InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
December 22, 1997
OLAP Cuts Inventory
AlliedSignal implements Java-based system to reduce inventory carrying costs
Allied, which racked up $14 billion in sales last year, is divided into aerospace, automotive, and engineered materials segments. In June, it created a power systems unit.
"We've got 15 different management systems, an extensive worldwide intranet, and global sales and operations dealing in nine different languages," says Jeff Smith, VP of worldwide IT for AlliedSignal in Morristown, N.J. Smith says his main problem was the $30 million in excess inventory.
The company implemented Influence Software's Aperio 2.0 Web-based business intelligence solution using an Oracle database as a back end and running on Windows NT and Unix. Aperio 2.0 is an updated Java suite of applications that features OLAP as well as administrative and reporting co
mponents, so users can collect and analyze information from data warehouses and data marts and distribute it through Web reports.
"With Aperio, we'll save around $2 million in inventory carrying costs in one year alone by being able to distribute inventory reports through our intranet," says Smith. "Management can update and make changes to inventory right away, which can also prevent incorrect inventory numbers." Smith's goal is to reduce inventory by another $10 million over two years.
Aperio's pricing, based on the number of concurrent users, is $20,000 for two users. The software runs on AIX, Irix, HP-UX, Solaris, and Windows NT; it is data-source and database independent.
s part of a global launch of SAP, AlliedSignal wanted to consolidate and reduce its global inventory. That's why Allied turned to online analytical processing.
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