The Data Warehouse Toolkit: The Complete Guide to Dimensional Modeling

Chapter 4. Procurement

We'll explore the procurement process in this chapter. This topic has obvious cross-industry appeal because it is applicable to anyone who acquires products or services for either use or resale. In addition to developing several purchasing models in this chapter, we will provide in-depth coverage of the techniques for handling changes to our dimension table attributes. While the descriptive attributes in dimension tables are relatively static, they are subject to change over time. Product lines are restructured, causing product hierarchies to change. Customers move, causing their geographic information to change. Sales reps are realigned, causing territory assignments to change. We'll discuss several approaches to dealing with these inevitable changes in our dimension tables.

Note

Chapter 4 discusses the following concepts:

• Value chain reinforcement

• Blended versus separate transaction schemas

• Slowly changing dimension techniques, both basic and advanced

Procurement Case Study

Thus far we have studied downstream retail sales and inventory processes in the value chain. We understand the importance of mapping out the data warehouse bus architecture where conformed dimensions are used across process-centric fact tables. In this chapter we'll extend these concepts as we work our way further up the value chain to the procurement process.

For many companies, procurement is a critical business activity. Effective procurement of products at the right price for resale is obviously ...