Macsteel Service Centers USA is a leading metals processor and distributor with over 30 locations across North America. The company implemented Oracle E-Business Suite for financials, order management, manufacturing, and other functions. It developed a data warehouse using Oracle Analytics Cloud and Informatica to integrate data from various systems and provide self-service analytics and reporting. This improved decision making and user satisfaction while reducing IT costs compared to a custom data warehouse. Lessons included focusing user requirements on abilities rather than reports and fine-tuning data extraction layers.

1. Stuart Patsos, CIO / VP of IT
Better Decisions Faster with Advanced Analytics

2. Company Background
Macsteel Service Centers USA is one of the leading metals
processors and distributors in North America. March 1, Kloeckner
Metals US.
A division of Kloeckner & Co – the largest mill-independent
distributor of steel in the world
● 30+ locations throughout North America and Puerto Rico
● processes and distributes
► carbon ► aluminum
► stainless ► specialty metals
● Products include a full range of
► flat rolled ► pipe
► plate ► bar
► tubing ► structurals
● The company also supplies a full range of
► Coated ► steel building products
► prepainted metals
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3. Applications Footprint
Version of EBS currently Implemented: 12.1.2
Oracle products implemented:
Financials (GL, AP, AR, Advanced Collections)
Order Management (including Configurator)
OPM (Process Manufacturing)
Discrete Manufacturing
Inventory
Procurement (including LCM – Landed Cost Management)
OTM (version 6.04)
eBusiness Tax (with Vertex O series)
OBIEE and OBIEA
On Demand since Sept 20, 2010
Future implementation
Warehouse Management
EAM
ASCP
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4. Macsteel Design Guidelines
Developed with a standard approach
Follow Oracle Data Warehouse approach
Keep with standard and common technologies
Design your system for data analysis not for technology
Simplify the design – make reporting user driven
Let the business drive your data model not the technology
Develop a flexible system
Simple data warehouse design and standard technologies
• will lower the cost of warehouse maintenance
• This allows IT to respond to business requirement changes
Keep the data transformation as simple as possible
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5. Macsteel Data Warehouse
Data
Oracle Main data
Other Files EBS Source
Syste
Data Dashboard
ms
The
presentation
layer can be
Informatica changed to
Mapping your system
Tool of choice
I
N Adhoc
F
ETL
O Reports
R
M
OBIEE
A This tool
T allows the end
DAC users to
I
maintain
C rollups and
A hierarchies in Prebuilt
the data
Informatica
warehouse Reports
Data
DW DDM (3rd party)
Warehouse
Administration Dimension Data
Console Manager
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6. Macsteel Data Warehouse
Oracle Delivered Data Warehouse
Oracle Financials Analytics
Oracle Transportation Management (Transportation Analytics)
Oracle Procurement & Spend Analytics
Oracle Supply Chain Analytics
Macsteel Enhancement to Oracle Delivered data warehouse
Custom Branch security
Custom Hierarchy and Rollup Management
Dimensional Data Management
Macsteel Custom Data Warehouse
Custom Manufacturing Data Mart
Custom Revenue and Cost of Goods Sold Data Mart
Custom Inventory Data Warehouse needed for Macsteel requirements
Consolidated Data Warehouse to join key data of the two US operating
companies
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7. Why We Chose Oracle Analytics
Oracle prebuilt data warehouse eliminates the risk associated with custom data
warehouse
Oracle delivered data warehouse has been engineered with the latest methodologies
in data warehousing. This enabled our organization to follow the same guidelines
when building our additional data warehouse needs
Keep with standard and common technologies – Easier to design a system and
anticipate potential problems
Lower the reliance on internal employee who have designed the custom data
warehouse
Faster go-live with Oracle delivered data warehouse
Lower the resource cost when upgrading Oracle Applications. Oracle delivered data
warehouse will provide an upgrade path to stay current with new data models
Pre-delivered reports and dashboards will reduce report development time and
increase data accuracy
Implementing Oracle delivered data warehouse allowed us to easily move our data
warehouse to Oracle On Demand
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8. Results Achieved by Macsteel
For Users
Increased user satisfaction with better reporting
Self Service reporting allows the users to get the data when they need it
Better decision making
Self Service executive dashboard
For Information Technology
Lower the cost of the ownership
Reduced the technical development effort
Reduced report development in EBS
Reduced load on production systems
Taking advantage of Oracle standardized technologies stack
Using Oracle Standard for all non Oracle Data Warehouse needs
Easier to find technical resources for Oracle Data Warehouse
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9. Lessons Learned
Expect to see holes in your processes
• Be prepared to do some change management after seeing
the results of OBIEE – don’t get caught off guard by this
Defining clear user requirements is important, but do not focus
the requirements on report design, focus the requirements on
abilities. For example
• “I need the ability to see my spend by supplier, by
commodity, year over year”
• NOT ‘Row1, row1, row3, using parameters x, y, and z and
filters a, b.
The connectors and extract layers are extremely valuable, but
expect some fine tuning for it to fit your data and processes.
May need to extend or build new data transportation layers
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10. Questions