Client - U.S Based Steel Major
Reporting solution based on SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services and SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services
Overview
The Client is one of the oldest steel coils producer across U.S. Each day tones of steel and steel coils with different parameters is purchased, produced, slitted and sold by the company. Company uses a Web based inventory control system based on Visual Studio® 2005 development system for its business across U.S. Its team requires an efficient way to share the Coils Yield, Purchase and Received reports by the company, which needs very complex and data intensive calculations and manipulations.
To overcome this challenge, company implemented Reporting solution based on SQL Server 2005 Reporting services & SQL Server Analysis Services (OLAP) taking advantage of their enhanced Analysis Services capabilities.
The platform will also help generate more detailed and flexible reports, leading to better and more timely decision-making.
Business Challenges and Requirements
Client’s inventory control system is totally dependent on Information Technology. This makes reporting critical for the analysts and business users. The organization’s IT department wanted a solution that could be expanded to address data reporting challenges experienced by other divisions in the company.
Given that the company units are handling large volumes of very high value transactions in terms of quantity for both production and delivery, understanding the level of risk at all times is critical to the management.
Solution and MetaOption Role
After looking at competitive solutions and holding technical discussions, our team chose Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 for reporting functionality on its ability to handle large environments with low-maintenance requirements
SQL Server 2005 is Microsoft’s next generation database technology. Among a host of benefits, SQL Server 2005 delivers improved data analysis and integration capabilities through features like SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS), Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS).
Client was particularly interested in Analysis Services 2005, which provides organizations with integrated, Web-enabled OLAP analysis. Using Analysis Services, companies can discover data patterns and trends and make better business decisions as a result.
Client was also keen on implementing SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services. Reporting Services is an enterprise managed reporting environment, one that is embedded and managed via Web services. Reports can be personalized and delivered in a variety of formats.
Visual Studio Analysis Services Project was used to create the OLAP cubes which were deployed to the SQL Server 2005 Database Server. Then using Reporting Services and SQL Server Analysis Services as the data provider, reports were created according to the business user needs.
Working together, the client for requirements and our team for all the technical support we successfully created and deployed over 20 plus reports in SQL Server Reporting Services using OLAP services which involved creating cubes with multiple dimension and facts in just two months.
“Good Job!” says client’s CTO.
Benefits
MetaOption was able to complete the project within a short time of 2 months. The benefits associated are:
- Enabled users to view data in multiple dimensions
- Effective Reporting both performance and data wise
- Client witnessed that much of their manual work is saved
- Management is also able to track the inventory.