Weiler Corporation - A Featured Success Story!

A great success story coming from the WEDnetPA partner - East Stroudsburg University featuring participating company: Weiler Corporation .

Weiler Corporation had many issues with their original data warehouse.  Performance was very poor and data was inaccurate.  Most users developed some type of workaround to satisfy their information needs. This involved running production reports and mining some data from the data warehouse through predefined reports.  In order to produce the required information, the user would manually consolidate the data and use MS Access or MS Excel to present the information.  This involved many non-value added hours to produce limited information.

Approximately two years ago, Weiler made a decision to invest in a more robust data warehouse/business intelligence solution to mine and provide critical management information.  MicroStrategy was selected for business intelligence because of its robust ad hoc reporting capabilities.  When I joined Weiler in June 2011, the team was still working on the project without any implementations.  After reviewing the status and strategy, it became very clear that the team needed more formal training to move this project forward.

In August 2011, we abandoned the two year effort and engaged MicroStrategy.edu, to train the technical and user teams.  The skills taught by MicroStrategy.edu included architecting a data warehouse, MicroStrategy configuration, MicroStrategy administration, data modeling, project management, ETL (extract, transfer, load), best practices strategies, dashboard creation, power user training and web user training.  I am happy to report that we completed our first implementation November 5, 2011.  Users are already reporting tremendous time savings and more accurate information.  In addition to the user reports, we have one dashboard created.  WEDnetPA funds for training were critical in the education of our team and rapid achievement of our goals.

This success story was provided by: Donna Piccirilli

July Featured Success Story

A great success story coming from the WEDnetPA partner - Community College of Allegheny County, featuring participating company: Wojanis Supply Company, Inc.  

Our challenge has been finding workers who come to us with hydraulic experience.  Typically, we find shop workers with tool skills and mechanical skills and then need to train them on hydraulics.  Finding good, relevant training in hydraulics locally has also been a challenge for us.  Our hiring pool is further restricted by location as we have hired at least three workers who seemed to fit the bill with their level of experience, but lost them all due to commute distance.  We need to hire local candidates who have mechanical background and then train them in hydraulics.

Having a value added service, such as repair, helped our company weather the recession.  We found that our customers appreciated having the option to repair rather than replace during difficult financial times.  Our effort went to positioning Wojanis as the PREMIER fluid power parts and service provider.  While, like most other companies, our sales were down through the recession, the impact was minimal.  We did not have to downsize or cut wages due to the fact that we offered a wide range of parts and service – all under one roof.  It is critical for us to have an informed, well-trained sales and service staff.  We value continuing education and used some down time to step up our skill level and continue offering superior service.

WEDnetPA was a tremendous help to us.  WEDnetPA funding helped us pay for training during the downturn while we may have had the extra time to focus on training, but less funds to supply it on our own.  Our partner institution couldn’t have been more helpful in providing custom designed training to meet our specific needs.  It was wonderful to have training that was entirely relevant and provided in our own facility.  The instructors were able to tailor their program and respond to our real life workplace needs.  We would highly recommend WEDnetPA and encourage others to investigate their website, contact a partnering institution, or feel free to contact us with any questions.  Our WEDnetPA experience was great in all aspects – the funding opportunity, the custom designed training, and the partner institution that was always available to assist in any way.