Data Warehousing for Manufacturing Companies Using Sage 100

This article will zoom in on the impact of a data warehouse solution for manufacturing companies using Sage 100.

Corporations use data to set and meet goals in order to stay on budget. A data warehouse is a powerful tool to organize and strengthen Business Intelligence (BI) analyses. A data warehouse (DW) is a multi-dimensional database that can store a large amount of data, collected from an array of sources within a company and utilized to guide management decisions. The information in data warehouses can be used for things such as scheduled budgeting, reporting, and dashboards or higher level performance data questions. They structure around the subject, so they focus the interaction through organizing by topic such as customer, product, or sales. As a manufacturing company using Sage 100, you may want to know the impact a data warehouse solution has for your company.

If you’re still unfamiliar with the concept of a DW, let me give you the 101 on data warehousing. DWs are digital storage spaces. Like external hard drives provide users the space to house multiple file types and software, DWs offer users a singular space for diverse operational and transactional data types. How do you know if you need a DW? If you are beginning to experience the torture of manual documentation, on top of data analysis and management with Microsoft Excel, which can result in errors and/or higher costs in terms of time and money, it is probably a good time to consider DW as a BI solution. Additionally, if you are experiencing a slow Sage 100 server due to regular data queries, a warehouse provides stability and high performance without slowing down Sage 100. Also, if your team needs reports and information from not only Sage 100, but also from other data sources, such as sales or payroll systems, a DW will be a great investment. Furthermore, a DW can deliver a database that aggregates your different data sources while simplifying and refining your analytical processes.

If you’re a Sage 100 user, it would also be helpful to know that Sage 100 is an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software that provides a manufacturing management module. If you want to avoid pricey delays due to scheduling problems or materials purchasing and enable smarter purchasing and production planning, Sage 100 is a good fit for your company.  Sage 100’s manufacturing management module helps your’ purchasing and production managers to take ownership, gain more visibility, and plan more efficiently, so your manufacturing business stays on track. Sage 100 also aids in estimating the need for an inventory item with combined product build times, lead times, and supply and demand functions. With the manufacturing management module, users are able to simply create and maintain a detailed bill of the components and various charges that make up the finished items. The module also allows users to develop schedules, issue work orders, and track costs associated with their manufacturing process. If your manufacturing company wants to grow revenue and be more profitable, your business must be able to adapt to change. Sage 100 can also help you manage that.

Some key qualities that Sage 100 has include efficient and automated processes, collaborative processes, and strong customer relationship management. Manufacturing companies need to streamline operations for growth, and Sage 100 will help you maintain control even as you distribute processes and decision-making and eliminate overhead. Organizations need to implement collaborative processes across suppliers, departments, and customers. Sage 100 allows cross-functional collaborating using common data and processes. Lastly, manufacturing companies are discovering that becoming customer-centric is key. Your organization isn’t the only one changing; your customers’ organizations are changing as well.

Knowing the benefits of Sage, in terms of manufacturing, can better improve the way you use a DW. Any size organization using Sage 100 can truly benefit from DW manufacturing capabilities. Leading DW vendors build their software so that it can house and integrate multiple data sources for a consolidated database. Data integration practices and data cleaning are specific to DWs, producing the heart of consolidation. Your company can keep financial data, inventory data, and other company data in one space. Data is replicated and transformed from its original space into an accessible data storage. DW only require two actions to access your data – the replication of the data and accessing that data. DWs are structured with the business end user in mind.

If you are not sure whether your company needs a DW, consider the various types of data your organization will have to manage. It may not be impossible to manage all of your different data separately, but it can be challenging, especially in terms of consolidated analyses for a better understanding of the overall success of your organization. Many companies consolidate their data in Excel, but a DW can eliminate errors, wasted time, money and energy, and tedious manual documentation.

Data will always be an important factor when it comes to organizational decision making for manufacturing companies. Therefore, Data Warehouses are becoming more prevalent and powerful, especially in terms of consolidating your company data source information for richer analytics into one high performing space without needing IT to manage the software. A data warehouse can offer your manufacturing company exactly that. Solver offers a fully built, configurable Microsoft SQL Server-based data warehouse stand-alone and as part of the comprehensive suite of BI modules and would be happy to answer questions and generally review BI360’s easy-to-use Data Warehouse solution that enables collaborative, streamlined decision-making capabilities for your Sage 100 experience as a manufacturing company.

Solver enables world-class decisions with BI360, a leading web-based CPM suite made up of budgeting, reporting, dashboards, and data warehousing, delivered through a web portal. Solver is reinventing CPM with its next generation solution. BI360 empowers business users with modern features including innovative use of Excel in the model design process. If you’re interested in learning more, our team is excited to hear about your organizational needs and goals.