Phillips Semiconductors Turns to iWay Software for Integrated Data Warehouse Solution
Snapshot
| Organization Phillips Semiconductors. |
| Profile Manufacturer of electronic devices for laptop computers, automobile cruise control mechanisms, and transistors and integrated circuits for a variety of products. |
| Headquarters Sunnyvale, California. |
| The Challenge To analyze emerging business trends, reduce product backlogs and more accurately measure profit margins. |
| The Results A world-class data warehouse that has become the model for an enterprise-wide warehouse project being developed by Philips' Netherlands headquarters. |
iWay Software Solution |
Data warehouses have become the rage at corporations for one simple reason: they promise easy access to business data and a faster, better way to answer complex questions. But between the theory of warehouse use and the practicalities of warehouse implementation lies a rocky road along which many well-meaning companies stumble.
Data warehouses, even when approached in an incremental manner, require careful architectural planning and extensive integration work to be successful. While some companies assemble a data warehouse using products from a variety of vendors, integration work is vastly simplified by starting with a proven core of integrated warehouse product offerings, says PJ Matarese, a senior programmer/analyst in the Microcontroller Product Group of Philips Semiconductors in Sunnyvale, California.
Matarese and other members of the Microcontroller Product Group and Standard Product Group quickly developed a data warehouse using a variety of Information Builders products, including mainframe FOCUS for data management, EDA as the middleware layer for data transfer, and FOCUS Six EIS Edition for the Executive Information System front-end.
"Using Information Builders' products as a starting point saved a great deal of time," Matarese says. "Lots of infrastructural issues are handled behind the scenes, which means fewer problems with tool compatibility and innately better performance."
Worldwide Reach
The Microcontroller Products Group manufactures electronic component devices included in the track point assembly for IBM Think Pad laptop computers and the cruise control mechanism for General Motors automobiles. The Standard Product Group develops transistors and integrated circuits for a variety of products.
"In these fast-moving industries, it was vital that company decision-makers be able to analyze emerging business trends and examine product bookings, shipments, backlogs, and cancellations," says Steve Moore, a controller for the Standard Product Group. "We wanted to reduce product backlogs and more accurately measure customer profit margins," he says.
A data warehouse was the obvious solution, but Matarese and other systems analysts were leery of the extensive development work that such projects typically entail. "We realized that there was no possibility of purchasing an off-the-shelf data warehouse system that would access the transaction volumes and data types required by Philips Semiconductors," Matarese recalls. "The data warehouse had to access Philips Semiconductors' Corporate Commercial Data System, a rich resource that contains over 40 different databases."
Building the data warehouse from existing desktop components, such as a combination of Microsoft Word, Excel, and Access, was rejected because of scalability and time issues.
"Considering that much of our data was in FOCUS, and we already had FOCUS expertise, we began by looking at front-end products that use the FOCUS engine to extract data and display it on the desktop using a graphical user interface," Matarese explains. "We decided to use FOCUS Six to build the user interface and FOCUS Six Reporter Edition to handle the data extracts. The EDA middleware layer became the key integrator, with the potential to make the type and physical location of data totally transparent to users."
Working With Information Builders Professional Services
Since the division had a host system at its disposal, they decided to use the mainframe as a server and rely on EDA to handle the translation of mainframe data to standard desktop formats. With help from Information Builders consultants from the Professional Services Division, the entire data warehouse and DSS architecture was implemented in just four months.
"We quickly determined that the expertise necessary to develop a data warehouse and executive information system did not exist within the Microcontroller Product Group, and that quality and timeliness would be enhanced by partnering with Information Builders," Matarese says. "Our existing programming resources were fully dedicated to other critical software projects."
Once the primary architectural decisions had been made, Matarese and his colleagues worked on constructing a data model while Information Builders consultants did all the front-end coding using the EIS Edition. The role of the Information Builders consultants was twofold: programmer and mentor. "Information Builders excelled in both roles," Matarese stresses. "As developers, they were outstanding. We threw a tremendous set of requirements at them yet they responded quickly and accurately. As mentors they were outstanding, too. The development was completed with the understanding that there would be significant knowledge transfer from the consultants to our own staff, and we have achieved that. We are now able to maintain and enhance the data warehouse on our own."
Spectacular Results
Today, worldwide sales data from 43 sales databases dispersed across North America, the Far East, and Europe is extracted in a flat ASCII format, electronically transmitted over TCP/IP networks to Philips' Sunnyvale data center, and uploaded into the FOCUS data warehouse, which resides on a Hitachi Data System mainframe running IBM's VM/CMS operating system.
Before the data warehouse was developed, users had to request reports from programmers, a time-consuming and expensive process. Now, end users can personally generate hundreds of reports by browsing through the data warehouse report menus within the FOCUS Executive Information System. Even unique or ad hoc reports can be handled by end users, giving the corporate database new visibility.
"The system drastically reduced my paperwork burden," Matarese says. "Before the data warehouse was installed, I typically generated 200-300 pounds of paper every month. Today, my need to print is virtually eliminated as most information is available on screen and individual end users can print their own reports as required."
"In the 18 months before the introduction of the data warehouse, I developed more than 800 programs, 60 percent of which were incorporated into the system," Matarese says. "Since then, there have been only a handful of requests for new reports. My development efforts are focused on activities of strategic importance to the company."
Primary users of the data warehouse include the controller, a handful of senior business analysts, and the marketing and sales managers, about 60 users total. As the data warehouse is deployed worldwide, the number of authorized users will rise to more than 250.
"The benefits of giving end users direct access to reports goes beyond saving the time of programmers, although freeing up programming resources for mission-critical development work is significant," Matarese says. "The most specific benefit of the data warehouse is that Philips Semiconductors decision makers can get immediate feedback on market trends."
Moore concurs. "Access to warehouse data improves customer service and quality by helping the company assess emerging sales activity," he says. "By combining historical sales activity with current trends, for example, the data warehouse helps the company derive forecasts. This data, in turn, is used by decision makers in the company's semiconductor wafer fabrication process to increase or decrease production of various components." Since new wafer fabs can cost $1 billion, this type of information is critical.
The company's ability to reduce delays in product shipments especially benefits Philips' customers, who increasingly demand Just In Time (JIT) deliveries and lower costs, Moore says. "The data warehouse has given financial executives unprecedented power to monitor the product mix of customers with respect to contractual obligations," he concludes. "Sales executives can quickly determine if the product mix is on target. Knowledge workers are now free to exercise their creativity and intuition over the data, discerning new trends and opportunities in the process."
Matarese and his colleagues are currently evaluating symmetric multiprocessing UNIX servers to host the data warehouse. "There are two reasons for this move," Matarese explains. "We feel we can get better performance on a UNIX-based platform. Also, considering what we are paying on an internal allocation basis for disk space and processing time on the VM mainframe, we believe that the UNIX server would pay for itself in six months."
Corporate Model
The grandest testimony for the data warehouse developed by the Microcontroller Product Group is that it has become the model for an enterprise-wide data warehouse being developed by Philips Semiconductors at its headquarters in Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
"This new information system is soon to become the standard for Philips' 250,000 employees in every industrialized nation in the world," Matarese says. "When the CIO saw what our division in Sunnyvale had developed in just four months, he decided to abandon a parallel warehouse project in favor of the model that our team has deployed so successfully. He now estimates he can save at least three years and millions of dollars by adopting our warehouse architecture. Virtually all of the corporate requirements are available on our system, which appears to be scalable to any required size."
Technically, it's impressive, but for users it's simply a better way to access the important information they need to do their jobs more effectively. "Like the FedEx commercial says, it's point, click, and ship," Matarese quips. "Our end users are thrilled to have a Windows-based system that requires no typing or code writing."
