The company name, data and information shown are fictional; the dashboard structure and logic come from a real project.
Paper machine production calendar in Power BI: product changeovers, setup and the cost of each change
A production planning dashboard that shows seven months of paper machine output on one page: each cell a day, each colour a product and each black line a changeover, and measures what each changeover costs in output, waste and downtime.
- Industry:
- Paper and board making (continuous production)
- Tools:
- Microsoft Power BI · SQL Server · Rahkaran ERP
- Published:
The problem: changeovers had a cost nobody saw
On continuous lines every product change means hours of adjustment, lower output and more waste. That cost is never reported separately and only shows up as a weaker monthly average.
Planners also have no picture of the changeover pattern: how many times the product changed in a month, which changes repeat, and how much weaker the shift with the change is.
What the production calendar shows
One page driven by clicks and double-clicks:
- Each row is a month and each cell a day; the cell is split between that day's production confirmations and each part is coloured by the product of its confirmation.
- Black lines and triangles mark every product change, and a side column counts the changeovers of each month.
- Cards for changeover count, run length of one product, downtime during changeover, output per hour in changeover shifts and waste in changeover shifts.
- Clicking a product in the table highlights only its days; clicking a month name recalculates the cards for that month.
- Double-clicking any day shows its confirmations with the shift recorded on the document, output, waste and setup downtime.
- A table of the most frequent changeovers; clicking a row turns that change red across the calendar.
How the metrics are calculated
Calculation logic:
- Product changeover: wherever the product of a confirmation differs from the previous confirmation on the machine.
- Run length: the time between two changeovers, in days.
- Changeover shift: the shift whose confirmation starts with a changeover; the shift is read from the document itself, not from the time it was entered.
- Output loss and waste in changeover shifts: output per hour and waste percentage of these shifts compared with normal shifts.
How to use the calendar
A suggested weekly routine for the planner and the production manager:
- Compare the changeover column with the monthly ceiling.
- Find cells full of black lines and double-click them to see why several changes happened in a row.
- Review the frequent changeovers table and set a target setup time for the top pair.
- Follow the changeover shift cards to see the effect of setup improvements on output and waste.
Decisions taken with this calendar
A few common decisions:
- Sequence orders of the same grammage and family back to back to reduce changeovers.
- Schedule changeovers in shifts with an experienced supervisor and a full crew.
- Write a setup checklist and target time for the most frequent changeovers.
- Include the changeover cost in the price of small orders.
Technical build in Power BI
Data comes from Rahkaran production confirmations: date, the shift recorded on the document, production order, product, output and waste. Splitting each day between its confirmations and detecting changeovers happen in data preparation.
The calendar is built in Power BI so seven months fit on one page with a double-click detail window and linked filtering.
Frequently asked questions
How is a production calendar different from a production schedule Gantt chart?
A Gantt chart is the plan and the production calendar is what happened. This calendar is built from recorded confirmations and shows which product was made on which day and shift, and what each changeover cost.
Where does the shift come from?
From the shift field on the confirmation itself, not from the time the document was entered, because documents are sometimes entered late.
What data is needed to build this calendar?
Production confirmations with date, shift, product, output and waste. If stoppages are recorded too, setup downtime is calculated as well.
Is the data in this piece real?
No. The company name, products and all figures are fictional; the structure, metrics and calculation logic come from a real project.
Topics
- production calendar
- production planning
- product changeover and setup
- setup time (SMED)
- changeover shift waste
- paper machine dashboard
- Power BI manufacturing dashboard
- Jalali calendar in Power BI