Transforming Performance Visibility with Custom Dashboards

Industry: Manufacturing (Custom Millwork & Cabinetry)
Engagement Focus: KPI and Dashboard Development across departments

Overview

A Cabinetry & Millwork company approached TFG with a common but complex problem: they lacked a consistent, accessible way to measure performance across critical departments, including Factory, Sales, Design/Estimating, HR, and Operations. While the financial metrics were reserved for the owners, there was no unified dashboard that the broader management team could use for decision-making and visibility. To complicate things, a new and diverse management team had just come together, bringing strong intelligence and high initiative but not necessarily aligned skills or shared systems of accountability. There was a clear appetite for clarity — but no shared platform to support it.

Business Challenges

Lack of Cross-Departmental Visibility
Inconsistent Engagement and Skill Gaps
Insufficient Project Structure

Objectives

Develop department-specific dashboards:

Create accessible, real-time KPI dashboards for Factory, Sales, Estimating/Design, HR, and Operations to improve performance tracking and strategic alignment.

Empower management through data visibility:

Provide the new and diverse management team with tools and insights to make informed decisions, enhance accountability, and drive operational improvements.

Establish a scalable reporting framework

Build a sustainable, organization-wide reporting system (via Power BI) that could be adopted company-wide and monitored at bi-weekly management meetings.

Solutions Implemented

Custom Power BI Dashboards:

Built department-specific dashboards starting with Factory, driving quick adoption and operational visibility.

Tiger Team Activation:

Formed a cross-functional internal team to oversee rollout and maintain project momentum.

Executive Re-Engagement & CRM Rollout:

Re-aligned project with leadership, replaced underperforming sales lead, and recommended CRM implementation.

Training & Change Management:

Delivered Power BI training resources and encouraged company-wide onboarding to improve data literacy.

Key Outcomes

• Delivered custom Power BI dashboards tailored to departmental needs, starting with Factory
• Strengthened leadership engagement by encouraging executive participation and accountability
• Improved operational clarity with better visibility into key performance metrics across teams
• Fostered a culture of data-driven decision-making, enabling managers to lead with insights
• Set the foundation for scalable reporting, aligning tools and processes for long-term growth
• Transformed a tactical project into strategic alignment, helping the organization realign priorities and processes