Boeing Uses WebIntelligence To Track Space Station Project Costs

The Boeing Co. is using Business Objects SA's WebIntelligence query, reporting, and analysis software to manage the finances of the multibillion-dollar International Space Station project. With the project generating 1 million financial records every month, the software will have its work cut out for it.

Boeing's Space and Communication Division in Houston, prime contractor for the ISS project, began using WebIntelligence in June to track all project costs and stay within budgetary guidelines set by NASA. WebIntelligence analyzes information in a data warehouse based on Informatica Corp.'s PowerCenter, which in turn gets its data from PeopleSoft Inc.'s financial applications.

WebIntelligence is running in parallel with the project's old financial analysis system, a patchwork of spreadsheets and disparate databases that provided managers with only a consolidated view of expenditures, not detailed financial data, says Bessie Estep, information technologies and data systems director at the Houston operation. With WebIntelligence, managers "can explore all the details down to the lowest level," she says.

The old system will be shut down next month and some 125 managers and analysts at Boeing facilities in Houston, Cape Canaveral, Huntsville, Ala., and Canoga Park and Huntington Beach, Calif., will rely solely on the WebIntelligence system. The system's cost was not disclosed.