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Bostik Ltd
Bostik Ltd is a leading international manufacturer of adhesives, sealants, coatings and tapes for the DIY, construction, automotive and industrial sectors with a portfolio of some 2,500 finished products.
Part of ATOFINA, the company employs over 700 people at its Stafford and Leicester sites in the UK.
Within such a large and complex business, demand for information is fierce and the need to supply that information on time and in a simple-to-use and meaningful way is of paramount importance.
Despite considerable investment in IT systems, Bostik Ltd was beginning to identify problems. Too many different types of reports were needed by too many people for its day-to-day operational AS/400 system to cope with.
They had the latest in Cognos Business Intelligence architecture and Intentia's Movex Enterprise Resource Planning software, but the demands being placed on it meant the system was beginning to run out of time, even overnight, when required to collate data into the various reports required across the business.
In addition to which, their Movex system had to be cleared of historical data periodically to maintain its speed and efficiency which meant information was not available for trend analysis, unless that data could be stored separately.
IT Manager for Bostik Ltd UK, Paul Hudson explains: "We were beginning to hit a lot of problems. We couldn't build reporting 'cubes' during the day because it impacted too much on the live system and our overnight window of opportunity was getting smaller and smaller."
Hudson also believes that because so many individuals were creating their Excel reports from the information stored on the system there were "multiple and differing versions of the truth" within the organisation.
The solution? A new SQL Server based data warehouse designed and implemented by leading Business Intelligence consultants Simpson Associates using their unique i-Apps™ intelligent applications for Movex.
Put simply, the i-Apps™ data warehouse lifts information from throughout the Bostik Ltd IT system, storing it separately and in consolidated formats providing company level reporting across all aspects of Bostik's business.
Information in the data warehouse is updated in "real time" requiring no user intervention and it is now able to retrieve and report information without impacting on the operational IT systems. Users access the warehouse via the Internet.
Explains Paul Hudson: "There is a huge benefit in being able to take the burden of reporting off the AS/400 system and to separate it also from the ERP system".
"Separating the data warehouse in this way limits the risk going forward which might otherwise be associated with, say, an upgrade of the ERP system. We have a lot of confidence in the Simpson Associates i-Apps™ system. It is robust, it gives us far greater flexibility, it is fast and should make future investment in Business Intelligence more cost effective."
Tangible advantages which Bostik Ltd are already enjoying are dramatic reductions in the time required to produce reports. They are now able to build PowerPlay cubes anything between 5 and 12 times more quickly than before.
"For example, our On Time Delivery cube used to take six hours to build. Now it takes just half an hour," adds Hudson.
"That kind of improvement means there are reports which we used to run just once a month because of time restraints which are now available overnight.
"The i-Apps™ warehouse has also opened up a lot of opportunities for new, more complex reporting and reports that are much more user friendly.
Paul Hudson believes a key advantage of the i-Apps™ data warehouse is its ability to store and retrieve historical data.
"There are significant benefits to be had from a system which is capable of providing analytical information and deal with queries from users which are outside the normal day-to-day transaction business.
"The data warehouse is an important tool for planning the business going forward and we view it as a key system just as we do the ERP or e-mail systems. It is not an add-on. We are very serious about the reporting we have now and plan for the future and we are very glad to have such a powerful addition to our IT systems."
Simpson Associates
14-18 York Road
Wetherby
West Yorkshire
LS22 6SL
t: +44 (0) 1937 586 880
e: info@simassoc.co.uk
Craven House, 14-18 York Road, Wetherby, West Yorkshire, LS22 6SL
t: +44 (0) 1937 586 880 | f: +44 (0) 1937 541 135 | e: Simpson Associates
