Classical concepts of business intelligence (BI) focus on business figures and reports. For the successful use of BI on the shop floor, however, additional requirements must be taken into account.

On the one hand, specific manufacturing-related indicators and evaluation formats must be implemented. On the other hand, the BI system must adapt quickly to answer new or modified questions. In addition, "Operational BI" should provide monitoring of trends and overlapping  performance figures to alert affected employees immediately.

SAP BusinessObjects (BO) with the modules Crystal Reports, Pioneer, Voyager and Xcelsius, is a highly flexible business intelligence platform. In overlapping evaluations, analyses, and reports, this combines the individual manufacturing, logistics, and quality data with business data at the ERP level. Thus, "a single version of the truth" is available for users of all hierarchical levels at the press of a button. Such a true corporate performance management (CPM) system offers reliable references for decision making and corrective actions in production.

Business Intelligence with SAP provides to all employees - from shift supervisors to corporate management - precisely that information needed for optimal decision making:

• Summary of key performance indicators (KPI) on clear dashboards, production-cockpits, key data displays including signal light indicators and trend representation.
• Self-service BI with individual, sophisticated ad hoc analysis and detailed information about "drill down" from score cards, tables and charts.
• Database queries on SAP and non-SAP systems with simulations, to support investment decisions or when planning new production processes.
• Real time control in manufacturing, quality assurance and logistics through automated  monitoring of key data and rules-based alarming.
• Use of KPIs and score cards on existing portals and mobile devices, for example viaWeb services.

Cost advantages are achieved by realizing your specific BI solution with the high integration capability of the standard product SAP BusinessObjects in SAP environments. In this way, ready-made integration functions and standard evaluations allow rapid deployment within the enterprise.

Further cost benefits can be gained from operating the BI solution within the existing SAP support structures.

Through inter-site, company-wide use, numerous individual and difficult to service reporting and evaluation programs will be replaced by a single BI solution and in the context of the SAP‘s strategy operated wtih high investment security and long-term development prospects.

SALT Solutions‘ long experience with implementing and introducing  business intelligence in production, quality assurance and logistics encompasses solutions for small to medium-sized companies as well as systems for international corporations. Our extensive know-how about the data structures of relevant SAP modules along the value chain and the ABAP, Java, Netweaver and database technologies provides high project confidence.

We care about all phases of the project - from merging different user perspectives to an accepted and practiced BI system:

• BI-readiness analysis.
• Targeted moderation and guidance of the specification processes.
• Fast results based on an agile project methodology using Rapid Prototyping.
• Definition and implementation of ETL processes for data integration of existing systems.
• Improve data and reporting quality through data cleaning.
• Train your staff in the optimal use of the BI system, including global user support.