Power BI and Power Apps: The Driving Force Behind Palletower’s Data-Driven Decisions

At Palletower, we use data-driven decision-making to stay competitive in the market. This is why we have adopted innovative technologies from the Microsoft Power Platform, such as Power BI, Power Apps and Power Automate, to optimise our inventory management and decision-making process.

In this blog post, we will take a closer look at how Palletower leverages Power BI and Power Apps to gain real-time visibility into inventory levels, production schedules, and delivery times, and make data-driven decisions that improve the overall quality and availability of products for our customers. By providing detailed information about how Palletower uses these tools to make data-driven decisions, this post will demonstrate the company’s commitment to using innovation and automation to improve the customer experience and provide insights to other businesses that may be looking to improve their inventory management.

Real-Time Visibility into the Assembly Process: How Power Apps and Power BI Work Together

Power Apps is an essential tool for Palletower’s inventory management and automation processes. One of the key ways we use Power Apps is to automate the cage assembly production line. By using Power Apps to capture real-time data during the assembly process, we can ensure that all information is accurate, up-to-date, and easily accessible. This data is then synced with the cloud, making it available for immediate review and analysis in custom Power BI reports and dashboards.

We have streamlined operations and reduced errors by tracking each cage with a unique barcode. This real-time visibility allows us to quickly identify and address any production issues. Additionally, scanning each cage enables quality control checks before the cages are delivered to our customers, ensuring only the highest quality roll cages reach them.

We use Power Apps to track the progress of each cage assembly from start to finish, including information such as the production line, the assembly team, and the date and time of completion. This data is then used to create custom Power BI reports and dashboards that provide real-time visibility into the assembly process, making it easy to identify any issues or bottlenecks that may be impacting production.

With accurate production data of both in stock and projected availability, we can schedule reliable delivery plans of the completed roll cages based on real-time data, ensuring that our customers receive their orders on time. This is critical for many of our customers who rely on a just-in-time supply chain, where timely delivery is essential to their business operations.

Transparent Inventory Management: Power BI Dashboards for Customers

With Power BI, we can easily create visualizations and reports that provide insights into inventory levels, production schedules, and delivery times. This enables us to identify patterns and trends that can help us optimize our operations and improve the overall quality and availability of products for customers.

Using Power BI we are able to provide access to bespoke customer dashboards that allow for real-time, transparent availability of roll cage delivery schedules. This means that customers can easily view the status of their deliveries and stay up to date on any changes or updates.  Additionally, using the same report we are able to consolidate POD and Invoices together for easy review and sign-off.

In addition to providing real-time data insights, Power BI also enables us to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) and set alerts for certain thresholds, allowing us to respond quickly to any issues that may arise. This helps us to keep our business running smoothly and optimise our operations.

Custom dashboards allow different departments to easily stay informed about the performance of the business and make data-driven decisions. These dashboards can be customized to meet the specific needs of different teams, such as inventory management, logistics, and sales.

At Palletower, we have found that Microsoft’s idea of empowering “citizen developers” to create data-driven apps and reports within the business, rather than relying solely on developers, has been a key factor in our success. By making their tools accessible to experienced users, we have been able to keep the skills to build these apps and reports in-house, which enables us to continue to develop and adapt our data capture tools as business processes and customer requirements change. We believe that the benefits of this approach are clear, and we are keen to share our success with others.

For more information on any products or services we offer, please visit our Contact Us page or call 0161 905 2233 where we can answer any questions or queries.