Power BI for Supply Chain

2 min read

Power BI is useful when a supply-chain decision needs repeatable, shared visibility across time, product, site, supplier or carrier.

A dashboard should help someone decide what needs attention next.

When Power BI helps

Good use cases:

  • service monitoring;
  • inventory exceptions;
  • forecast accuracy;
  • supplier performance;
  • freight cost;
  • warehouse KPIs.

Excel may be better for one-off calculations.

Data model

A supply-chain model might include:

Facts

  • orders;
  • shipments;
  • inventory snapshots;
  • forecasts;
  • receipts;
  • purchase orders.

Dimensions

  • product;
  • supplier;
  • customer;
  • date;
  • site;
  • carrier.

Model grain carefully.

OTIF and service

Define OTIF explicitly.

Questions:

  • order line or order?
  • requested date or confirmed date?
  • full quantity threshold?
  • partial delivery treatment?

Without definition discipline, teams argue about the metric instead of performance.

Inventory

Useful views:

  • value;
  • days of supply;
  • excess;
  • stockout risk;
  • turns;
  • aging.

Focus on exceptions.

Forecast

Show:

  • forecast versus actual;
  • bias;
  • error;
  • product hierarchy;
  • trend.

Avoid averaging percentages incorrectly.

Supplier performance

Possible views:

  • OTIF;
  • lead-time variability;
  • quality;
  • spend;
  • open PO aging.

Logistics

Possible views:

  • carrier service;
  • lane cost;
  • transit time;
  • expedited freight;
  • claims.

Drilldowns and exceptions

Useful dashboards allow users to move:

company → region → site → product/supplier/order.

But do not create drill paths nobody uses.

Portfolio project

Build a dashboard around one question.

Example:

Which inventory items create the largest service and working-capital risk?

Deliver:

  • model;
  • DAX measures;
  • metric definitions;
  • exception page;
  • decision summary.

A good supply-chain dashboard reduces time-to-action. It does not merely visualize everything available.

Related content

Sources