Glossary

Executive Dashboard for a Manufacturing Business

Written by Nils R. | Oct 9, 2020 7:00:00 AM
What is an Executive Dashboard for a Manufacturing Business ? Executive Dashboards are considered management monitoring tools and are often used by manufacturing leaders to keep an eye on key performance metrics. Special functionality in this type of dashboard report is parameter driven and can be viewed for any month and plant facility. The charts show revenue and cost of goods sold (COS) trends and comparison to budgets. The dashboard also shows sales by customer and product, as well as, top suppliers based on purchases. Finally, it tracks inventory by distribution center. You will find an example of this type of dashboard report below. Purpose of Executive Manufacturing Dashboards Manufacturing companies use Executive Dashboards to provide top managers with an easy way to monitor KPIs and trends in a self-service, web interface that they can access from anywhere. When used as part of good business practices in an executive department, a company can improve its reaction time and speed of decision-making, as well as, reduce the chances that important metrics go undetected for weeks or even months. Executive Manufacturing Dashboard Example Here is an example of an Executive Dashboard for a manufacturing business. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="2560"] Example of an Executive Dashboard for a Manufacturing Business[/caption] You can find hundreds of additional examples here. Who Uses This Type of Dashboard Report ? The typical users of this type of dashboard report are: CEOs, COOs, CFOs and Board Members. Other Dashboard Report s Often Used in Conjunction with Executive Manufacturing Dashboards Progressive Executive Departments sometimes use several different Executive Manufacturing Dashboards, along with profit & loss reports, balance sheets, cash flow statements and other management and control tools. Where Does the Data for Analysis Originate From? The Actual (historical transactions) data typically comes from enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems like: Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) Finance, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (D365 BC), Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Sage Intacct, Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage 500, Sage X3, SAP Business One, SAP ByDesign, Acumatica, Netsuite and others. In analyses where budgets or forecasts are used, the planning data most often originates from in-house Excel spreadsheet models or from professional corporate performance management (CPM/EPM) solutions. What Tools are Typically used for Reporting, Planning and Dashboards? Examples of business software used with the data and ERPs mentioned above are:
  • Native ERP report writers and query tools
  • Spreadsheets (for example Microsoft Excel)
  • Corporate Performance Management (CPM) tools (for example Solver)
  • Dashboards (for example Microsoft Power BI and Tableau)
Corporate Performance Management (CPM) Cloud Solutions and More Examples Learn More About Solver CPM For Manufacturing