Data Migration Helps Diodes Inc. Generate Consistent Reports

Information Builders Provides a Complete Data Management Solution for High-Tech Manufacturer

After decades of steady growth – much of it through acquisitions – high-tech manufacturer Diodes Inc. had inherited many unique information systems, processes, and software applications. But managers found it difficult to apply common business rules across these disparate systems, let alone correlate data into cohesive reports.

Each acquired company managed data differently, making it difficult to establish consistency or create enterprise-level reports. Without pervasive data quality standards, organization-wide metrics were elusive – or even impossible – to achieve. As a result, operational reporting was often a chore and data quality suffered.

“We need[ed] an infrastructure that would allow us to grow in the future,” says Eska Miller, director of Corporate Financial Planning at Diodes. “With three different ERP [enterprise resource planning] systems, we lacked a good way to consolidate information into enterprise reports. If somebody needed a new report, or even a variation of an existing one, the IT department typically had to get involved.”

The Wrench in the System

Diodes wanted to provide self-service reporting capabilities to people throughout the company, from engineers to marketing professionals, sales reps, and finance officers. But its reporting problems were only the tip of the iceberg. A larger problem loomed below the surface, in the hodgepodge of databases and software applications from Oracle, PeopleSoft, IBM, Promise, and other vendors. At the time, a majority of Diodes’ reporting was accomplished through data warehouses affiliated with these enterprise applications and ERP systems.

“In the past, everyone operated in a siloed environment, so there wasn’t much motivation to consolidate information – other than what was absolutely necessary for financial reporting,” says Miller.

Miller and his team asked several software vendors to demonstrate data migration and business intelligence (BI) solutions using one of Diodes’ sample data sets. Information Builders and its iWay Software division demonstrated a data management infrastructure that seamlessly integrates data regardless of its source or location while ensuring optimum quality. Information Builders also showed Miller how its WebFOCUS BI platform could make it easy for people at all levels to transform raw content into real-time intelligence.

“The proof of concept made it clear that Information Builders could handle not only the reporting and analytic components of our BI system, but some of the fundamental data quality and information management components as well,” Miller says.

Diodes purchased iWay data adapters, iWay Service Manager, and iWay DataMigrator, key components of the iWay Enterprise Information Management (EIM) Suite. Corporate officers were also attracted to the wealth of self-service reporting options embodied in the WebFOCUS environment.

Greasing the Wheels for Enterprise Reporting

Diodes built a Microsoft SQL Server-based data warehouse to consolidate revenue information from Excel files, balance sheets, and other corporate reports into one source, accessible to the entire organization. The company used budgeting and forecasting software from Clarity Systems to assist with this part of the process.

Then Diodes retained a team of consultants from Information Builders Professional Services to design a new operational data store. Using iWay DataMigrator, the team populated the data store with data from legacy ERP systems. DataMigrator includes powerful extract, transform, and load (ETL) tools for migrating data across back-end systems and consolidating it into data marts, data warehouses, and operational data stores. It can seamlessly bring together information from multiple sources and locations across the business.

Information Builders consultants also helped Diodes create an initial set of reports. “Information Builders supplied high-quality consultants who understand our business,” Miller says.

Today, Diodes’ biggest IT priorities involve data quality. Formerly, a developer would draft a report fulfilling a request for one particular group, but there were no assurances that another group looking at the exact same summary report would read it the same way.

“From names being listed in Chinese to currency translation issues, confusing data was causing turmoil within our organization,” admits Miller. “Our financial staff said they spent 30 percent of their time cleansing data. The problem was pervasive throughout the company and is one of the reasons we didn’t have centralized reporting.”

Achieving a New Level of Consistency

Miller’s team is creating revenue reports that summarize important attributes such as the quantity of devices sold, pricing, currency, and total output for each individual product. The team is also creating management reports for various departments and special interest groups throughout the company. For example, department managers want to be able to determine – by drilling down from high-level summaries to line-item details – how the income and expenses of each particular business unit affect the company’s subsidiaries. Diodes is empowering business users to gather and analyze this information in a self-service environment. The team is also developing standard workflows and business rules to ensure consistency from one accounting period to the next.

“We want people to be disciplined by the data,” says Miller. “This new reporting system will help ensure that they dig a little deeper to get the information they need.”

While initial reports are designed for executives, the company plans to roll out similar capabilities to analysts, finance staff members, and sales and marketing professionals – about 50 total users.

Diodes is also creating Worldwide Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) reports to gauge market share by product category against the competition. Currently these reports are generated manually, and whenever the WSTS changes its standards, Diodes has to sort the data again.

“Rather than having a person dedicated to cranking out these numbers all day, with WebFOCUS we hit a button and it’s there,” says Miller.

Other reports will reveal the total sales of each part and product, which helps Diodes plan its production runs. “Sharing current price and cost information with supply-chain partners will compress cycle times, cut costs, and allow us to be more responsive to customers,” adds Miller. “This isn’t just about financial reports – it’s what makes the company work.”

Planning for Future Success

With the combination of iWay’s data migration tools and the enterprise reporting capabilities of WebFOCUS, Diodes is eliminating inconsistencies, improving productivity, and automating data management processes. A consolidated data store eliminates redundancies and enables more consistent reporting across the organization.

Miller sees WebFOCUS and iWay as important assets that will help the company enter a new era of growth. “Consolidating, cleansing, accessing, analyzing, and distributing information will help our company gain ground as sales pick up for the semiconductor industry,” he concludes. “Information is the heart and soul of decision-making. In the past, the information quality has been poor, which required extra effort on our part to make good decisions. As we improve information quality, we will see our decisions improve as well.”

About Information Builders

Information Builders’ award-winning combination of business intelligence and enterprise integration software has been providing innovative solutions to more than 12,000 customers for the past 30 years. WebFOCUS is the world’s most widely utilized business intelligence platform. It provides the security, scalability, and flexibility needed at every level of global extended enterprises. Its simplicity helps create executive, analytical, and operational applications that reach dozens to millions of users. Information Builders’ iWay Software suite provides state-of-the-art, multi-purpose, pre-built integration components that address all SOA, application, data, and information management requirements. Its integration adapters have been adopted by the leading software platform providers. Together, these products give Information Builders’ customers the ability to grow and innovate according to their needs.

Information Builders’ customers include most of the Fortune 100 and U.S. federal government agencies. Headquartered in New York City with 90 offices worldwide, the company employs 1,450 people and has more than 350 business partners. More information is available at informationbuilders.com.