MARTA Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence Portal ( Atlanta , GA )

Summary:

enGenius developed MARTA’s TransPortal – which is a data warehouse and business intelligence portal that acts as a one stop destination for all of the enterprise’s real-time performance monitoring and reporting needs. This helps MARTA in evaluating its weaknesses and how its business strategies are affecting its operations and how it all ties in to the vision and mission of the organization. Information from many disparate systems is collected into a data warehouse – architected specifically to provide scalable, high performance and available information 24x7. This information is presented in an easy-to-access secure web based format to employees with different security access levels. Information is presented via Dashboards and Reports integrated into a common infrastructure called TransPortal, which in turn is integrated with MARTA’s Intranet (MarteNet)

Problem

Information Challenges faced by MARTA:

• Access to real-time and accurate information by Executives and Management
• Generation of reports from a variety of disparate systems across the Enterprise
• Analysis of how the business is performing across different functional areas
• Correlation of different business events
• Understanding how business events impact the customers, and how the goals of increasing revenue, profitability and increased ridership are affected
• Making better business decisions to achieve business objectives.

Existing state of IT systems and challenges for information delivery:

• Inconsistent Data from multiple data sources including manual entry, mainframe systems, VSAM, Unidata, MS Access, MS Word, Oracle files, Excel spreadsheets, Legacy Systems and others.
• Multiple systems store similar data but in different formats and using different business rules causing data redundancy and inconsistency and making it hard to correlate information.
• Several full-time dedicated staff needed to produce reports manually.
• Hours repeatedly wasted in manual gathering, compilation, creation and distribution of reports.
• Manual calculations è erroneous data
• Data is outdated by the time reports are distributed.
• Historical data is archived in many cases making it unavailable or difficult to obtain for reporting and analysis.
• Lack of enough, accurate, timely, summarized and correlated information creates an environment for potentially non-optimal business decisions.
• Outdated and manual business processes.
• No drill down capability to lower level details without complex coding

End Result:

• Poor Operational Efficiency.
• Increased Costs of Operations and Maintenance.
• Ineffective or Non-optimal Business Decisions.
• Business Decisions not aligned with Business Strategy and Goals.
• Reactive vs. Pro-active decision making.

Approach

To resolve the problems listed above, MARTA embarked upon a long-term data warehouse initiative and picked enGenius Consulting Group Inc with its core expertise in that area to help with implementing the system. enGenius was involved in the entire life cycle of the project: from requirements gathering, conducting user information sessions, documenting existing business processes, designing the data warehouse and portal architecture, systems architecture, ETL architecture, selection of the hardware and software tools, establishing the infrastructure, setting up different working environments, development, quality control, change management and rollover to production. The project was implemented in phases and key dashboards and reporting systems were implemented in each phase.

The following was the hardware and software environment:

• Oracle 9i Database Server.
• Oracle 9i Application Server.
• Oracle 9iDS (Forms, Reports, Discoverer, Designer, Portal, OWB)
• Windows 2000.
• Compaq Blade Servers.
• High Availability/Load Balancing configuration in production.
• SAN (Storage Area Network) for storage.
• Centralized management using OEM (Oracle Enterprise Manager)
• Quest Software’s TOAD Suite for PL/SQL development

Through the implementation of an Enterprise Data Warehouse and Web Portal, decision makers no longer have to deal with raw data: data from diverse legacy systems is standardized, integrated and presented in an easy-to-use online format accessible via a web browser.

Access to real-time information on bus and rail performance, quality, safety, customer complaints, crime rates, staffing and financial aspects is supported with drill-down and drill- through functionality.

Managers are presented with indicators that provide an overview of current performance and activities.

Alerts and indicators of “hot spots” are provided based on complex activities.

Data entry is automated, reducing data processing time. The data warehouse portal is also integrated with MartaNet (the intranet web-site)

enGenius also made recommendations for the future phases and how the existing data warehouse could further be enhanced to help MARTA achieve its business goals.

Results

“Receiving up-to-date and timely information is critical in making effective decisions. MARTA’s recent rollout of the TRANSportal as an executive information system has helped me and the rest of the authority in making time-sensitive decisions. I am able to view MARTA reports on-line at any time…Additionally, we have been able to realize significant savings related to maintenance activities…”

Richard McCrillis
MARTA Assistant General Manager of
Finance & CFO

Benefits of the data warehouse project to MARTA include:

• Realized cost savings by
  • Avoiding manual creation and distribution of reports .
  • Changing outdated and manual business processes.
  • Automating data cleansing and aggregation activities.
  • Streamlining Maintenance activities
    
• Authority-wide Web based access
• Real-time Snapshots of the Business è Effective decision making
• Availability of Historical data aggregated from various sources and displayed in various formats – Pie charts, Graphs, etc…Ability to compare Actual with Target and Trending.
• Automated Monthly Performance Review and other Reports.
• Improved Operations (handling of Data and Information):
• Improved Interface / Single view of data co-related from various sources.
• Consistency in reporting, presentation and accuracy of data
• Automated / Standardized Data Calculations
• Effective and efficient way to analyze historical data
• One stop shop for all authority’s KPIs and reports
• Improved Security and Access Control
• No waiting period for decision making – power in the hands of executives!
• Ability to pro-actively monitor business performance and stay ahead of the game.

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