The data cleansing department for 2-stroke and 4-stroke MAN engines is located in Piraeus in Greek office of MAN Energy Solutions. It creates and maintains data for the 2-stroke and 4-stroke components of the MAN products in use worldwide. In the context of decentralization policy of the group, the department started operating in Greece in 2013, working on 2-stroke propulsion engines. In 2016, the scope expanded to 4-stroke engines used as generators and propulsion engines in marine and power applications. The department was initially composed by mechanical engineers. The team grew over the years and was strengthened with other specialists. Now the team also includes Software Engineers, Data Analysts and Technical Coordinators.

The Data cleansing department operates in a decentralized mode from Piraeus in cooperation with Headquarters. The objective of data cleansing is to create and maintain the spare parts catalogues in a database for all 2-stroke and 4-stroke MAN engines running worldwide, to be used internally or directly by the customer. The creation and the maintenance of the catalogues is a complex procedure, combining data from different sources: engines’ documentation, feedback from the sales, technical messages, retrofit solutions etc. When an offer is being created, these catalogues are used for the part identification. Having these catalogues in a database, the time needed for the offer to be processed is greatly reduced, improving the response time to the customer and leading to higher customer satisfaction. On the other hand, customers can directly use our Portals, such as our web shop PrimeServ, MyPlace, to gain easy access to technical documentation, to effortlessly place an order and to track down the shipment.

Back in 2013 the process included manual handling. The catalogues were being created one by one. Even the documentation used was not stored in a database to be massively accessible. As the years went by and as digitalization became more and more important globally, in 2018 MAN Energy Solutions, known to be an innovative company, made digitalization a cornerstone of its strategy. To follow this strategy, the department developed software to improve its processes and turn from manual identification to automatic identification during the last two years. This was done with algorithms that mimic the steps the colleagues were doing manually. In order to make this development work, the department’s technical coordinators offer valuable assistance by digitalizing info and data received from customers to be used for the catalogues creation and also help to keep these catalogues up to date. In the meanwhile, the department has spread its activities, by creating RPAs (Robotic Process Automation) that mimics human procedures and make highly automated, fully automated and autonomous operation possible.

With the mentioned functionalities, MAN now turns to a customer-oriented approach. MAN can offer customized solutions using the latest digital and technological developments to meet customer specific needs and requirements. They have now moved from working strictly as a back office team that creates catalogues, to working with the sales organization on large customer projects, providing our expertise in data analysis. The success story of these projects proves that the team’s increasing brand name goes in close collaboration with a remarkable customer service.