Client Case Study : ROCKWOOL INTERNATIONAL A/S

Background

The Rockwool Group is the world’s leading producer of stone wool - a material that improves the quality of life for millions of people and helps to alleviate environmental problems, such as the greenhouse effect, smog and acid rain.

The company behind the Rockwool Group was founded in 1909. Today, the Group has a turnover of DKK 9.1 billion and more than 7,000 employees. The Rockwool Group operates 22 factories in 14 countries in Europe, North America and Asia and has a world-wide network of sales offices, distributors and partners ensuring that its stone wool products reach all parts of the globe. Group headquarters and the R&D and environmental departments are based in Hedehusene, near Copenhagen.

The challenge

22 factories in 14 countries and more than 7,000 employees add up to a lot of images. All told, the Rockwool Group had accumulated many thousands of images, and many were in fact duplicates. Peter Hestbæk, Internet Manager of Rockwool International explains, ”It was more the rule than the exception that the same subject had been photographed at different locations around the world, because it was simply easier than trying to locate the desired image somewhere in the company. So for several years we have been paying for unnecessary photo sessions.”

A company of the Rockwool Group’s size has frequent contact with the media all over the world and through the years thousands of CD’s have been created for the media - a process that consumes significant time and resources. Often, when the right images for a given situation could not be found, new pictures had to be taken.

The Rockwool Group has numerous websites and considerable resources were expended to ensure that the images on each of them were optimised for web viewing, lived up to design manual standards, etc.

Rockwool International A/S defined a very specific set of requirements for an image storage system. It had to be a comprehensive solution that could supply images for print, media, Internet and in-house presentations. It also had to be expandable with search facilities

The solution

After a thorough study of the market, we chose a solution from Danish based YaWah.com - the eRez Imaging Server. The decision was based on the fact that eRez offers total freedom in integration and the fact that the implementation of eRez required no changes to existing systems.

The eRez image server is located in Denmark and administrated by Peter Hestbæk via the comprehensive administration module. ”It literally takes only a minute to create a folder in the image database, specify authorised users and make the content available.”

Peter Hestbæk goes on, ”We have created a system with separate sectors for each of our divisions, as well as a common sector where general images, logos and documents are stored. Our own divisions, associated partners and Danish and international advertising agencies use the imaging server. It is a major advantage to be able to assign a user a password that gives access to precisely the sections of the imaging server that we specify.”

The results

The centralisation of the image archives in the Rockwool Group has made it considerably easier to ensure consistency in the use of images, logos and other materials. It also represents significant savings that became apparent after just a few months with eRez. Feedback from individual divisions, press and advertising agencies around the world tell the same story: It is easier and faster to find the right image and deliver it in the desired format.