Data-Driven Insights Empower Mining Company to Cut Turnover and Boost Productivity

High Turnover and Data Silos

An international leader in ethylene glycol production faced a critical issue: high employee turnover due to excessive overtime and burnout. The company, handling over 3.5 million MTA through production and supply partners, specifically struggled with:

• Inability to effectively track and manage overtime
• Fragmented data infrastructure across SAP, Salesforce, and Excel
• Over reliance on Excel for data consolidation
• Lack of internal resources for sophisticated business intelligence

These factors created a perfect storm of data disparity that not only hampered operational efficiency, but dramatically cut into workforce retention.

A Power BI-backed Managed Data Service

In order to retain their workforce by eliminating burnout, the company needed the ability to view and understand utilization data in real-time. They turned to Blue Margin for a comprehensive Managed Data Service solution, which included:

1. Custom Power BI dashboard development
   • Consolidated data from multiple sources (SAP, Salesforce, Excel)
   • Provided a single, coherent view of operations
2. Industry-specific expertise
   • Leveraged 13+ years of experience in manufacturing
   • Offered anonymized examples from 300+ engagements
3. User-centric design
   • Tailored dashboard for various stakeholders (C-suite to plant managers)
   • Focused on overtime tracking and visualization
4. Comprehensive implementation
   • Close collaboration with the client
   • Extensive training on dashboard usage and data interpretation

Improved Retention and Productivity

The implementation of Blue Margin’s Power BI dashboard solution yielded impressive and almost immediate impacts:

Dramatic Reduction in Turnover

• Arizona plant turnover rate dropped from 25-30% to 10-12%

Significant Productivity Boost

• Arizona plant: 30% improvement in man hours per ton (MHPT)
• Minnesota plant: 10% improvement in production

Shift to Proactive Decision-Making

• Real-time insights enabled better anticipation of issues
• Visual data presentation facilitated quick understanding and decision making

Enhanced Data Management

• Centralized data from multiple sources
• Reduced manual data handling and associated errors

Key Takeaways: Data as a Competitive Advantage

By partnering with Blue Margin, this mining company turned scattered data into a powerful tool for improving employee retention, boosting productivity, and driving operational excellence. The success of this project underscores the importance of:

1. Comprehensive data management solutions
2. Industry-specific expertise in data analytics
3. User-centric design in business intelligence tools
4. The shift from reactive to proactive decision-making