Schaeffler, the German technology company and automotive
supplier, is the winner of the 2016 CDQ Good Practice Award.

The CDQ Good Practice Award was launched in 2013 as a joint initiative of the Competence Center Corporate Data Quality (CC CDQ) and the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) for acknowledging world-class corporate data management initiatives. The international jury, consisting of data management experts from research and practice, ranked Schaeffler’s good practice top. Joining Schaeffler in this year’s final round of the competition were Emmi, the leading milk processing company in Switzerland, presenting their approach
towards an integrated master data management, and Merck, the German healthcare and life science specialist, showcasing their concept of exploiting the benefits of data analytics for data management.

The good practice presented by Schaeffler illustrates how the company systematically evolved its master data management initiative starting in 2009. A self-assessment conducted two years ago revealed that Schaeffler had successfully built up capabilities and raised the level of maturity in all relevant areas of master data management. Aspects still demanding for substantial improvement were successfully tackled by Schaeffler during the past two years. The company has continued to develop its data management strategy further and communicate this strategy across the entire group. Among other things, Schaeffler uses performance indicators to measure and sustainably improve the quality of its data. Furthermore, the company defined clear roles and processes for data maintenance and implemented appropriate data models and metadata models. All these measures combined have led to a reduction in service processing time and to a continuous improvement of data quality (customer master data processing time has been reduced by 60 %, for example). “Schaeffler is pursuing a strategy of profitable growth, based on key success factors such as quality, technology, and innovation. The mission of our master data management department is to support this endeavor by providing data of high quality in order to ensure efficient business processes,” said Markus Rahm.