Case Studies - Flight Refuelling Limited
Aerospace manufacturer achieves better KPI control...
Flight Refuelling Ltd manufactures in-flight refuelling systems and missile launching equipment.
Operating in a technologically advanced engineering environment, the company requires sophisticated data management systems in order to maintain their competitive position.
Flight Refuelling's market place is also changing, with more demanding commercial contracts resulting in greater pressures being placed on the management of internal operations.
As part of the Cobham Group, Flight Refuelling is required to use group-wide systems, including MRP software. The MRP suite allows user departments to run their own queries, providing the means to produce performance reports for management meetings.
It is estimated that perhaps 100 staff within the organisation were running their own queries and generating performance information. This resulted in wasted time, with departments comparing figures and spending time agreeing the basis from which constructive dialogue could then take place. Data errors were often detected, requiring substantial subsequent reworking.
Flight Refuelling was thus faced with the need to exercise greater control over the business in circumstances where their information base was fragmented and unsatisfactory.
The introduction of Business Objects Reporting (the Business Objects version of KPI monitoring) meant that the information gap had to be filled.
Alan Hescroff, IT Manager for Flight Refuelling asked DBL to introduce a system which could extract data on a daily basis from the IBM mainframe, so that monitoring reports could all be produced from one single data source.
The Datamarts system implemented by DBL provides a custom Visual BASIC client that uses an external software interface (known as UniObjects) to communicate with the Avante database on the IBM server. Using this interface, the requested data is normalised into relational data in a SQL Server database. The data extraction is run overnight so that it is available to users by the start of business every day. Users can then run whatever reports they require, firm in the knowledge that they are all working from the same base information.
As well as developing the system, DBL are contracted with its daily operation and maintenance, communicating with Flight Refuelling in the event of difficulties.
Steve Parker within the Finance team has been heavily involved in the project and is aware of the benefits that Datamarts has delivered.
Steve finds it difficult to quantify exact savings but, with 100 or so employees involved in generating performance information, he believes that Datamarts has resulted in huge amounts of time being released across the company to concentrate on more productive matters.
The availability of clear, timely KPI performance information has enabled the company to focus on key facets of the business. Improved delivery lead times and inventory management are just two areas where progress has been made.
Flight Refuelling believe that the Datamarts system has given the company greater visibility on all facets of performance monitoring and enables them to meet demands for ever tighter management of their business.
"As a company we pursue a strategy of outsourcing our IT development activities, and DBL has always supported us admirably in that regard. As part of a larger organisation we use group-wide systems to manage many of our core processes. DBL has been very adept at integrating our local developments within these larger systems."
Alan Hescroff, IT Manager, Flight Refuelling Ltd