Retreading Tire Management with Business Intelligence

Justifying the development of a business intelligence system is challenging when the primary beneficiaries of the system are internal to the company responsible for that development; it is even harder to justify when the system is designed to produce a new service that is radically different than current in-house manufactured products. This case explores the possibility of a tire manufacturer developing a business intelligence system to help their customers manage very large heavy equipment tires within the mining industry. These tires are one of the biggest expenses for mining companies and this case discusses the opportunity to use business intelligence to manage that expense. This case encourages discussion of such topics as: the issues involved in system initiation from technology personnel, the need to incorporate both real-time and historical data in a system, the need for technology personnel to have deep knowledge of an application domain, and the challenges that arise from integrating data produced by disparate systems.