Meyer Werft Shipyard Chooses FirstSpirit

Dortmund, Germany, June 20, 2012 --(PR.com)-- Meyer Werft GmbH, specialist for building cruise ships, including the fleets of Aida Cruises, Disney Cruise Line and Celebrity Cruises, is implementing the FirstSpirit content management system (CMS). The software from e-Spirit (www.e-Spirit.com) will be the technical basis for the new company website, which has been redesigned with a completely new design (www.meyerwerft.com) and goes live this year – to coincide with the launch of the Celebrity Reflection in September. Ship lovers, cruise fans and media representatives from across the world will visit the Papenburg-based company’s new site and find information on the shipyard and its ships. Implementation of the web project is being handled by the e-Spirit partner firm comspace, located in Bielefeld/Germany. Meyer Werft expects to see considerable time savings thanks to the user friendliness, and thus significant simplification of work for the workers in the content editing area. Another key factor in the selection was the future security of the investment thanks to FirstSpirit's clear product strategy and its integration capability with existing and planned infrastructures. Following the Meyer Werft launch, plans call for the websites of the Rostock-based sister company Neptun Werft shipyard and other websites for the group of companies to be developed with the new CMS as well.

Usability optimizations for users and content editors

At www.meyerwerft.com you will find extensive information on the ships built on the shipyard, the company and its visitor center, the Papenburg site, as well as a career portal with job openings and brochures for applicants. In addition, a variety of media is available, including images, panoramic photos and videos of the cruise vessels. The shipyard's many vendors can also find information on working with Meyer Werft, log in directly using an online form, or access the vendor portal. After the relaunch visitors will be guided through the web pages with a sophisticated user menu and will be able to find information that is relevant to them more quickly and displayed in a more appealing design.

The editing content in the bilingual website will be centrally created, administered, and maintained by a content editing team in corporate communications, purchasing and human resources department. With FirstSpirit's excellent user friendliness and its efficient design of editing processes – including e.g. time-based publishing of content – the work of content editors will be greatly simplified in the future. Additional simplification is provided through the ability to include occasional users from specialized departments in the content editing process using the intuitive FirstSpirit WebClient. Meyer Werft also operates special online portals for vendors for example, and for employees it operates portals on quality management and occupational safety, as well as an HR portal. These portals are to be linked to the CMS over the short- to medium time frame, along with an existing media database, via the FirstSpirit AppCenter. FirstSpirit will then act as the Content Integration Platform that brings together content from different sources in a central editing system and enables efficient publishing over a full range of publishing channels. Content editors will then be spared from having to constantly switch back and forth between different applications. This will provide additional time savings and reduce errors as all content from different sources will be available centrally in the CMS and will not have to be transferred manually.

"Our ships represent high quality, innovative technical concepts, and reliability," says Peter Hackmann, head of corporate communications at Meyer Werft. "And that's what we expect from the technologies we use as well. With its openness and clear product strategy, FirstSpirit also offers us the ability to continue enhancing our websites in the future and to make adjustments to meet new requirements. The CMS will significantly simplify work for our editing team and drive the integration of web-based solutions. And that will make things much easier for the IT department."

For more information, visit www.e-Spirit.com, www.comspace.de and www.meyerwerft.com.