Success Story: How ChemStation Improved Their Product Development Cycle With dbForge Studio for SQL Server
ChemStation International, Inc. is a reputable US-based producer of eco-friendly cleaning chemicals with over 60 manufacturing centers established over the course of 45 years. The company serves a variety of businesses—including refineries, pulp and paper mills, oil rigs, and printing companies—and perfectly caters to various cleaning services, be it vehicle cleaning, parts cleaning, or floor care.
It’s only natural that a company with such a rich history would continuously seek and implement improvements in their operational efficiency to stay at the top of their game. One of those cases involved the development of an internal MRP system that would also be integrated with a third-party accounting service.
The challenges
You need a dynamic development cycle for a project like that. Moreover, you need a suitable database management system that would be easily scaled in case of need—and in ChemStation’s case, it was Microsoft SQL Server.
However, one thing wasn’t all that certain. ChemStation’s development team required a toolset for SQL Server that would help them keep up with the cycle and easily manage and migrate data across their databases. The first few tools they tried did not exactly match their needs, and a decision was made to consider something heftier and far more advanced.
The solution
After a bit of research, Logan Laux, a software development manager at ChemStation, suggested they adopt dbForge Studio for SQL Server, an all-round IDE for database development and management, which impressed him with the sheer number of features and a sleek, familiar-looking, intuitive user interface.
The results did not keep Logan’s team waiting. Indeed, the Studio had everything to help Logan and his fellow developers augment the processes of database design, query writing and optimization, data management and migration, reporting, and introduction of structural changes to database schemas, which could be easily managed and tracked with the Studio’s source control integration.
In other words, every aspect imaginable was properly covered. As Logan said, “I use dbForge Studio for everything, from one-off data edits to stored procedure or function creation, query profiling, report building, and source control. It really is my go-to platform on a day-to-day basis.”
Eventually, the Studio helped Logan’s team complete their database-related tasks ahead of schedule.
Top features of the Studio that the ChemStation team found useful
Database comparison and automated synchronization
To keep databases in order, Logan’s team made the most out of Schema Compare and Data Compare, the Studio’s integrated twin tools that help identify and analyze differences in database schemas and table data, respectively. This functionality is further supplemented by the automated generation of synchronization scripts that help deploy changes to target databases in virtually no time.
Flexible data export and import
Another feature much valued by Logan is wizard-aided data export with 14 supported file formats and a bevy of flexible settings for each format. Here, we can only add that import is available, too, and nearly just as flexible.
Extensive data management, analysis, and reporting
dbForge Studio for SQL Server has a lot to offer when it comes to data management. In addition to the previously mentioned data migration, users have the full freedom to retrieve, view, edit, sort, group, and filter their data the way they want it.
Furthermore, the Studio provides pivot tables (where data can be aggregated and analyzed) and Master-Detail Browser (where users can closely scrutinize related data).
Finally, Logan expressed his appreciation for the Studio’s prowess at creating data reports of several different types.