SPSS - Customers

Vogt electronic AG

Situation

Based at Erlau, near Passau, in lower Bavaria, Vogt is active in a number of markets, including consumer, automotive, and industrial electronics, as well as in the communications technology, office technology, and data systems technology sectors. The company sells products worldwide; operates manufacturing sites in central and eastern Europe, southeast Asia, and North America; and participates in several joint ventures with other electronics manufacturers. Monitoring the complexities of an operation this diverse posed significant challenges.

The company had a number of applications already operating on the IBM® eServer™ iSeries™ (AS/400®) computing platform. For example, there were applications supporting payroll administration, warehouse management, and supply chain management.

Challenge

Some aspects of the existing system were proving cumbersome, especially for analysts in the controlling division. For one thing, users were required to create queries against Microsoft® Access databases, then print out iSeries reports and compare the two to validate the information's accuracy. To perform any analysis, data from the iSeries reports—e.g., reports in the marketing control sector—had to be manually re-entered in Microsoft Excel™. "That was a lot of work," says Martin Schmidseder, company controller. "But we had to do it, because Access offered only limited capabilities for analysis."

The Windows®-based solution also caused problems for the IT department, as the enormous volume of data records and queries pushed the limits of system performance.

"The performance of Access just proved to be insufficient. And the administrative work required was excessive," says Helmut Krautwurm, the company's IT director. "An employee from my division had to check every day to see whether the import of data was still functioning, whether the whole system was still working, and whether all available databases had been updated."

Solution

Now, a data warehouse and business intelligence (BI) solution from SPSS Inc. provides rapid access to all company figures and statistics, while also ensuring optimal performance from Vogt electronic's computer hardware.

The data warehouse consists of both relational databases and multidimensional "cubes." The cubes for longer-term queries are updated every week. But queries that require access to current data—those dealing with orders received, for instance—are calculated every night. Through these reports, users—from front-line customer contact personnel to senior-level managers—can see the actual state of the company at any given time.

Every night, data from operational databases is gathered together in an IBM DB2® relational database, and then the multidimensional data cube is calculated. As a result, the same data is available on the relational system as on the multidimensional system. The multidimensional cube aggregates data by month. But if this level of detail is not sufficient, end users can "drill down" to the information contained in the relational database. By enabling end users to obtain the information they need, either from the multidimensional or the relational databases, the Vogt data warehouse provides accurate, reliable information without overloading the company's operational system.

The central data warehouse is also available to company subsidiaries and business partners. Early on, the decision was made to implement a centralized solution, instead of constructing several data warehouses and then synchronizing data among them.

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With a multidimensional database, I can get results much faster. With Access, it was very complicated to determine which clients had placed the greatest number of orders, which types of orders they placed, in which sections, and in which quarter. With ShowCase Essbase, I can get the results in two minutes.
— Martin Schmidseder
Controller
Vogt electronic AG

Results

For the controlling division, routine tasks are now much easier. Even novice users can obtain the detailed information they need. "With a multidimensional database, I can get results much faster," says Schmidseder. "With Access, it was very complicated to determine which clients had placed the greatest number of orders, what types of orders they placed, in which sections, and in which quarter. With ShowCase Essbase, I can get the results in two minutes."

Vogt took advantage of the switch to the SPSS solution to establish enterprise-wide standards for reporting. However, individual reports are also easy for end users to produce. For instance, even novice users can see, at the touch of a button, which customers have resulted in revenues of between $5,000 and $25,000 per month.

"Access, through Visual Basic, offers all that as well," Helmut Krautwurm comments, "but you have to be a computer specialist to be able to make use of it." By contrast, templates for individual reports now no longer need to be supplied by the IT division.

Additional applications

Users of Vogt electronic's SPSS Inc. solution currently use client-based software to access the system. Recognizing that there is also a need for mobile access—for marketing employees, for instance—SPSS' Web-based solution is currently being evaluated. If adopted, this would give employees on the road—whether in Germany, in China, or in the U.S.—the same current information at their fingertips as their colleagues in Erlau.