Using production data with ad hoc reporting tools

Data is the lifeblood of any good decision-making process. With the rise of big data and advanced analytics, there has been an explosion in the amount of data collected in manufacturing, allowing for quick and accurate insights. The way businesses handle, store, analyse, report, and consume data will be critical to their success.

What are Data Warehouses and Data Marts?

Data marts empower users to access specific data they need to view most often. Users are not accessing the source database, alleviating any performance concerns that long-running queries could introduce when accessing source data directly.

  • data warehouse is a centralised repository that collects data from various sources across an enterprise, such as ERP, legacy, or external systems and applications. Data warehouses provide analysis, reporting, and other business intelligence (BI) functions to aid manufacturers in making data-driven decisions.
  • data mart is a subset of a data warehouse that comprises structured data on a single subject or business line, dividing datasets into smaller, more manageable bits to increase data aggregation and agility without the need to retrieve data extracts from a centralised corporate database.

See “Data Warehouses and Data Marts: An Overview for Manufacturers“.

4 Reasons a Data Mart is Needed

Why not just pull data directly from the operational database for ad-hoc reporting? Because an in-house solution:

  • Requires specialised knowledge of the database design
  • Could impact the performance of your Manufacturing Execution System (MES)
  • May break after MES updates
  • Requires internal management of custom ETL (extract, transform, load) and staging solutions

For these reasons, the new Acumence Data Mart module has been created. It is a more robust solution with a lower total cost of ownership.

Acumence responds to demand

To respond to the industry’s need for ad hoc reporting, Flexware Innovation announces the new Data Mart module available for Acumence, a software application used by can manufacturers to detect, analyse, and eliminate production losses.

“We are implementing the Data Mart module across our plants with plans to integrate into our existing enterprise data warehouse solution. We’re looking forward to seeing how a standard approach will impact the entire organisation.” – Acumence Data Mart Beta Tester

Acumence Data Marts

The Acumence Data Mart module includes a synchronisation service that automatically extracts, transforms, and loads Acumence plant data into local data marts.

The Acumence Data Mart presents the data from the Acumence database in a purpose-built, pre-aggregated format that is both easy to use and high-performance. The data is accessible directly from reporting tools and extract processes for integration into enterprise data warehouses.

“Flexware’s Data Mart module lets us use plant floor data from Acumence for ad hoc reporting and analysis in Power BI.” – Acumence Data Mart Beta Tester

More Features Coming!

Acumence is currently found in 22 countries and is available in desktop, mobile, and web interfaces. Future versions are being planned, which will:

  • Provide administrative features to facilitate master data harmonisation across plants.
  • Automatically sync local plant data to an enterprise data mart that utilises a similar star-schema design. This will ease consumption by the enterprise data warehouse solution and add enterprise-wide ad hoc reporting ability.

Jason Toschlog, Flexware Innovation’s Vice President of Products, noted, “The module is designed for decision makers who don’t want or need to understand the complexities of data sources. With this module, they can quickly access specific data, search for trends, drill into underlying data, and build and adjust reports for deeper business insights.”

The Acumence Team wants to give a big “Thank You” to all who helped beta test the new Acumence Data Mart module.

Contact the Acumence team at Flexware for pricing for this Data Mart add-on module.

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