Written by Nils R. | Mar 30, 2021 7:00:00 AM
What is an
Inventory Analysis Dashboard for Manufacturing Companies
? Inventory Dashboards are considered operational analysis tools and are used by COO’s, production managers, and inventory managers to monitor monthly inventory changes. Some of the main functionality in this type of dashboard is that it offer analysis from four different perspectives, including: 1) Change in inventory value per month, year and item category, 2) Annual change in inventory value compared to prior year, 3) Monthly trend in inventory value versus last year, and 4) Monthly figures for available quantity, sold quantity, net stock quantity (backlog) and percent. You find an example of this type of dashboard below.
Purpose of
Inventory Analysis Dashboards Manufacturing companies use Inventory Analysis Dashboards to give managers an important big picture view of changes in inventory and monthly trends. When used as part of good business practices in Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) and operations departments, an organization can improve its strategies as it relates to production volumes, inventory, sales and pricing, and it can reduce the chances that the business runs into regular inventory-related problems.
Example of a
Inventory Analysis Dashboard Here is an example of a Inventory Analysis Dashboard with trends, quantity and value metrics. You can also try the interactive version of this dashboard example
here (use the <> buttons on the bottom of the dashboard to navigate to page 4 to see the Inventory example). [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="2560"]
Example of an Inventory Analysis Dashboard for Manufacturing Companies[/caption] You can find hundreds of additional examples
here
Who Uses This Type of
Dashboard
? The typical users of this type of dashboard are: COOs, inventory managers, sales managers, purchasing managers.
Other Reports Often Used in Conjunction with
Inventory Analysis Dashboards Progressive Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) and operations departments sometimes use several different Inventory Analysis Dashboards, along with inventory reports, sales forecasts, production plans, sales dashboards, backlog reports, open order reports 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
