An international chemical producer had a very complex operations/production analysis and forecasting system involving hundreds of people, representing multiple sub-processes (pricing, supply-chain, operations, engineering, sales & marketing, and others) over fifteen countries. Previously relying on spreadsheets, emails, and heavy re-keying, their forecast results were slow (much later than their competitors and peers to release forecast disclosures to the investing public) and inaccurate (they were being routinely out-forecasted by Wall Street analysts).

They needed two initial data marts: a data mart that could form the financial and supply chain backbone for the reporting, analysis, and forecasting systems, and a mart that could provide them customer profitability information for sales and marketing analysis. With frequent pricing fluctuations of raw material supplies and of their commodity products, currency conversion was a very complex and important analytical issue, as they performed detailed variance analysis across over twenty different variance categories, each one factoring periodic or point-in-time currency conversion. The finished product allowed credible numbers accessible internationally and updated daily, with every number available in US Dollars or in local currency.

LiveLogic consultant roles: business analyst, project manager, data mart developer (SQL Server), OLAP cube developer (SQL Server Analysis Services and Hyperion Essbase)