Manufacturer Uses Power Platform to Improve Shop Floor Productivity

Our client had a robust cutting process, but all of it was logged by hand, and overseen by the shop floor workers doing the work. Once they finished a paper report, they duplicated the effort by manually re-creating the same data in an Excel file.

On average, around 24 hours per week went to manually and repetitively entering log data into Excel. And because data was shared on paper, some of it ended up inconsistent, inaccurately entered, or missing entirely.

• Entirely manual, paper-based processes to update every report
• Inconsistent, inaccurate reports that were often missing key data
• No management visibility into shop floor productivity

After a review, Kumo Partners and the client agreed that a custom Power Apps solution on the Power Platform was the fastest route to efficiency.

• Shop floor logging app (Power Apps): workers select from pre-populated panel information and log their cutting data directly, with no paper logs to re-key.
• Productivity scorecard (Power BI): the data captured on the floor feeds a Power BI Productivity Scorecard report that lets the client improve efficiency across the organization.

• 76% return on investment
• 90% reduction in manual data entry
• 75 hours saved per month
• $3,840 per month in cost savings per employee