1. Stepping into
BI, Driving
Better Decisions
David Surtees
Director of
Information Services
HUSCO International
Waukesha, Wisconsin

2. Agenda
• Emergence of Business
Intelligence at HUSCO
• BI Platform Evaluation
• Implementing the
Chosen BI Solution
• Early BI Benefits
• Lessons Learned
• Questions & Answers

3. Emergence of
Business
Intelligence
at HUSCO

4. HUSCO International
• Hydraulic control valves for
industrial vehicle and
automotive markets
• Customer-specific solutions
superior to competitors’
generic valves
• 6 manufacturing plants in
North America, UK, China
and India
• 1200 employees worldwide
with 700 in offices
www.huscointl.com

5. Systems Environment
• Infor Baan IV ERP – sole
data source
• Oracle 10G database
• Crystal Reports
• No OLAP cubes
• Extract ERP data with
stored procedures
developed in PL/SQL.
• IT staff of 4 people
dedicated to our business
system.

6. Technical Challenges
• No programmers in house
• Limited experience with data
warehouses
• Crystal Reports dumped data
into error-prone spreadsheets
• New automotive division
mushroomed data volume
and complexity
• Growth from 3 to 6 plants
worldwide caused scalability
and performance concerns
• Too many different ways to
solve the BI problem

7. BI Platform
Evaluation

8. First BI Steps
at HUSCO
• Have educated users for
years about BI (with limited
success)
• Built support via pilot
program that produces
global inventory reports
• Early users understood the
contents and the value of
the reports
• Early reports led to more
user requests

9. HUSCO’s BI Goals
• Focus on one area of
the business to start
• Simplify report writing
• Eliminate manually
merging Excel sheets
• Avoid staffing large IT
effort
• Drive better business
decisions

10. Evaluation Process
Technologies Evaluated
• Actuate / BIRT
• Oracle BI Suite
Evaluation Committee
• Database administrator
• Director of Information
Services
• Requirements set by
initial users – Materials
Management, Purchasing

11. Actuate Won the BI
Platform Evaluation
Reasons for Selection
• User self-service
• Users can manipulate data
as they wish
• Support for many data
sources; not tied to a
specific database
• Flexibility of input with
Java and JavaScript
• Can start small without
spending a fortune up
front

12. Actuate Selected
as BI Platform
Report Server
• Actuate BIRT iServer
on Windows
• Actuate security
Development Tools
Actuate 11 suite
• BIRT Interactive Viewer
• BIRT Studio
• BIRT 360 Dashboards
• BIRT Data Analyzer
• BIRT Spreadsheet

13. Implementing
the Chosen
BI Solution

14. BI Rollout Issues
Data Warehouse
• Used Oracle consultant
to build data warehouses
• Data warehouse updated
daily and weekly
Creating Data Set
• Users slow to specify needs
• Scope shifted as users saw
BI capabilities
• Took 5 months to spec and
create initial data set
Reports and Applications
• Used Actuate for guidance
on complex reports
• Reports run on demand

15. Objectives of
Inventory Reports
• Predict when and where
shortages could occur
• Reduce inventory turns
• Track up to 20-week lead
times on parts
• Compare and validate data
from various suppliers
• Avoid adding headcount to
capture and aggregate data

16. Deploy Inventory
Reports
• 40 initial users, 34 of
which are materials
managers
• Initial reports are for
purchasing and inventory
control
• Adding supply chain users:
expediters and purchasing
agents
20 reports deployed
with 150 reports
and dashboards planned

17. Early Returns from
Inventory Reports
• Inventory levels and costs
trending downward as
people trust the data
• Can now view inventory
levels in various locations
and systems
• New reports replace
error-prone spreadsheets
and manual processes
• Better visibility has led to
consistent measurements
and strategies worldwide

18. BI Visibility Has
Attracted Attention
We are adding reports and
dashboards for:
• Purchasing
• Sales
• Days sales outstanding
• Accounts receivable
• Cash flow
BI now has the attention
of HUSCO executives

19. Early
BI Benefits
at HUSCO

20. Single Version
of the Truth
• One source for decision
data
• No more islands of info
• No two people should
show up at a meeting
with different data
• No decisions should be
made using incorrect
information

21. User Self-Sufficiency
• Easy report navigation
• Easy to run and view
reports
• East to export data
• Easy to do further analysis

22. Technical Benefits
• Write and maintain just
one report for all locations
• Cleaned up underlying
data and complexity
• Provide consolidated view
to users
• Much easier to make
complex reports and
dashboards
• More intuitive UI and
navigation
• Easy to link reports and
sub-reports via drill-down

23. Lessons
Learned

24. Culture Change
Takes Time
• People are used to
assembling and checking
data in Excel
• It takes months for people
to trust a new solution
and its data
…but they eventually see
the power of having one
version of the truth

25. Leverage Professional
Services
• Spread the use of outside
services out across the life
of the project
• Get some training, put it
into practice, then come
back for more
• Use outside services to
help you make informed
decisions

26. Take Things
One Step at a Time
• Start small and show
results to prove value and
get management buy-in
• Break BI projects into
discrete, digestible phases
• Don’t buy the ultimate
dream and spend a
fortune up front

27. Questions
& Answers
David Surtees
david.surtees@huscointl.com

28. Stepping into
BI, Driving
Better Decisions
David Surtees
Director of
Information Services
HUSCO International
Waukesha, Wisconsin