HP/INFORMIX PROVIDE BOURNS' DATA WAREHOUSE SOLUTIONBourns Inc began helping others find their way five decades ago. The company that started in a 384-square foot garage was propelled into success when it produced the first electronic components to measure small changes in position on aeronautical wing control surfaces. Today, Bourns' line of more than 4,000 products help guide virtually every type of electronic system. Faced with pressure from offshore competitors and the need to improve forecasting and reporting capabilities, the company realized a data warehouse was necessary. After 50 years of ascending through the global marketplace, Bourns turned to Hewlett Packard Company and Informix for direction. It chose Informix Dynamic Server with Metacube ROLAP Option, running on HP 9000 K410/2 servers to meet those needs while increasing responsiveness to customers. Inconsistent InformationPrior to implementing the data warehouse, Bourns' global facilities relied on numerous business systems, including a wide range of financial applications, multiple databases and local reporting applications. Additionally, its legacy systems, worldwide order entry system and an in-house manufacturing system generated business-critical data. So many sources frequently generated incongruous data. Invariably, problems arose. Data distributed worldwide often was contradictory. The amount of time to obtain data was anything but timely -- sometimes taking weeks. End users often were unable to access much needed information. HP Provides the SolutionThe solution was simple. In 1996, Bourns implemented a data warehouse. It started with a HP 9000 K410/2 and eventually upgraded to a K410/4, adding significant disk space. Bourns evaluated numerous solutions and ultimately chose the Informix Dynamic Server. Paul Tearnen, director of IT, noted "We've had a long relationship with HP. At an enterprise level, we use HP equipment because of cost, service and vendor partnership. We consider HP to be a great vendor for us. We made a decision years ago to use HP and without a doubt, it has worked out very well for us. They always provide us with great value." Thanks to the data warehouse, Bourns' analysts and managers can now focus attention on its most profitable customers, track product performance in the market, enhance customer service and quickly respond to competitive pricing challenges. Bourns can even leverage the Internet to provide users in remote locations or small sales offices with access to standard reports. "The data warehouse not only saves time and improves data consistency, it eliminates the need to train users on reporting tools. We also do some querying and produce Web reports both internally and externally," said Tearnen. "We run Seagate Info on a lot of the content and produce numerous Internet-based reports out of the data warehouse. We also can provide some access for our Extranet to obtain information." To service more users and provide more data, Bourns has incorporated the manufacturing and financial data from its ERP application into the warehouse - all of the general ledger and cost data, as well as manufacturing work orders. The Total EnvironmentToday, users on local-area networks worldwide access the warehouse via Bourns' frame relay wide-area network. The company now has four HP 9000 servers in HP's outsourcing center in Atlanta, GA and four more in its own Riverside, CA, data center where the 80 GB data warehouse server is located. The ERP storage environment is EMC and uses HP disks connected via fast-wide SCSI. The majority of Bourns' HP 9000s run the various ERP modules and one server runs the data warehouse. All are on HP-UX 10.20. Bourns uses HP OpenView products which include: Network Node Manager and VantagePoint for system management. It also contracted with HP for PSS 24x7, six-hours guaranteed break-to-fix support, as well as deploying MC/ServiceGuard for its hardware high availability. System Success"We viewed the data warehouse as a necessary infrastructure element," said Tearnen. "We have had anecdotal success spotting where we had pricing problems and understanding markets in which we weren't profitable. It gave us a global visibility we never had before. We weren't looking at it as a cost saving issue. The data warehouse was really a response to the larger and corporate goal becoming quicker and better at making decisions it has certainly met that requirement." Looking ahead, Bourns realizes its channel partners need access to the data warehouse. Tearnen commented, "Portal access would facilitate the selling process by allowing our channel partners to obtain information about what, where and to whom they are selling. We want to push that capability as far out into our channels as we can, and we know HP will be there to support us." "We've had a long relationship with HP. At an enterprise level, we use HP equipment because of cost, service and vendor partnership. We consider HP to be a great vendor for us. We made a decision years ago to use HP and without a doubt, it has worked out very well for us. They always provide us with great value." Paul Tearnen Director of IT, Bourns. At-a-Glance: Name: Bourns, Inc Headquarters: 1200 Columbia Avenue Riverside, California 92507 Locations: Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Costa Rica, Mexico, Sweden, Italy, UK, Switzerland, Ireland, Logan and Ogden, Utah Founded: 1947 Telephone: 909-781-5500 Web site: www.bourns.com. Product Description: Manufacturers over 4,000 products which are designed into virtually every type of electronic system. Specific products include chip resistors and arrays, dials, encoders, inductive components, potentionmeters, panel controls, switches, resistor networks and Multifuse PTC Resettable Fuses. Technology Highlights
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