Briggs & Stratton Harnesses the Power of SAS

Briggs & Stratton, the world’s largest manufacturer of air-cooled gasoline engines, provides the power for lawn mowers, generators and other outdoor equipment for thousands of original equipment manufacturers around the world. But when it comes to interpreting and using massive amounts of data for strategic advantage, Briggs & Stratton turns to SAS Business Intelligenceto power its decision-making abilities.

Fast, accurate, consistent
Briggs & Stratton is implementing the SAS Enterprise BI Server, putting critical information in the hands of users throughout the organization. SAS provides executives and managers at Briggs & Stratton with vital information necessary for better decision making. The result is higher-quality work and more informed workers throughout the company, which leads to happier customers and greater profitability.

"The SAS Enterprise BI Server has greatly narrowed the gap between data and users in our organization by providing consistent data across the board for many of our operational managers and users throughout the world," says Grant Felsing, manager of decision support at Briggs & Stratton and a long-time SAS user. "SAS BI is fast, accurate and consistent so our executives and those who make decisions here can have great confidence in the intelligence at their fingertips."

Felsing said he did not evaluate other business intelligence tools or platforms on the market. "We have a great relationship with SAS, and honestly, there’s nothing else out there quite like SAS’ business intelligence and analytics platform," he says. "I don’t know of any user whatsoever that isn’t pleased with SAS."

Newly enhanced BI Server
SAS Enterprise BI Server, a major component of the SAS Intelligence Platform, has been greatly enhanced to create an integrated enterprise architecture that empowers users at all skill levels and geographic locations with targeted interfaces to support their individual needs and skills (see related story). SAS Enterprise BI Server provides a suite of enterprisewide ad hoc query and reporting capabilities, and applies the power of SAS analyticsand data managementto create an easy-to-use platform that’s unique to the BI marketplace.

Global reporting, reduced costs
Briggs & Stratton, in the outdoor power equipment business for more than 90 years and based out of Wauwatosa, WI, employs 1,000 users that are identified for the distribution of reports across the company, from accounting to engineering to service and operations control. More than 50 are hands-on information producers using SAS, according to Felsing.

"SAS BI allowed us to consolidate our information assets and deliver it globally to our manufacturing offices – particularly North America, China and Europe – in a report that’s easy for our non-technical users, and all on one single BI platform," says Felsing. "It’s given us a global reach with reporting on a level we’ve never had before."

Felsing also points to other business benefits associated with the SAS Enterprise BI Server. "We have certainly seen reduced costs and reduced stress in many of our employees, thanks to easy access and easy-to-use user interfaces, operational links to Web services and advanced analytical capabilities boiled down for us. SAS is certainly making an impact on our operational managers across the company. With SAS, I’m able to do anything my company needs quickly and inexpensively."

"Briggs & Stratton’s ability to streamline its operations and allow greater numbers of non-IT employees to access critical information and reports on a worldwide scale speaks to the success of our integrated business intelligence offering," says Rob Stephens, director of technology strategy at SAS. "The SAS Enterprise BI Server is designed to allow IT fast, simple, accurate and consistent access to important data, analysis, and reports that ensure accuracy and reliability for the business users. We’re pleased that a reputable establishment like Briggs & Stratton is demonstrating success using SAS Business Intelligence to drive confident decisions and impact for the company."