Case Studies: Manufacturing

As the Internet becomes the preferred method of communicating and doing business, consumers increasingly judge companies on the quality and reliability of their Web sites. Mining, forestry and construction equipment distributor, Komatsu Australia, was struggling with an underperforming Internet and intranet management system. The application was increasingly unstable and difficult to support, made it hard to change Web site design, stifled staff collaboration and did not support online marketing campaigns. Microsoft partner Unique World worked with Komatsu to build a promotional Web site for a new Komatsu product on Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007. Independent analyst BearingPoint found that, by migrating its entire online environment to the Microsoft product, Komatsu could reduce its risk profile, improve compliance, increase the availability of its Web site and improve its look and feel. This would enable the company to improve customer service, increase market penetration and ensure the availability of online collaboration tools.

Because racing teams in the Formula One (F1) World Championship know that fractions of a second can make the difference between winning and losing, they spend a lot of time and resources maximising the performance of their cars. Following a tender by the FIA—the governing body of F1—McLaren Electronic Systems worked with Microsoft to develop a standardised electronic control unit (ECU) for use by all F1 racing teams for the start of the 2008 racing season. Now, with the ECU, the governing body of F1 can realise its goals—helping teams reduce costs, widen competition along the grid, prevent illegal driver aids, and boost car efficiency. For teams, the new ECUs ensure that engineers gain an integrated view of car data to make smarter decisions faster. The teams can use the data to maximise performance on race day and drive development at the factory.

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.

“Service Pack 2 is a mature product for security and performance.”
Jürgen Otter, Senior Software/System Architect, Siemens IT Solutions and Services

With more than 470,000 employees in 190 countries, Siemens delivers products and services related to electronics and electrical engineering to clients in six major industries: automation and control, lighting, communications, power, medical, and transportation. Security and in-depth knowledge of the latest technologies are major areas of focus. With existing wireless security options not meeting their stringent requirements, Siemens’ IT Solutions and Services division decided to test the security and performance improvements in Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2). Siemens found that the simplicity of the service pack met its deployment requirements, and provided significant performance improvements for both Microsoft SQL Server 2005™ and applications.

American Power Conversion (APC) contemplated major increases in its use of Siebel software—including consolidation of separate instances into a single, global database and expanding its use to include the real-time needs of its call center. That required even more performance than it was getting from Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 database software. So, the company upgraded to SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition (64-bit). Siebel transaction response times are 100 percent faster; the call center responds more quickly and cost-effectively to customers; the solution will scale to support a 300 percent increase in the current 3,000-user base; and availability is “rock-solid” according to the company. APC gets all this and more for less than half of the estimated cost of an Oracle-based solution, saving the