Annually, the METRO Group creates over 4,000 various labels for its private brand food and nonfood products. The production of bottles, jars and cartons is a very labourous task. The private brand manager of the corporate group must coordinate on numerous occasions per telephone, e-mail, fax and post. This means managing the entire production process – from the first idea for the package design to the ready-to-sell product. In the future the work required for coordinating will be significantly reduced – with the new system MMS-OBM.

MMS-OBM is an Internet platform, with which the METRO Group can optimise its private brand management in cooperation with suppliers and service providers. The technological basis of MMS-OBM is a software developed especially for the corporate group that makes it possible to further automate the steps in creating product packaging. The application was launched in April 2004. As of yet, partners in 26 countries use the common working platform. The group predicts that in the future around 1,500 products per year will be electronically managed in Germany alone using MMS-OBM.

With MMS-OBM, the METRO Group is able to produce product packages much faster and more efficiently. The programme sends factory orders to participating partners on its own and monitors if all important deadlines are being met. In the case of a delay the system automatically sends reminder e-mails, for instance when a designing agency doesn't meet the deadline for the design of a package.

MMS-OBM is also able to save all project details in databanks. For instance it has a media archive with all METRO Group pictures and logos for private brands. All texts that have been translated into a foreign language are collected and saved in a translating archive. If in a future project an instruction leaflet needs to be provided in Russian, MMS-OBM automatically checks to see if the respective text is already saved in that language in the databank.

If an attractive package needs to be created for a product, the responsible private brand manager places a new project in the MMS-OBM platform. Once the manager has entered various information shown on the monitor – such as the type of packaging required or the scheduling of the project -, the computer monitors and coordinates all further steps in the process.

The supplier is automatically notified per e-mail and receives a list of incoming assignments. In this way, a partner can be notified to provide relevant data and pictures for a specific product on the MMS-OBM platform. Once all materials from the supplier have passed the required quality controls, the brand manager will issue the order for translating the texts on a package – assuming one or more Metro sales divisions in other countries wish to sell the product.

A central step is creating the package design. This task is also coordinated between the METRO Group and a design agency over the MMS-OBM system. As soon as the drafts are provided for the agency, the private brand manager of the METRO Group can present the buyers of the respective sales divisions with a virtual version of the complete package. In this way colleagues are able to submit change requests quickly and simply. MMS-OBM also helps in the final printing of the package and eases the communication with the respective print shop.