Grundfos has a vast range of products and systems manufactured all over the globe. This comes with a wide variety of internal and customer-focused documentation. The company needed a dedicated technical documentation partner for documentation migration, translation-management, terminology clean-up and training. Sigma Technology Hungary has been supporting Grundfos since 2020. We had a chance to interview Zoltán Gergely Virágh, Partnership & Delivery Manager at Grundfos’ Global Product Lifecycle Management.
Grundfos is a global leader in energy-efficient water solutions for use in homes, buildings, industries, utilities and agriculture. The company’s purpose is to pioneer solutions to the world’s water and climate challenges and improve the quality of life for people.
Zoltán, the project started with a challenge to create a robust and modern information management solution to keep all documentation up-to-date and seamlessly manage, update and translate it. How has your experience with the cooperation and a new system been so far?
As a Global Product Lifecycle Management team, we operate as the center of excellence for various Grundfos divisions, that’s why ensuring high efficiency, productivity, and automation is vital for us.
I would like to highlight two main projects: the transition from unstructured authoring into a structured CCMS based on DITA and the terminology clean-up project. Sigma consultants played a crucial role in specifying, implementing, and institutionalizing these platforms. These projects were essential to ensure a single source of truth for our product information and data. Our goal was also to work with an effective framework and tool that could easily integrate with our existing management systems, minimize manual work, and automate as much as possible.
Sigma colleagues helped to structure the content to Grundfos’ needs, to move the content into the new platform. The new system has been well integrated into our daily work. Further, the significant contribution to clean up our terminology repository and create definitions for more than 6000 English terms was a very strong support and a good example for a reliable and seamless collaboration. Of course, there is always room for improvement, which we see as an opportunity to enhance our processes at Grundfos continually.
What results have you achieved for Grundfos?
We work within an Agile framework and use its KPIs. All tasks, including those managed within the new systems, are captured as demands from our stakeholders and registered on our Scrum teams’ board. Our KPIs and stakeholder satisfaction surveys show that defining and completing these tasks now requires significantly less time and results in higher quality output compared to before the introduction of the new systems. We have managed to eliminate a lot of waste and time spent on specification and sometimes even duplication of work. I believe all these time-saving initiatives are vital since time is one of the most valuable things we can give to our stakeholders.
What is your experience of cooperation with the Sigma team?
Before my visit, I had discussions with our leadership team, product owners, and Scrum masters from various functions. I received very positive feedback about their cooperation with Sigma Technology. Currently, Sigma’s support in our department focuses mainly on technical communication and shared service functions, including translation management, product visualization, product information, software testing, and other operational tasks related to product information. All areas are very satisfied with every aspect of Sigma’s work. Your consultants have smoothly integrated into our Scrum teams, which we see as crucial for ensuring team deliverables.
As a partnership manager, my main responsibility is to ensure we have the necessary capabilities that we lack within our organization. Every time I turn to Sigma, we have very constructive discussions, and you always provide top-notch solutions for our needs. We value the Sigma Technology consultants’ reliability, quality, and flexibility.
What is your approach to choosing suppliers? What capabilities and expertise are crucial for you?
Grundfos has several different partners for various functions of the organization. Of course, certain business aspects weigh in when we choose suppliers. For instance, reliability is crucial. The supplier must have a consistent track record of delivering on time and meeting quality standards. We need to be cost-conscious, so we also consider the overall value for money, including delivery charges, payment terms, and after-sales service.
At Grundfos, we place a lot of focus on our values, so it’s vital that our suppliers can uphold and align with these values. Ethical standards are also important; we consider the supplier’s ethical practices, including labor conditions and environmental impact. As a partnership manager, it is vital for me to have partners who can handle our capacity and capability demands flexibly and act as a one-stop shop for overarching domains. Generally, we observe different maturity levels in our cooperation within our partnership portfolio. We aim to improve together with our partners, and Sigma is definitely a counterpart with whom we can step up to a higher level of partnership maturity.
“I really appreciate our constructive discussions with the Grundfos team and their strategic approach to partnerships. During our cooperation, we’ve got opportunities where we can show the full width of our portfolio, combining the strength of product information and software development to become a one-stop-shop for Grundfos,” adds Gabriella Alexi, Global Account Manager for Grundfos and Business Area Manager at Sigma Technology Hungary. “We are proud of being the part of Grundfos’ transformation journey and support their integration processes.”
