and marketing data for presentation in target systems. PIM systems are a natural fit for this model: they are built to work with large catalogs and complex attribute structures.
The scale is publicly confirmed: electrical equipment distributor Rexel, with a catalog of 2.5 million products, enriched 800,000 items according to the ETIM standard, achieving 98% accuracy and benchmarking 12,000 ETIM classifications over three months on the Akeneo platform (Akeneo: top case studies 2023). This illustrates the read before you write approach: instead of a custom taxonomy, use a ready-made industry standard that channels can understand without remapping.
What is under the hood for a manufacturer
- Supplier Data Manager — collecting data from suppliers and contractors into a single model, which matters for manufacturers with complex supply chains.
- ERP/PLM connectors via API for batch import of master data.
- DAM — managing technical documentation, drawings, and media alongside attributes.
- Channel activation — syndication to 500+ retailers and marketplaces, printed catalogs, distributor B2B portals (Akeneo for brands and manufacturers).
Process flow
PLM (engineering specifications, product composition) and ERP (SKU, price, stock) → batch import via API into Akeneo PIM → enrich with marketing attributes, descriptions, DAM assets, and ETIM classification → validate completeness against channel requirements → export to BMEcat/print catalog/B2B portal → distributors and e-commerce receive ready-to-use specifications in the required languages and format.
Business process conclusion
A manufacturer whose technical data lives in PLM and ERP, while partner specifications are prepared manually, turns PIM into an enrichment layer between engineering and the channel. The result is measured not by 'we implemented PIM' but by catalog speed: public data show catalog preparation shrinking from 6-8 months to 18 hours and moving to daily updates. Another benefit is data portability: ETIM/BMEcat classification lets you hand the specification to any distributor without remapping, because it is a common industry language, not one manufacturer's internal format.
