ECLASS: definition and role in PIM

In PIM practice, ECLASS is used in industrial supply chains, procurement and engineering, and increasingly in digital twin and Digital Product Passport work. ECLASS describes itself as an ISO/IEC-compliant data standard. Release 16.0 added 995 new classes and 1,253 new properties.

Illustrative example: an industrial components supplier classifies its range in ECLASS so that procurement systems at customers can import products with standardised properties. The PIM stores the ECLASS class per product and maps internal attributes to ECLASS properties.

In a selection, ECLASS support matters for manufacturers and suppliers selling to industrial buyers. Buyers should test release imports, property mapping, multilingual labels and export formats. Companies that use both ETIM and ECLASS need a PIM that maintains both classifications in parallel without duplicating values.