Join Crossroads RMC
& the InforIBMi-Series Community

Business Insights Made Easy With Dashboards

Learn how easy it is to create and use dashboards to gain valuable insights into the data you use daily to run your business.

Join our webinar: Thursday, May 2, 2024 at 12:00pm Noon (US/Central) for 1 hour.

Presenter: Anthony Etzel

To enhance effective team communication and streamline data management, it's crucial for all team members to use a common language and work from a shared playbook. When decisions are based on disparate data sources, such as individual spreadsheets or isolated data repositories, it can hinder effective communication.

For manufacturers who deal with extensive data daily, keeping track of key departmental metrics can be challenging. This is where Crossroads RMC's Analytics Dashboard solution can make a significant difference. Our Analytics Dashboard is designed to simplify tasks by consolidating essential information into a single, easily accessible location, allowing you to access critical real-time data effortlessly.

With our powerful dashboards, you can achieve the following:

We’ve all heard author and management consultant Peter Drucker’s famous quote “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”  

What’s the right way to manage “It” though? Is it enough to put the data in the hands of the responsible manager and wait for change to occur? Does the manager have a pulse on everything that went into those numbers?

Your numbers tell a story, but there is a lot of...

LX User Group Event

Tuesday, May 10 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm ET
Infor Partner Spotlight | Crossroads RMC

Come hear recent success stories with Crossroads RMC's software MES Ultimate, Analytics Dashboard, and Avalara's interface, along with consulting services that focus on a joint upgrade and MES project with Infor.

Companies are collecting oceans of data, and struggle with transforming it into usable information. Most businesses focus on two methods of sharing data - the report and the dashboard. While these two terms mean many things to many people, it is important to understand what these terms mean and how the report and dashboard have similar features but they are not the same thing.  

What is a Report?

A report is meant to be used to gather detailed intelligence on the operations within an organization, thus a report can be either very broadly covering a wide scope of related information, or narrowly focusing on details of a single item, purpose, or event. All of this information, while presented in a report, is meant to be a snapshot in time.

Quite often, a report is built within the ERP system itself and often is constrained by the graphical and user limitations within the ERP. More often than not, large amounts of data are exported to Excel where added features allow for better manipulation of the data to a format that is digestible by users. Regardless, the data is only valid for that moment and time.

What is a Dashboard?

A dashboard is a graphical interface that provides at-a-glance views revolving around answering a central question. For example, an executive may ask you for up-to-the-minute details on "how the business is doing?". The answer to that question is as complex as the organizational structure of the company, but it is probably very simply measured with approximately 10 metrics. Those 10 metrics can likely be analyzed in chart form, and can and should be combined into one chart when the numbers are relatable or are on a similar scale. All these things should be considered when building a dashboard.

Dashboards, similar to the one in your vehicle, display critical data. Imagine driving down the road and having to push a bunch of buttons to find out how much fuel you have left, or having to pull over and pop the hood to check the oil pressure. It would be dangerous and a waste of your precious time. Your car's control panel or dashboard displays the most crucial information in an easy-to-use, graphical way.

How do Dashboards and Reports differ?

Spreadsheets are often the tool of choice for many organizations to store and arrange information for financial planning, analytics, compliance, and more. Ironically, for many business processes that involve managing data, it creates the exact opposite effect––silos of information and inefficiency. And because it stores organizational data in a readily sharable way, there is a high risk of exposing confidential information.

Read this Infor best practice guide to discover the top five business processes that a modern data and analytics architecture can automate and deliver far more value than spreadsheet-driven techniques.

Infor Best Practice Guide: 5 Ways Modern Analytics Reduces Spreadsheet Risk and Inefficiency

Manufacturing Goals: develop high-quality products and services in response to the demands of the market, improve efficiency and maximize capacity utilization.

Operations Goals: utilize resources, labor, material, and equipment effectively in order to match supply and demand.

Finance Goals: analyze revenue growth opportunities, control costs, and maximize profitability.

So, who WINS?

In order to communicate effectively as a team, everyone needs to speak the same language and operate off the same playbook. If decisions are made based on the data or the view of data that individuals are maintaining through their own spreadsheets or other data silos, then communication is negatively impacted.

Manufacturers need to review large amounts of data every day, making it difficult to keep track of key metrics within your department.

That’s where Crossroads RMC’s Analytics Dashboard solution comes in. Our Analytics Dashboard was developed to make tasks easier by putting all of the key information in one convenient location so you can view all of your crucial data in real-time. 

With powerful dashboards, you can...