Production and material tracking dashboard in Power BI: material use per tonne and by product

The problem: nobody knew the use per tonne

Production reports give tonnes produced and warehouse reports give kilograms used, but management's real question is how much material each tonne of paper took and whether that number is getting better or worse month by month.

Without it, each product's cost is calculated with old ratios and a rising usage of one item goes unnoticed until year end.

What the tracking dashboard shows

One page with linked filtering:

• Cards for reel output, roll output, raw material use, material use per tonne of reel and scrap receipts.
• A monthly comparison of reel output, roll output and material use, with kilograms per tonne under each month.
• Clicking a month filters the whole page; double-clicking opens a window with that month's output, use, cutting waste and cutting yield.
• A per-item table with quantity, use per tonne, weight share and value, split into raw materials, consumables and scrap.
• Clicking any item shows its monthly use per tonne and each product's share of its use.
• An output and use table by product with kilograms and value of material per tonne.

How the metrics are calculated

Definitions:

• Material use per tonne: kilograms of raw material divided by tonnes of reel produced on the paper machine; consumables and spare parts are excluded.
• Use per product: material use recorded on that product's confirmations divided by its output.
• Cutting waste: reels used in cutting minus rolls produced; cutting yield is rolls divided by reels.
• Scrap receipts: type 1 and type 2 scrap returned to the warehouse and fed back into pulping.

How to use the dashboard

A suggested monthly routine:

• Compare each month's red number with the ceiling for use per tonne.
• Double-click a high-use month and look at its cutting waste and yield.
• In the item table, find the item whose use per tonne went up and click it.
• Look at the product breakdown to see which product the increase comes from.

Decisions taken with this dashboard

A few common decisions:

• Set a ceiling on material use per tonne with a monthly alert when it is exceeded.
• Update each product's cost and selling price with that product's actual material use.
• Check the quality and moisture of deliveries of any raw material whose use per tonne has risen.
• Compare recipes of high-use and low-use months to find the cause.

Technical build in Power BI

Data is read from Rahkaran production confirmations, material use per confirmation and warehouse issues and receipts with a SQL query; item nature tells whether each record is a reel, a roll, a raw material or a consumable.

Views are built in Power BI, and instead of tooltips the details open in a window on double-click so they stay readable on a meeting-room screen.

Frequently asked questions