African Rainbow Minerals (ARM), South Africa`s fifth largest gold mining group, has contracted CS Holdings to develop a data warehouse to improve, unify and accelerate its management reporting process. The value of the contract is more than R1 million in its first phase.
The data warehouse, being delivered by CS Holdings` CS Systems Integration division, will integrate ARM`s various information systems into a single, cohesive and comprehensive repository which can be interrogated for improved decision-making. It will also incorporate ARM`s existing information systems.
ARM is SA`s most recent entrant to the gold mining market, having been formed in 1997. It operates 13 shafts in the Klerksdorp area and Free State Gold Fields. It has as a business objective the creation of superior, low-cost, focused systems which support the business dynamically.
"We place a very high premium on management information and we currently extract information out of various systems and compile it into management reports," says Chris Lerm, strategic planning leader for ARM. "This process is time-consuming, expensive and labour-intensive.
The data warehouse will be updated daily to assist management with forecasts. It uses CS Systems Integration`s own-developed "trawler", which extracts and gathers data from disparate databases, cleanses it and loads it into a normalised database. This is used to populate data marts aligned with functional business areas such as human resources, finance and operations. Reports are produced and updated asynchronously, and delivered via Microsoft`s Internet Information Server running against SQL Server, with dynamic reports interrogated via a browser.
"We chose CS Systems Integration after a comprehensive market search," says Lerm. "We narrowed our search down to four candidates, and they won the contract due to their professionalism, understanding of our needs and their track record at similar client sites."
The system is in testing phase and the first deliverables are expected in a month. Teams from CS Systems Integration and ARM are developing a simulated data warehouse on a dummy system, and all testing is being done on this system.
"We have developed a model for delivering business-critical information for companies involved in mining and manufacturing," says Bruce Botes, manufacturing systems manager for CS Systems Integration. "We will leverage the experience gained with this model to African Rainbow Minerals` advantage."
Share
Editorial contacts