Client success stories

A Major Mining Client engaged AGER BI to design and implement a governed data management and analytics solution supporting a multibillion-dollar mining project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.

Critical project information across engineering, procurement, finance and scheduling was distributed across Microsoft Access databases and Excel spreadsheets, creating challenges around data consistency, traceability, reporting efficiency and management visibility.

AGER BI established a Microsoft Azure Virtual Machine and configured three separate SQL Server instances to provide dedicated DEV, TEST and PROD environments. A centralised SQL Server data warehouse, automated SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) data integration processes and Power BI reporting solution were then implemented within this architecture.

The resulting platform transformed a fragmented, spreadsheet-driven reporting environment into a structured and governed analytics capability, providing project leadership with a trusted view of financial and operational performance while supporting historical analysis and predictive expenditure forecasting.

The Major Mining Client is a leading mining and resources organisation operating large-scale mining and infrastructure projects across Western Australia and internationally.

Major capital developments require project teams to manage significant volumes of information across engineering, procurement, finance, scheduling and project controls.

For a multibillion-dollar mining development in the Pilbara, the project management office required a more structured and reliable approach to managing this information.

Project data was distributed across Microsoft Access databases and Excel spreadsheets, requiring substantial manual effort to consolidate and prepare information for management reporting.

AGER BI was engaged to establish a centralised data management and analytics environment that could provide stronger governance, improve reporting efficiency and give project leadership greater visibility of financial and operational performance.

The solution used Microsoft Azure infrastructure together with SQL Server, SQL Server Integration Services and Power BI to create a structured enterprise reporting environment supporting the project’s ongoing data and analytics requirements.

The Major Mining Client’s project management office required accurate and timely information to support the management of a major capital project.

However, project data was fragmented across multiple Microsoft Access databases and Excel spreadsheets.

Information covering engineering, procurement, finance, scheduling and other project activities needed to be consolidated before it could be used effectively for reporting and analysis.

This created significant manual effort while making it more difficult to establish consistent definitions, maintain historical information and provide management with a trusted view of project performance.

The project required a central data platform capable of bringing these disparate sources together, applying consistent transformation and validation rules and supporting reliable reporting through Power BI.

Key requirements included:

AGER BI designed and implemented an integrated enterprise data and analytics environment using Microsoft Azure, SQL Server, SQL Server Integration Services and Microsoft Power BI.

An Azure Virtual Machine was established to host the project’s SQL Server environment. Three separate SQL Server instances were installed and configured on the VM to provide dedicated DEV, TEST and PROD environments.

The solution consolidated information from multiple Access databases and Excel spreadsheets into a central SQL Server data warehouse.

Automated SSIS processes were developed to extract, transform, validate and load project information into the warehouse, reducing the manual effort previously required to prepare information for reporting.

AGER BI also introduced consistent business rules, historical data versioning and dimensional modelling to improve the reliability, traceability and analytical value of project information.

Power BI dashboards were then developed over the governed data platform, providing project leadership with consolidated visibility across financial and operational performance.

Key deliverables included:

AGER BI established a Microsoft Azure Virtual Machine to provide the infrastructure required for the project’s central data environment.

Three separate Microsoft SQL Server instances were installed and configured on the Azure VM, providing dedicated DEV, TEST and PROD environments.

This architecture provided clear separation between development, testing and production workloads while allowing the environments to operate from a centrally managed Azure infrastructure.

The DEV instance provided an environment in which new data integration, transformation and reporting functionality could be developed without affecting production.

Changes could then progress through TEST for validation before being promoted to the PROD instance supporting operational reporting.

This provided the Major Mining Client with a structured development and deployment pathway while reducing the risks associated with making changes directly within a production data environment.

AGER BI implemented a central Microsoft SQL Server data warehouse to replace the fragmented reporting approach previously dependent on individual Access databases and Excel spreadsheets.

Project information across engineering, procurement, finance and scheduling was brought together within a common data architecture.

This established a central repository from which consistent reporting and analysis could be performed.

The warehouse used dimensional modelling and star schema design principles to organise project information in a structure optimised for analytical reporting.

This simplified relationships between different areas of project data while providing an efficient foundation for Power BI.

The architecture also separated data integration and transformation from the reporting layer.

Rather than embedding complex business logic directly into individual reports and spreadsheets, information could be standardised centrally before being presented to users.

This created a more controlled and maintainable reporting environment.

AGER BI developed SQL Server Integration Services processes to automate the extraction, transformation and loading of information from the project’s Access databases and Excel spreadsheets.

The integration framework standardised and validated data before loading it into the central SQL Server data warehouse.

This significantly reduced reliance on manual consolidation and data preparation.

Business rules were incorporated into the transformation layer so that critical project metrics could be calculated and interpreted consistently.

Rather than repeatedly applying transformations within spreadsheets or individual reports, processing could be performed centrally and reused across the reporting environment.

This improved both efficiency and confidence in the information being presented to project stakeholders.

Major capital projects evolve continuously, making historical information particularly important for understanding how financial and operational performance changes over time.

AGER BI incorporated monthly data versioning into the solution so historical snapshots of project information could be retained.

This provided greater traceability and allowed project teams to analyse changes between reporting periods.

Management could therefore assess not only the current position of the project but also how forecasts, expenditure and other project measures had changed over time.

Centralised business rules and validation processes also improved consistency across reporting.

This reduced the risk of different spreadsheets or reporting processes producing conflicting interpretations of the same project information.

AGER BI developed Microsoft Power BI dashboards over the central data warehouse to provide management with a consolidated view of project performance.

The reporting environment brought together information that had previously required substantial manual consolidation, providing visibility across project budgets, actual and forecast expenditure, cost trends, schedule performance, milestone progress, financial performance indicators and operational project measures.

This gave senior management and project teams a more timely and factual view of project health.

Users could analyse project information through a consistent reporting environment rather than relying on multiple independently maintained spreadsheets and databases.

AGER BI incorporated forecasting capabilities into the Power BI analytics solution to provide project teams with greater forward visibility of expenditure.

Historical trends and planned project activities were used to support predictions of future expenditure.

The forecasting capability achieved accuracy of up to 95%, providing management with an additional tool for financial planning and project control.

Rather than relying solely on retrospective reporting, the project team could use historical information and forecasting to identify potential future financial outcomes.

This strengthened management’s ability to make proactive decisions around expenditure and budget performance.

The separation of the SQL Server environment into dedicated DEV, TEST and PROD instances provided a controlled pathway for ongoing solution development.

New integration processes, data transformations and reporting changes could first be developed within DEV before being validated through TEST.

Only validated changes would then progress into the PROD environment supporting operational reporting.

This reduced the risk of development activities affecting live project reporting while creating a more disciplined approach to solution change management.

Hosting the three SQL Server instances within an Azure Virtual Machine also provided the client with a centrally managed infrastructure foundation for the project’s data warehouse and integration environment.

The engagement transformed the client’s project reporting environment from a fragmented collection of Access databases and Excel spreadsheets into a centralised, governed and automated data platform hosted within Microsoft Azure.

Key outcomes and benefits included:

The key transformation was moving project reporting away from fragmented, spreadsheet-driven processes towards a governed enterprise data environment.

The Major Mining Client’s project teams gained a consistent analytical foundation through which financial, schedule and operational information could be integrated, validated and presented to management.

This provided stronger project controls and a more reliable basis for decision-making across a major capital development.

The Major Mining Client required more than a set of Power BI dashboards.

The underlying challenge was the fragmented data environment supporting project reporting.

Developing additional reports without addressing this foundation would have left the project dependent on manual consolidation, inconsistent source information and independently maintained spreadsheets and databases.

AGER BI approached the engagement from the data platform upwards.

A Microsoft Azure Virtual Machine was established and configured with separate DEV, TEST and PROD SQL Server instances, creating the infrastructure foundation for a controlled enterprise data environment.

AGER BI then implemented the central SQL Server data warehouse, automated SSIS integration processes, standardised business rules and historical data management before delivering the analytical layer through Power BI.

This architecture provided a structured pathway from source data through integration, transformation, warehousing and ultimately management reporting.

The addition of predictive expenditure forecasting extended the solution beyond retrospective reporting, giving project leadership greater visibility of potential future financial performance.

The result was a structured and scalable project analytics environment supporting the management of a multibillion-dollar mining development.

The engagement demonstrates AGER BI’s ability to combine Microsoft Azure infrastructure, enterprise data architecture, integration, governance and business intelligence to solve complex reporting challenges within major capital projects.