The Caterpillar Tunneling:

Revitalizing User Adoption of

Business Intelligence

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MGAC70 - Case Assignment 1

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June 6, 2019
Fareeha Anwar - 1002679229

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 1. Using a SWOT analysis. Discuss the goals and strategic direction of Caterpillar
Tunneling Canada Corporation (CTCC). Explain why you think CTCC is chosen as one of
the sites by Caterpillar to undergo ERP transformation.

SWOT Analysis

Leading tunneling technologies

provider
 Data inconsistency
Worldwide presence  Uneven reporting and poorly
High profile tunneling contracts defined processes
Diversified product range  Outdated enterprise resource
planning system (ERP)
 Lack of organizational
Weakne
Strength
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governance
 Reactive rather than proactive

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Opportu
nities Threats

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BI system provides


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latest data visualization  Resource allocation issues –
indefinite cancellation of

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utilities
SAP implementation
 Predictive modeling and
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data mining 
 Prescriptive Modeling, behaviours as a result of
simulation and extensive customizations
resulting in prolonged
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optimization
The CCTC’s ultimate goal is to use Business Intelligence processes to create
dissatisfaction andeconomic value and
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growth to gain a better understanding of its operations and complaints amongst

take applicable users
actions in real time.
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Caterpillar Inc. Wanted to leverage its global purchasing organization, its global reach and its
large-scale manufacturing processes to support and invest in Lovat’s tunnel boring business. The
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tunnel boring business then became a part of Caterpillar’s diversified products division. CTCC
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was chosen by Caterpillar to undergo ERP transformation to replace a host of legacy systems and
to standardize an enterprise wide ERP platform.
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2. Discuss the post-acquisition change management at CTCC as the subsidiary of

Caterpillar and the impacts on the IT infrastructure and the management of IT resources.
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Prior to the acquisition of Lovat Inc. now CTCC (Caterpiller Tunneling Canada Corporation) as
a subsidiary of Caterpillar the IT department was viewed as merely a supportive function at
CTCC rather than a strategic business unit. Main IT activities included setup and maintenance of
computer hardware and peripherals, web and network administration, software installations and

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 upgrades, phone system management, system security management, etc. Due to various issues
faced by CTCC in regards to information such as data inconsistency, uneven reporting and
poorly defined processes, it was planned that CTCC would upgrade to the SAP system. Due to
resource allocation issues, the implementation of SAP was put on hold and an intermediary
solution – the business intelligence platform – was deployed to facilitate decision making.
Furthermore, company reorganization enabled the IT department to gain exposure to the vast
resources Caterpillar Inc. provided and the adoption of the company’s standard operating
procedures established by the Global Information Services (GIS) unit. One of the most
prominent changes as a result of the merger was to the network and web security which brought
CTCC’s network into Caterpillar’s firewall, resulting in increased security of all incoming and
outgoing information.

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3. Discuss and critique the business systems landscape at CTCC.

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There is a wide variety of companywide information systems at CTCC that contain information
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vital to the processes of CTCC. This includes the two predecessors to the existing integrated ERP
system. The first one being the Microsoft Access database that manages the engineering parts
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creation and basic work order processing. The second is a custom business system with
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additional functionalities designed by a software company. Since not all historical data had been
migrated to the latest ERP the predecessors are still available for users to access. Aside from the
ERP there is also the Quality Assurance system to track nonconformance records and lastly the
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Business Intelligence platform which was deployed as an intermediary step to compliment the
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ERP system. The business systems landscape at CTCC seems to be very disjointed, with
information spread across various systems. It would be beneficial for there to be one system
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containing all information to avoid duplication of information and increase ease of use.
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4. Analyze the business analytics needs at CTCC.

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CTCC has various departments that all require specific business analytics needs. The Spare Parts
and Field Services department needs historical spare parts data by customers, geographical
locations, product categories etc. to forecaset future sales targets and feedback. The Project
Management Office required data on costs accrued for each project phase as well as the task or

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 component level. They also required data on the number of labor hours accumulated. The
Engineering department needed to monitor workload for each engineer to maximize resource
utilization. The Quality Assurance department needed analytics to capture all nonconformance
incidents to learn from past mistakes as well as material and labour costs that were attributed to
quality issues. The Operations Management and Production department needs analytics to
analyze production labour costs for past projects to predict resource loading requirements for
ongoing and future projects. The Finance department also required business analytics to analyze
labour efficiency. Through an analysis of the various departments at CTCC and their business
analytic needs it can be concluded that the Operations, Engineering, and Finance departments all
require data related to labour costs, the lack of communication between departments results in
duplicate information. As all departments analyze data at difference times, each department has

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its own version of reports related to labor. Therefore, it is imperative that there is constant and

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effective communication between departments so that reporting can be consolidated to prevent

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misinterpretation and duplication of data needed for reconciliation.
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5. Discuss the critical success factors for the success in implementing Business Intelligence
(BI) at CTCC ? Do you think the implementation is successful at CTCC ? Propose any
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suggestions you may have to CTCC for the adoption of BI at CTCC. (25 Marks)
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The Business Intelligence (BI) platform was deployed as an intermediary step to facilitate
decision making and to complement the outdated enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. It
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was used to transform raw and disparate business data from the ERP into actionable insights. The
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BI platform was also successful in eliminating problems related to data security, content
management, version control, and information sharing. However, not all users were ready to
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adopt the new platform. As a result, there became a divide amongst users. On one side there were
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analytical junkies that favoured analyzing data sets and on the other were passive users who were
did not look beyond the results generated by the BI software and preferred to use tools that were
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familiar and comfortable. I believe that for the most part the implementation of the BI platform
has proven itself to be successful, as it has mitigated many of the issues CTCC had struggled
with before. The only issue that remains is of meeting the increased reporting demand since there
are only two employees who could support data querying and reporting. The user base for the BI

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 platform has grown from five to fifty in just the first year. Furthermore, overtime reports built for
each department grew to amass overlapping features. Since there is no direction from a single
authority on the development of enterprise reporting, there is no one to review all reports
collectively. There is also the issue of some users finding the software too confusing and
stopping the use of it altogether. It is suggested that McEwan prioritize ease of use when
choosing a BI platform provider to make it accessible to a larger number of users. As per Exhibit
3, there are many BI vendors that focus on data visualization and presentation such as QlikTech,
Tibco Spotfire etc, that provide tools that allow users to quickly and effectively turn data into
interactive visualizations without the need for IT support. Therefore, it is suggested that McEwan
find a BI solution that is more office productivity centric rather than IT as most users at CTCC
are not IT driven. As per Figure 8, it would be recommended to pick a platform provider that

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weighs ease of use higher than functionality as that is more important for business users.

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6. Was it proper usage of the BI platform at CTCC to overcome some of the functionalities

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that the ERP and quality assurance (QA) system ought to provide? (5 Marks)
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Prior to the implementation of BI, there were many issues with the ERP system such as the lack
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of ability to create custom queries as well as to store and share these queries which led to
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creation of queries on a repetitive basis. With the introduction of the BI platform, many of the
issues with the ERP system were eliminated and the BI system was useful in providing data
security solutions, content management, version control and information sharing. As per the
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Quality Assurance system, it was implemented to grasp information on non-conformance

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incidents for analysis and control. An issue with the system was its highly basic functionalities
that did not provide any data reporting features. As there were non-conformance records on the
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quality assurance system and labour costs and project cost information was on the ERP software
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there needed to be a link between the two software’s to create a report for the Quality Assurance
department. The BI software provided this link resulting in CTCC being able to overcome some
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of the functionalities that the ERP and QA system ought to provide.

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