The Client
The client is a Fortune 500 energy conglomerate that had recently participated in a merger of two very different, very complex lines of business: a high-quality bituminous coal mining business and a natural gas exploration and production business. The merger resulted in a corporate entity that, while formidable, lacked visibility into its corporate performance.
The Challenge
The company’s executive team faced a common management problem: the need to get a factual, data-driven view of the company’s health at a given point in time. For this company, the data required for a “big picture” perspective was present but not consolidated or readily accessible. The data resided in multiple systems, databases, spreadsheets, and data marts tied to distinct functional groups. The company had no way of consolidating relevant data from all of the various standalone data sources and then presenting it in a manner that was visual, intuitive, familiar, and thus easy-to-use for information consumers at all levels of technical skill. The executive team knew what they wanted: a Web-based executive dashboard that provided “at a glance” status of defined key performance indicators (KPIs) essential to the company’s overall performance: production, safety, compliance, continuous improvement, and cost. Further, they wanted the ability to drill into the data in order to pinpoint underperforming “red flag” performance issues, whether in a specific region or at a specific mine or well asset.
The Solution
With an array of performance metrics as diverse as these, the required information spanned a number of operational systems on varied operating systems and database platforms, and located at multiple geographic locations. To create the custom solution, Stonebridge provided a host of application development services, including project management, information architecture and design, ETL development, SharePoint portal architecture and development, report development using SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), PerformancePoint dashboard development, InfoPath forms development, and database assessment and mentoring support.
In order to bring the data together in a usable way, the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 stack served as the engine for an operational data warehouse that collects and transforms data from each of these locations on a nightly basis. This transformation was performed via Integration Services, providing a managed framework for application of business rules and management of master data elements. Once the raw data was collected and formulated, Microsoft Analysis Services (as part of the database stack) was used to aggregate the transactional detail into multidimensional cubes.
At the presentation layer, the solution used an integrated combination of Reporting Services and PerformancePoint Services to support the various visualizations of data defined by the business. Visualizations ranged from "traffic light"-style scorecards at the highest level of the organization, down to standard tabular and graphical reports for supervisors and managers. To organize this content, the dashboard solution leveraged Microsoft SharePoint as the portal platform. As a secure, web-based access point, the solution provided "corporate" views of information alongside "local" views of information at a mine and or well level, and all points in between. In addition to the conventional desktop views, the dashboard was built to deliver information on mobile devices, such as PDAs and tablets.
The Benefits
The dashboard solution paid immediate dividends from its initial launch. Now members of the management team use the same analytical toolset for reporting across common dimensions, and they can view relationships and trends using common timeframes across defined business units and locations. The portal’s look-and-feel is also consistent with the company’s web brand. The executive team is now making plans to roll out the tool to mid-management personnel in order to ensure that they too are on the same page as to the company’s performance. Key data is no longer just data, but rather valuable information accessible, understandable, and actionable through clear visual representations. The dashboard provides a shared business context that helps guide key executive and leadership decisions that impact the entire organization.