Case Study: Kennametal achieves higher factory output and actionable IoT insights with Microsoft Power BI

Kennametal embraces Microsoft cloud strategy to drive business innovation

Kennametal, a global manufacturer with more than 10,000 employees, faced the challenge of modernizing its factories and gaining real-time visibility into shop‑floor processes to support its “factories of the future” initiative. The company adopted a Microsoft cloud strategy and used Microsoft Power BI to turn IoT and production data into actionable insights while migrating key systems like SAP and business applications to Azure.

Using Microsoft Power BI together with Azure, Azure IoT Hub, Dynamics 365, and Microsoft 365, Kennametal deployed IoT sensors, centralized data, and built dashboards for operators and executives. The Microsoft Power BI–driven solution helped cut press setup times by 50%, increase press availability by 50% (leading to the company’s most productive month in certain departments), migrate more than 90% of business systems to Azure, reduce IT capital spend nearly 50%, and shrink disaster‑recovery time from 72 to 20 hours.

Kennametal