Case Studies: Manufacturing

Each day, Allied Bakeries produces and delivers around 2 million products, including bread and rolls, to 12,500 stores across the United Kingdom and Ireland. To handle such high volumes, managers need access to detailed business data. However, manual processes across the customer services area were making it hard for them to track efficiency. Working with Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner Edenbrook, Allied Bakeries deployed a solution based on Microsoft SQL Server™ 2005. Features such as Report Builder give managers the tools they need to design and produce meaningful reports quickly. In addition, automated reports are delivered every day, dramatically reducing manual processes for users. Because these detailed analyses expose any problems, decision makers can act quickly. As a result, within weeks of deployment, order efficiency improved by up to half a per cent.

Electro Scientific Industries (ESI) needed to quickly implement a powerful but cost-effective means of analyzing and delivering information. So ESI is working with SoftSource Consulting to evaluate a data analysis and reporting solution using Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007. With it, employees will gain secure access to data to help ESI quickly measure performance and determine required actions to increase revenue and manage costs.

Energizer Holdings, based in St. Louis, Missouri, is a leading manufacturer of batteries, flashlights, and wet-shave products. The global company has made a significant investment in Microsoft® Office software for its 6,800 knowledge workers, who also use dozens of specialized line-of-business (LOB) applications to do their jobs. Energizer is installing Microsoft Office Professional 2007 on its desktop computers so that users can better access LOB data from within the familiar Microsoft Office system. Using 2007 Microsoft Office programs, Energizer employees will be better able to access the data they need with less application-switching, and to improve productivity by eliminating time-consuming process steps. The IT staff will be able to eliminate tedious data integration work and focus on creating new business capabilities.

Kelley Blue Book analyzes and publishes data on new and used vehicles. Large automotive manufacturers, as well as individual car and truck buyers, use the Kelley Blue Book Web site to find in-depth pricing information. The company gathers data from these Web site visits to create trend reports for manufacturers. However, the report-generation process was time-consuming, and employees were not able to effectively analyze all the data. In 2006, Kelley Blue Book implemented a solution based on Microsoft® Business Intelligence technologies. With its new analytical capabilities, Kelley Blue Book has improved sales staff efficiency and created a compelling new Web analytics product that can provide its business customers with more targeted data for their marketing efforts. The company expects to see its customer base and revenues grow in response.

With 83,000 full time employees as of Q2 FY08 and annual revenue of U.S.$57 billion for FY07, Dell is a global leader in building and selling computer systems. The company’s Global Accounts Payable Organization is responsible for ensuring that its network of suppliers is paid in a timely manner. The Procurement Finance group at Dell is responsible for providing the Global Accounts Payable Group and management with the tools to track key performance indicators to ensure business objectives are being achieved according to plan. To gain better visibility into invoice discrepancies, Dell created a data mart hosted on Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 Enterprise Edition (64-bit), and accessed through a portal created using Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007. SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services and Reporting Services give Dell near real time visibility into its complex procure to pay processes.