Custom Reporting Dashboard for Operations Team
Operations team spent 8 hours weekly compiling Excel reports from 5 different systems to track KPIs
Context
Distribution company with operations team tracking 15 key performance indicators: order processing time, inventory turnover, shipping costs, customer satisfaction, supplier performance. Data existed in 5 separate systems: order management, warehouse management, accounting, shipping, CRM. Operations manager spent 8 hours weekly: exporting data from each system, manipulating in Excel, creating charts and summaries. Reports were static—same format every week, but underlying data changed daily. By time reports created (Friday), data was already 3-4 days old. No real-time visibility into operations—team reacted to problems after they occurred rather than preventing them.
The Real Problem
Manual report compilation was time-consuming and error-prone—Excel formulas could break, data export formats changed, human error in copy-paste operations. Data latency: reports used week-old data, problems identified too late to address effectively. No interactive analysis—static reports couldn't be filtered or drilled down into specific time periods or categories. Off-the-shelf BI tools were expensive ($20K+ annually) and required IT support to set up data connections. Operations team lacked technical skills to build custom dashboards or use complex BI tools. Data silos: each system had separate database, no unified view of operations. Report requests: leadership frequently requested ad-hoc reports that took additional 4-6 hours to create. No alerts or notifications—team only learned about problems when reviewing weekly reports.