A Global Electronics Manufacturing Services Provider

Unifying Three Terabytes of Siloed Manufacturing Data into One Enterprise Analytics Platform

A global electronics manufacturing services provider operated with fragmented reporting tools, a legacy ERP dating back to 1997, and approximately three terabytes of data spread across 89,000 tables, creating significant operational bottlenecks. Allata designed and implemented a unified data platform with governed pipelines, standardized reporting, and actionable analytics across purchasing and production floor operations. The 20-week engagement targeted a 50% increase in self-service BI adoption and measurably faster time to insights, positioning the client to close its technology gap in an industry where 80% of manufacturers are increasing tech investment by over 20%.

Services

Data & Insights

Industry

Manufacturing

OVERVIEW

A global EMS provider partnered with Allata to replace a fragmented, legacy-dependent data environment with a modern, governed enterprise data platform. Over a 20-week engagement, Allata delivered end-to-end data pipelines, a medallion architecture on Microsoft Fabric, and a prioritized suite of dashboards spanning purchasing analytics and production floor quality metrics.

The platform consolidated data from multiple ERP instances and reporting tools into a single source of truth, enabling both corporate leadership and site teams to make faster, more confident decisions.

Targeted 50% increase in self-service BI usage within six months of platform launch
Platform architected for 99.9% uptime to support global manufacturing operations
Eliminated redundant dashboard versions and reduced manual data handling across sites

THE CHALLENGE

The client operated a BAAN 5C ERP deployed in 1997, supported by on-premises SQL Server ODS and multiple disparate reporting tools. This produced approximately three terabytes of data scattered across 89,000 tables—with no unified way to access or analyze it.

Individual sites built their own dashboards, calculations, and data pipelines, producing inconsistent metrics, duplicated effort, and reconciliation challenges. Users spent significant time merging data from multiple sources and exporting to Excel for basic analysis.

Gaps in data ownership and inconsistent management practices led to missing or duplicated records. Without confidence in reported numbers, data-driven decision-making stalled across the organization.

The combination of manual workarounds, tool fragmentation, and growing demand for analytics strained available resources, creating delivery bottlenecks that slowed the entire business.

Sites used different reporting tools and standards, preventing a unified view of purchasing or quality performance
Inconsistent business rules and data definitions required manual workarounds across teams
The existing technology stack could not support advanced analytics or scale insights globally
An industry where 80% of manufacturers are increasing tech investment by over 20% left the organization at growing competitive risk

OUR SOLUTION

Allata structured the 20-week engagement across three workstreams: discovery and future-state vision, platform architecture and governance design, and platform implementation. The team conducted interviews and collaborative workshops with business and IT stakeholders to map pain points, define KPIs—including data accuracy, dashboard adoption, and time to insights—and align on the platform’s success criteria.

Allata implemented a three-layer medallion architecture (bronze, silver, gold) on Microsoft Fabric, using Azure Lakehouse for flexible data processing and warehouses optimized for analytical queries. Separate lakehouses domain enforced access controls at the item level, embedding governance directly into the platform design. A semantic layer connected governed data to business-ready dashboards.

The scope was defined through direct feedback from site teams, executive prioritization sessions, and Allata’s technical analysis of source system complexity, ensuring every dashboard addressed validated user requirements.

Collaborative stakeholder exercises balanced lower-risk operational wins with high-value, complex analytics to define the MVP reporting scope
Provided real-time visibility into work order status, aging by production stage, and bottleneck identification—enabling teams to prioritize orders and manage on-time delivery from a single source of truth
Consolidated global spend, supplier performance, PPV analysis, and geographic supplier mapping into a unified suite—standardizing metrics, incorporating previously missing spend categories, and automating manual supply-base mapping
Established standardized, repeatable processes for data collection, transformation, and reporting—reducing single-resource dependency and manual workarounds
Implemented data domains, lineage, quality rules, catalog, steward workflows, and access controls to build data trust and support compliance

THE RESULT

Allata delivered a unified data platform with governed end-to-end data pipelines, a medallion architecture on Microsoft Fabric, and a prioritized suite of dashboards covering purchasing analytics and production floor quality. The platform replaced fragmented, legacy-dependent reporting with a single governed environment designed to scale across the client’s global operations.

The engagement defined clear KPIs and feedback loops—including data accuracy, dashboard adoption, user satisfaction (NPS), and time to issue resolution—to track platform performance and drive continuous improvement.

Targeted 50% increase in self-service BI usage within six months of launch
Platform designed for 99.9% uptime to support global manufacturing operations
Reduced manual data handling by consolidating reporting tools and eliminating redundant dashboard versions across sites
Shortened time to insights by replacing Excel-based workarounds with standardized, drill-through-enabled dashboards
Established data quality scorecards, steward workflows, and access controls to rebuild data trust and support regulatory compliance

technology

Allata designed the client’s data platform on the Microsoft ecosystem, selecting each component based on fit-for-purpose analysis, existing team skills, and future-state requirements.

Microsoft Fabric: Lakehouse (bronze and silver layers) and Warehouse (gold layer)
Power BI: Semantic models and dashboard delivery
Azure: Cloud infrastructure, storage, and compute
CI/CD Pipelines: Automated data testing, version control, and deployment (DataOps)
Data Catalog & Lineage Tooling: Governance, discoverability, and compliance support