FedEx may be best known for its on-time package delivery, eBay for its Internet auctions, and the National Basketball Association for its Lakers-Spurs playoff games. But who knew that each operates a world-class data warehouse?

On Tuesday, the Data Warehousing Institute, an IT education, training, and market-research firm, named the winners of its 2001 Best Practices in Data Warehousing competition. As in the past, this year's award winners will become role models for other businesses attempting to build and operate their own data warehouse systems. The winners will make presentations about their data warehouse systems to attendees of the institute's conference in Anaheim, Calif., on Aug. 14 and 15.

Winners were divided into application and industry categories. Application winners included Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina for data stewardship, Litton/TASC for enterprise data warehouse, Penske Logistics for extranet data warehouse, eBay for E-intelligence and clickstream data warehouse, Best Buy Co. for performance management, Experian Automotive Information Services for customer-relationship management, and the NBA for integrated data analysis.

Industry winners included FedEx for delivery and shipment, Niagara Mohawk Power for utilities, National Resources Conservation Service for government, Norfolk Southern for transportation, Ingram Micro for distribution, Bank of Montreal for financial services, Florida Hospital for health care, and Louisiana Pacific for manufacturing.

The winners were chosen by a panel of industry experts, analysts, journalists, and Data Warehousing Institute managers. Criteria included the value of the company's data warehouse to the business, potential relevance to other businesses, strategic and technological innovation, and alignment of business and IT processes.