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By Sudhi Ranjan Das
The concept of digital dashboards was first introduced by Microsoft in 1999. Since then, the concept has gained immense popularity. And, now digital dashboards constitute a major segment of the Information Technology trade. A lot has been written about dashboards, their importance, applications etc, but there are very few resources that provide information on applications or widgets that collectively constitute a dashboard.
A dashboard is essentially a reporting system which helps in monitoring processes. Essentially, the task of a dashboard is to extract vital information from a live database and present it through gauges and charts. The information is updated constantly, so that, at any given point of time the information displayed on the dashboard is in sync with the current instance of the database.
Apparently, real-time gauges and real-time charts are the key components of a digital dashboard. So, I will indulge in a discourse on the right kind of real-time chart or gauge that must be used for monitoring a specific business related KPI. Business management dashboards or executive dashboards are found on corporate intranet sites or in distributed desktop applications. The factors that are of main concern to a business's operation are inventory, prevailing market prices, order processing, service requests and purchase. These are the factors that would normally be monitored by a top level operations executive.
Angular gauges are ideal for monitoring the inventory levels of top selling products. These can be used in conjunction with bulb gauges to simulate the effect of "Check Engine" light on a car dashboard. You can position a bulb gauge strategically along side each inventory monitoring gauge and program it, so that it glows each time the inventory falls to dangerously low levels.
It is essential for businesses to keep an eye on external market factors such as prevailing prices of raw materials. Futures prices tend to change rapidly, so it is advantageous to include a real-time line chart on a dashboard, for monitoring the price of raw materials. Real-time horizontal gauges that use a slider or LED type lights to indicate the current value, are ideally suited for monitoring order processing and service requests. Purchase is an important part of business operations, because if organization's requirements are not identified and fulfilled, then overall operations will be hampered. Real-time column charts can be used to keep the purchasing department informed about the organization's requirements.
In this article I have suggested ways of reporting various KPIs related to operations management. In future articles I will provide suggestions on building dashboards for other purposes.
Click Here to check out some samples of digital dashboards and learn more about the implementation of real-time charts and gauges.
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