Darekon

From Excel reporting to Power BI reporting

Darekon’s reporting was previously based on Excel, the data of which was generated from data in the production management system as required. When the new ERP was deployed, the aim was to get relevant KPIs directly from the ERP system, but these proved to be insufficient. As the company’s turnover and size grew, including through acquisitions, and as operations expanded, the way to produce KPI reports was no longer agile enough, and did not meet the factories’ needs for up-to-date information on their operations or for the development of metrics. 

In September 2023, Pinja was selected to deliver a new data warehouse and reporting solution.  The basis for the renewal was Darekon’s requirements definition, which identified the needed reports, the data they should contain, and the desired functionality of the reporting system. First, a data warehouse was created in Azure cloud to store the data from the ERP system. The data warehouse was first introduced in Finland. Before Christmas, Power BI reports were introduced on sales performance and forecasts, factory profitability, delivery reliability, and production efficiency. Poland and Sweden will join the system at the beginning of 2024.

A common reporting system makes KPI metrics available to all

The automation and consistency of KPI reports provided by the new reporting system serve all Darekon production sites in a transparent way. “The reporting needs are essentially the same, but there may be small differences between countries and sites. The important thing, however, is that the reports bring transparency to everyone: The Gdansk plant can now look at Klaukkala’s data, and the data are comparable. Al sites use the same KPI reports and metrics”, says Tommi Tirkkonen, Business Controller at Darekon. Transparency in reporting also contributes to the realization of Darekon’s values: The reports monitor customer satisfaction, business profitability, production efficiency, and, in the future, staff satisfaction. 

Practical reporting needs may arise from different parts of the organization. As an example, Tirkkonen explains how the needs of the project were initially discussed with factory management. The management of one factory wanted a report that would help them see on a daily basis how much work was to be done at the beginning of the week and how much work was left over from the previous week. The need was discussed internally in August, and the report was completed by Pinja in December. According to Tirkkonen, the reporting has immediately helped, for example, to forecast sales and manage customer data better. “The use of ready-made reports has increased our thirst: Reporting is done piece by piece, and new reports are introduced as they are completed”, says Tirkkonen.