Case Study: American Worldwide Manufacturing Services Company achieves better demand forecasting with TekLink’s MS Azure and Power BI solution

Building an accurate system to better plan and forecast the demand using MS Azure and Power BI

TekLink worked with American Worldwide Manufacturing Services Company, an American manufacturer, marketer, and distributor of consumer and commercial products, to improve demand planning and forecasting. The company needed a bi-weekly waterfall report to compare forecast versus actuals over the prior twelve months and rolling twelve months, better track incoming inventory for a second plant in transit, and gain more accurate, time-based status reporting for materials. TekLink used MS Azure and Power BI to support the effort.

TekLink analyzed the client’s business processes and existing data architecture, then enhanced the SQL DW model, Azure Analysis Services models, and Power BI reports. It combined multiple data sources, optimized the model with partitioning to handle large volumes of data, improved query performance and DAX measures, and reduced reliance on AAS resources by creating Power BI reports and enabling direct Excel access to AAS models. As a result, American Worldwide Manufacturing Services Company gained unified reporting in one tool, better visibility into demand and inventory, faster analysis of actuals versus forecasts, and the ability to identify under- and over-forecasted materials across business units, plants, materials, customers, and sales regions.