Introduction
TenCate Protective Fabrics is a global manufacturer of specialty fabrics used by firefighters, military personnel, police officers and industrial workers worldwide. Operating across the United States and the Netherlands, TenCate needed a consistent, global view of its business. To simplify reporting, reduce manual effort and create a single source of truth, the company partnered with WhereScape to automate data warehouse development and modernise its analytics platform.
Pre-WhereScape Challenges
- Disconnected regional reporting: Separate data marts operated independently in the US and the Netherlands.
- Multiple ERP systems: Global reporting was difficult without a unified data foundation.
- Manual, tool-heavy processes: SSIS, Excel and other tools increased complexity and maintenance effort.
- Limited IT resources: A small team needed to support enterprise analytics efficiently.
- Slow change cycles: Adding new data fields or reports took too long.
Why WhereScape?
TenCate needed a single platform that could design, develop, deploy, operate and maintain a data warehouse without integrating multiple tools. WhereScape provided built-in automation, version control, deployment management and best-practice modelling; allowing the team to eliminate hand-coding while retaining full flexibility over data cleansing, validation and design.
“One of the things I appreciate about WhereScape is that it has a lot of features. I could do ridiculous data cleansing and validation, but it’s not forced. I can use WhereScape as simply or as complexly as I want to.”
– Greg Goss, Database and Business Intelligence Manager, TenCate Protective Fabrics
The Solution
Single Global Data Warehouse
TenCate combined data from two separate ERP systems into a single enterprise data warehouse, enabling consistent global reporting.
End-to-End Automation
WhereScape automated code generation, execution, version control and promotion across development, QA and production environments.
Flexible Modelling Approaches
The solution supports both dimensional modelling and Data Vault 2.0, allowing TenCate to evolve its architecture over time.
Built-In Technical Intelligence
SQL Server optimization, DDL and DML generation, and type casting were handled automatically, reducing technical overhead.
Results
🚀 Faster Insight Delivery
- New data elements added and live in as little as two days.
- Faster creation of dashboards and reports for leadership.
- Improved responsiveness to changing business needs.
🚀 Richer Business Intelligence
- Sales, forecast, budget and financial data unified in one platform.
- Deeper insight than was possible with standalone data marts.
- Improved decision making across the organisation.
🚀 Improved Data Trust and Governance
- Full track-forward and track-back lineage documentation.
- Clear visibility into how data is transformed and used.
- Reduced risk and improved confidence in analytics.
From Data Marts to Enterprise Insight
Moving from isolated data marts to a fully automated data warehouse allowed TenCate to ask more complex questions of its data, without increasing workload on IT.
Designed for Lean Teams
WhereScape enabled a small BI function to support enterprise-scale analytics. Automation replaced repetitive technical work, allowing focus on delivering business value.
Automation Without Constraint
WhereScape’s flexibility allows TenCate to apply strict validation where needed, while keeping other processes lightweight: balancing control and speed.
Future-Ready Architecture
With support for both dimensional modelling and Data Vault 2.0, TenCate’s data platform is ready to evolve alongside future reporting and analytics requirements.
