The thesis focuses on implementation of Business Intelligence in a small retail company. The aim of the thesis is to design a pilot Business Intelligence solution to support management activities in Lintea, s. r. o. The company is part of Slovak lingerie and underwear retail market since 2004. Business performance measurement is not effectively supported in the company. Rise in the quality level of management activities is the main benefit of the proposed implementation which is achieved by delivering previously inaccessible or laboriously accessible information in an appropriate form. Proposed solution substantially simplifies, accelerates and improves management and decision making activities in the company. Thesis has two parts: theoretical and practical. Theoretical part has two chapters devoted to performance management and BI. Chapter about performance management presents wider aspects of using BI in companies and introduces the Balanced Scorecard method. Chapter about Business Intelligence defines BI, explains its principles, components and basic analytic method of BI - the dimensional modelling which is then applied in the practical part. The theoretical part ends with the description of current situation in the BI market. The practical part starts with the introduction of the company Lintea, s. r. o. followed by the description of its current state and proposal of the business performance measures based on the Balanced Scorecard method. Second chapter of the practical part contains the proposed Business Intelligence solution itself. Individual steps of the Business Intelligence design process are: analysis of prerequisites and requirements, analysis of data sources, dimensional modelling, ETL design, multidimensional data structures design and finally presentation layer design.

In this thesis the candidate explores the apparent gaps between strategy development and strategy implementation (the strategy alignment question), and between business end-user needs and the suppliers of information technology (IT) related products and services. With business intelligence (BI) emerging as one of the fastest growing fields in IT, the candidate develops a conceptual model in which BI is placed into context with other relevant subjects such as strategy development, enterprise architecture and modelling and performance measurement. The emphasis is on the development of processes and templates that support a closed loop control system with the following process steps: - A business strategy is defined. - The implication of the strategy on business processes, supporting IT resources and organizational structure is formally documented according to enterprise architecture principles. - This documented blueprint of the organization helps to implement the selected business strategy. - A performance measurement system is developed and supported by a well-designed data warehouse. - On a regular basis the measurements that were defined to support the implementation of the strategy, together with information from the external environment are interpreted and this analysis leads to either a new strategy, or refinement of the implementation of the existing strategy. Both options may lead to changes in the enterprise architecture, the execution of business processes and/or the performance measurement system. Some of the individual components of the model are supported by existing theories, for example the Zachman Framework for enterprise architecture and the Balanced Scorecard from Kaplan and Norton. The contribution of the author was to position them in the bigger picture to indicate how they can add value with regard to the establishment of business intelligence in organizations. Instead of packaging existing ideas slightly differently under a new name, the author intentionally searched for existing theories to fulfil certain requirements in the Bigger Picture BI Context Model. Apart from a set of templates that were adapted from various other sources and packaged into practical formats that can be used during facilitation sessions, the author has also developed and described the Fourier Model and the Pots of Money Model. The Fourier Model is a powerful conceptual model that helps a business to package solutions for market related requirements through selections of previously defined building blocks (technical components) that can be delivered through various business entities, depending on the requirements of the opportunity. The Pots of Money Model is a quantitative model embedded in a spreadsheet format to illustrate and communicate the effect of spending decisions in one area of the business on other areas. The candidate demonstrates the Bigger Picture BI Context Model in several case studies. The thesis is accompanied by a CD ROM, which contains over 700 references to relevant literature (most of them available in full text) and links to internet web sites, as well as examples of the software templates that support some of the steps in the context model. The following figure depicts the conceptual model in schematic format: (See figure in the abstract of 00front) / Thesis (PhD (Industrial Engineering))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Industrial and Systems Engineering / unrestricted

This study compares the impact of dimensional modelling and data vault modelling on the performance and maintenance effort of data warehouses. Dimensional modelling is a data warehouse modelling technique pioneered by Ralph Kimball in the 1980s that is much more effective at querying large volumes of data in relational databases than third normal form data models. Data vault modelling is a relatively new modelling technique for data warehouses that, according to its creator Dan Linstedt, was created in order to address the weaknesses of dimensional modelling. To date, no scientific comparison between the two modelling techniques have been conducted. A scientific comparison was achieved in this study, through the implementation of several experiments. The experiments compared the data warehouse implementations based on dimensional modelling techniques with data warehouse implementations based on data vault modelling techniques in terms of load performance, query performance, storage requirements, and flexibility to business requirements changes. An analysis of the results of each of the experiments indicated that the data vault model outperformed the dimensional model in terms of load performance and flexibility. However, the dimensional model required less storage space than the data vault model. With regards to query performance, no statistically significant differences existed between the two modelling techniques. / MSc (Computer Science), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

This study compares the impact of dimensional modelling and data vault modelling on the performance and maintenance effort of data warehouses. Dimensional modelling is a data warehouse modelling technique pioneered by Ralph Kimball in the 1980s that is much more effective at querying large volumes of data in relational databases than third normal form data models. Data vault modelling is a relatively new modelling technique for data warehouses that, according to its creator Dan Linstedt, was created in order to address the weaknesses of dimensional modelling. To date, no scientific comparison between the two modelling techniques have been conducted. A scientific comparison was achieved in this study, through the implementation of several experiments. The experiments compared the data warehouse implementations based on dimensional modelling techniques with data warehouse implementations based on data vault modelling techniques in terms of load performance, query performance, storage requirements, and flexibility to business requirements changes. An analysis of the results of each of the experiments indicated that the data vault model outperformed the dimensional model in terms of load performance and flexibility. However, the dimensional model required less storage space than the data vault model. With regards to query performance, no statistically significant differences existed between the two modelling techniques. / MSc (Computer Science), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Un modelo de simulación presenta muchas ventajas en el campo del desarrollo de motores de combustión interna alternativos. Su utilidad es doble. Por un lado, para entender la naturaleza de los fenómenos físicos que suceden en el interior del motor, y por otro, con el fin de optimizar el diseño de los sistemas que integran el mismo. El principal objetivo de esta tesis es desarrollar un modelo de un motor de dos tiempos de 125 cc de altas prestaciones para caracterizar la fluidodinámica interna en los sistemas de admisión, cilindro y escape. Para la construcción del modelo unidimensional del motor es imprescindible conocer información experimental. Por tanto, se han caracterizado de forma experimental los elementos que forman el motor. Por una parte, se ha usado un banco de impulsos para la caracterización dinámica. Por otra parte, se ha empleado un banco de flujo para caracterizar las pérdidas de presión en los elementos. Además, en banco motor, se ha analizado el proceso de combustión, con el objetivo de determinar la ley de liberación de calor. En relación a las tareas de modelado, se ha usado un modelo de diagnóstico para caracterizar del proceso de combustión, experimentando 37 condiciones de operación modificando el régimen de giro, el avance del encendido y usando cinco sistemas de escape. Asimismo, con el fin de poder reproducir el fenómeno de propagación de ondas en el interior del sistema de escape se ha propuesto un modelo de transmisión de calor ya que los modelos convencionales usados en motores de 4T no proporcionan resultados precisos al no contemplar los fenómenos físicos que suceden en el proceso de escape espontáneo de un motor de 2T de estas características. Para ello, se ha caracterizado experimentalmente el fenómeno de propagación de ondas en el interior del sistema de escape midiendo con diversos transductores de presión a lo largo de: un escape de diámetro constante y recto, y varios sistemas de escape derivados del original del motor. El primero se usó para proceder al necesario ajuste de las constantes del modelo mientras que los segundos para realizar la validación del mismo. Para el desarrollo del modelo de transmisión de calor se han contemplado las fluctuaciones de la velocidad instantánea del fluido y la disipación de la turbulencia con una longitud de entrada. Una vez es construido el modelo unidimensional del motor con capacidad de reproducir los complejos fenómenos ondulatorios que existen en el interior de los sistemas de admisión, cilindro y escape, es necesario desarrollar correlaciones para los parámetros que definen la función de Wiebe, usada como ley de liberación de calor en el cilindro. Se ha correlacionado la variación de estos parámetros (en particular, la duración de la combustión y el parámetro de forma) con variables de funcionamiento del motor: régimen de giro y avance del encendido, y variables que se calculan en el modelo: fracción de residuales y densidad de la carga. De esta forma se dispone de un modelo predictivo de las prestaciones del motor si se conoce una correlación para las pérdidas mecánicas, que también ha sido obtenida. El uso del modelo de transmisión de calor propuesto en este trabajo reproduce con precisión la fase y amplitud de la presión de escape con valores inferiores al 1% al comparar el coeficiente de admisión medido y modelado. Las diferencias pueden alcanzar el 7% si se emplean otros modelos encontrados en la literatura. Por otra parte, los resultados obtenidos al usar las correlaciones para la combustión se traducen en: diferencias inferiores al 1.5% entre potencia medida y modelada para todas las condiciones de funcionamiento del motor si el proceso de combustión presenta un coeficiente de variación en la presión del cilindro inferior al 2.5%. Cuando el coeficiente de variación aumenta, debido a la dispersión cíclica, las diferencias entre potencia medida y modelada pueden alcanzar el 4%. Palabras clave: Motores de Combustión Interna Alternativos, Motor de Dos Tiempos, Altas Prestaciones, Instalaciones Experimentales y Medición, Modelado Unidimensional, Modelo de Acción de Ondas, Proceso de Combustión, Transmisión de Calor. / Jiménez Macedo, VD. (2013). Contribución al modelado unidimensional en motores de dos tiempos de altas prestaciones [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/30773 / TESIS