Global aviation fuel companies supplying airlines in the current fragile
economic climate are highly sensitised to potential airline collapses. The
liability of unpaid invoices or even un-invoiced deliveries can significantly
harm the profit margins within an extremely competitive market. Getting this
information into the hands of the people who can make some sound commercial
decisions was paramount for one such company.
Following a successful pilot in 2007 and the rapidly changed economy in Q4
2008, BMN was engaged to turn around an analysis and reporting tool within a
matter of weeks. By using the right tools and approach, the results have been
astonishingly productive with a solution that puts the power in the hands of the
end user.
The principal project objective was to enable the creation, management, and
delivery of business intelligence reports for the analysis of customer account
open debt and priced un-invoiced deliveries from all account receivable systems.
This required the consolidation of data feeds from multiple regional accounting
systems into a single data warehouse against which data cubes and their
dependent reports could be developed.
A SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence solution was implemented to meet the
customer requirements of accuracy, flexibility and performance.
- Centralised credit exposure reporting environment allowing clear
identification and analysis of account information by account holders
- A complex data consolidation procedure to ensure data is up-to-date for
global account managers
- Reports run daily and are easily available to users who are travelling for
them to down load and view
- Timing of the extracts takes into account when updates are posted to ensure
the data is as up to date as possible
- Reports can be exported in multiple file formats to provide accessibility
for further analysis offline
- Optimized data extract procedures and schedules to ensure reporting does not
impact on other accounting system functions
- SQL Server Integration Service components to manage the data extracts and
scheduling from multiple disparate systems
- SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) components providing a foundation for
online analytical processing (OLAP) analysis and data mining. Used to create
data-cubes of summarised, pre-calculated data for complex reporting solutions
- SQL Server Reporting Services components for report generation based upon
data gathered from the data-cubes. This is the means by which users select,
parameterise and run pre-defined reports