Dimensions are all independent of each other and not concatenated upon import

Description

This requirement ensures that dimensions - the categories of data used for analysis and reporting - are distinct and not concatenated or linked together. This process makes it easier for users to manipulate and interpret the data, ultimately leading to more accurate and efficient planning and decision making.

Example Use Case

Scenario: A manufacturing company uses CPM software to manage its supply chain. It imports numerous datasets including materials, suppliers, quantities, regions, and dates. However, dimensions such as Material-Supplier are concatenated in the current system, bundling two valuable pieces of information into one combined dimension.

Solution: The company switches to a CPM system where dimensions are all independent of each other. Now, material and supplier are separate dimensions, providing better nuance and flexibility for analysis and reports. This allows the company to examine data from diverse perspectives, like analyzing all suppliers for a specific material or reviewing all materials from a particular supplier.

Considerations

For this requirement to make sense, the system being evaluated must support dimensions in the first place. Do not take this for granted, as many of the lower cost platforms on the market have either no or little dimensionality.

Concatenating dimensions is done when:

• The system can not handle the number of dimensions that the user needs, and blends them together to accommodate the system limitation
• Users have no need to see these separate and would prefer to merge them to simplify the data structure
• Source data is at a concatenated level and splitting it up into different dimensions is unreliable, difficult, or impossible

Questions to Ask a Vendor

• Independent Dimensions: Can your system handle datasets where all dimensions are independent of each other and not concatenated upon import?
• Concatenated Dimensions: If your system concatenates dimensions, is it specific to certain ones? What are the reasons and implications for doing do?
• Defining Dimensions: What do you consider a dimension in your system? Accounts, time, versions, departments, locations? What isn't considered a dimension?