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MDI · Manufacturing Analytics

Manufacturing Analytics

Most plants we walk into have OEE measured by a shift supervisor in Excel, reviewed Monday morning, three days after the decisions that mattered. We build the infrastructure that changes that.

What we hear from operators

The problems we solve

01

OEE exists on paper only

The MES captures downtime. SAP captures production orders. Nobody has connected them. So OEE is calculated at shift end by whoever remembers to fill in the form — and by the time the plant manager sees Monday's report, the week's production schedule is already locked. The data that should drive decisions is arriving three days after they were made.

02

Scrap is measured, not managed

Month-end scrap reports show you what you lost. They don't show you which machine, which shift, which operator, which material batch caused it. You can't act on aggregated scrap data — you can only wince at the number. The fix is granular tracking at the point of production, connected to the ERP batch records.

03

Quality deviations arrive too late

By the time a quality deviation surfaces in the SAP quality module, the batch has already shipped or the downstream impact has already cascaded. The SPC data exists in the quality system. The production parameters exist in the MES. Nobody has built the bridge that catches the pattern before it becomes a non-conformance.

04

Planned vs actual has no teeth

Every plant has a production plan. Most have planned vs actual reporting — weekly, in a spreadsheet, presented in a meeting where everyone nods and moves on. The gap between plan and actual is accepted as normal. It isn't. It's a symptom of a scheduling system that isn't connected to real capacity data.

Who this is for

Who manufacturing analytics is built for

The roles that feel the problem first — and what we build for each of them.

Plant Manager

The problem

OEE is calculated at shift end in Excel and you see Monday's report three days after the decisions that mattered. You are running the plant on numbers that are already history.

What we build

A live OEE dashboard in Power BI Direct Lake over Microsoft Fabric, with the MES and SAP PP connected and the number refreshed every 15 minutes.

15–20% OEE improvement

Operations Director

The problem

Planned vs actual is reviewed weekly in a meeting where the gap is accepted as normal — a symptom of scheduling that is not connected to real capacity.

What we build

Exception alerts through Power Platform the moment production tracks more than 5% off plan, built on the Microsoft Fabric production model.

Live exception alerts before the week closes, not a Monday-morning post-mortem

Quality Manager

The problem

Deviations surface in SAP QM after the batch has shipped, and scrap only appears as a month-end aggregate you cannot trace to a machine, shift or material batch.

What we build

SPC and MES production parameters bridged in Microsoft Fabric, with per-batch scrap traceability surfaced in Power BI within the shift it occurred.

60% faster root-cause analysis

Maintenance Manager

The problem

Maintenance is reactive — there is no runtime or vibration signal until a machine has already stopped and taken the shift target with it.

What we build

Azure IoT Hub and OPC-UA feeds landed into Microsoft Fabric, driving runtime-based maintenance alerts before the breakdown.

up to 40% less unplanned downtime

Measurable outcomes

What changes after implementation

Specific shifts from delivered manufacturing analytics work — the before, and the after.

OEE visibility: end-of-shift lag → real-time or 15-minute refresh

Production teams stop waiting for reports and start managing the shift as it happens. Downtime decisions get made in minutes, not at the next morning's standup.

Scrap traceability: monthly aggregate → per-batch, per-machine, per-shift

Quality teams can isolate the root cause of a scrap event within the same production shift it occurred. Waste walk findings get backed by data, not gut feel.

Planned vs actual: weekly review meeting → live exception alerts

Plant managers get notified when production is tracking more than 5% off plan — while there's still time to respond, not after the week closes.

Month-end production close: 3-5 days → same-day or next morning

When SAP is connected to the MES, month-end production reconciliation stops being a manual exercise. Numbers close automatically against the system of record.

By market

Manufacturing Analytics — market-specific pages

Each page below covers what manufacturing analytics looks like specifically in that market — the local ERP landscape, compliance context, and the operational patterns we actually see there.

Technology stack

SAP PP/PMSAP S/4HANASAP B1Microsoft FabricPower BI Direct LakeAzure IoT HubSCADA integrationOPC-UAPower Platform

Common questions

Manufacturing Analytics — frequently asked

We already have SAP. Why isn't that enough?

SAP captures what happened — production orders, goods receipts, quality results. What it doesn't do well is show you what's happening right now, in a form that a shift supervisor or plant manager can act on in real time. The data is in SAP. The problem is getting it out in a usable form, fast enough to matter. That's the gap we fill.

We have a BI team. Why do we need external help?

Internal BI teams are good at maintaining what exists. They're usually under-resourced to design and build new data infrastructure — especially the integration layer between OT systems (MES, SCADA) and IT systems (SAP, ERP). That integration work requires both industrial domain knowledge and data engineering capability at the same time. That combination is rare internally.

How long before we see something working?

A first working OEE dashboard connected to live production data typically takes 6–8 weeks. That assumes we can access the MES and SAP environments and that the IT team can provide integration credentials within the first two weeks. We don't wait for a perfect data model — we build something useful, show it to the plant team, and iterate from there.

Our MES is old and doesn't have a proper API. Is that a problem?

Older MES systems are common. Most can be integrated via database-level access, ODBC, or file-based export if API access isn't available. We've worked with Wonderware, FactoryTalk, Siemens SIMATIC, and a range of custom-built systems. The integration method changes — the outcome doesn't.

Do we need to replace our ERP first?

No. We work with whatever ERP is in place — SAP B1, SAP S/4, Oracle, Dynamics 365. An ERP migration is a multi-year project. We can build meaningful analytics on top of your current ERP while that migration is planned or underway. The analytics layer we build is ERP-agnostic by design.

Start with a conversation, not a proposal

First call is 30 minutes with Amit. We ask about your systems, your team, and your most pressing operational problem. You get a clear view of where the gap is and what closing it looks like. No slides. No pitch deck. No obligation to proceed.