Massive data warehousing and analytical systems cut costs at Ford

Predictive supply chain monitoring, analysis, automation and decision support on a grand scale are delivering what’s claimed to be huge return on investment at Global 1,000 manufacturers like Whirlpool and Ford. The technology is all about advanced data warehousing technology coupled with supply chain intelligence software. Teradata, owned by NCR, is one of the leaders, with its massively parallel active database systems linked to supply chain intelligence applications initially developed by a joint venture with disc manufacturer Western Digital. At Ford, for example, its systems take data from EDI, logistics, forecasting, procurement and production systems, and the result has been a 6% cut in inventory in its parts business and a 30% reduction in distributor provisioning cycle times. That system was up and running within nine months of order, covering more than 1 million SKUs. “Event management was moved to predictive management,” says Niall O’Doherty, global manufacturing and supply chain manager at software and services provider Teradata. And he says big manufacturers like Ford, with global supply chains, are now key targets for his company. “Companies are sitting on mountains of untapped data in MES (manufacturing execution systems), ERP systems, supply chain systems, emails. What we’re doing is allowing them to share and understand the significance of that data in terms of decision support… We’re predicting short term ahead: completely tactical.” And it’s all available from the one software developer. Teradata bought Western Digital’s active data analysis technology, used for quality and continuous production improvement, in July last year, after several years of a joint venture with the company. It also acquired the supply chain intelligence software from a separate project with consultancy PWC. O’Doherty says what’s new now, following further development, is rapid implementation tools for the system, with best practice templates and data structures, as well as easy to use software tools providing the supply chain decision support and automation. Effectively, this sits between existing ERP and supply chain planning systems, using detailed data (down to part number) from across the connected systems to manage events in real time, according to business rules. Coverage can be anything from sales and forecasting to engineering change control, contract compliance, global supplier management and purchasing. And there are developments underway with SAP. Teradata has a dedicated team working at Walldorf aimed at using SAP’s BIW as a portal to the Teradata systems. “That’s being driven by customers like Coca Cola,” says O’Doherty. “BIW is a datamart; deep analytics is not SAP’s business.” This is not for the faint hearted though. Starting price for a pilot system is around £100,000, and some Teradata implementations are now up at the £40 million mark – those with active data warehouses managing up to 160Tbyes of information in real time, no less.