How Hutchinson Engineering Cut Two Days of Manual Reporting Each Week and Improved On-Time Delivery

How better Business Central reporting helped turn complex manufacturing data into operational insight

Moving an established manufacturing business to a cloud ERP platform creates new opportunities, but it can also expose unexpected reporting challenges.

For Hutchinson Engineering, moving to the SaaS version of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central meant losing the direct SQL database access its IT team had previously relied on. Reports that could once be created through SQL queries and SSRS now required a completely different approach.

The data was still there, but accessing it, organising it and turning it into trusted information had become considerably harder. Excel became the temporary solution, yet spreadsheets quickly created another set of problems: reports were time-consuming to prepare, different departments worked from different versions of the figures and information was already out of date by the time it reached decision-makers.

By implementing Business Central Insights, Hutchinson established a live Power BI reporting environment built specifically for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. The company reduced manual reporting effort, improved confidence in its data and gave leadership clearer visibility into one of its most important performance measures: on-time delivery.

About Hutchinson Engineering

Hutchinson Engineering is a subcontract manufacturing company based in Northern Ireland. It produces a wide variety of components and assemblies for multiple customers, often working with complex, multi-level Bills of Materials, subassemblies and production routes.

Its manufacturing model is not a simple production line where every item passes through the same stages in sequence. Work may move between cutting, folding, fabrication, painting and subcontracted operations, with components sometimes waiting between stages or being grouped with work for other customers.

Some assemblies can contain hundreds of individual parts, each with several routing lines. That complexity creates a large volume of Business Central data and makes it essential to understand where work is, whether each stage is being completed on time and what is causing delays.

Without a reliable reporting layer, identifying those answers was difficult.

When moving to SaaS changed the reporting landscape

Before adopting Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Hutchinson’s IT team was accustomed to working directly with its reporting data. Neville Glenn, IT Manager at Hutchinson Engineering, had a development background and experience building SQL queries and SSRS reports.

Moving to Business Central SaaS removed that direct database access.

As Neville explains:

“We moved to SaaS, and suddenly we couldn’t access the database directly anymore. As an IT person, you’re sitting there thinking: ‘I need information, but I can’t get to it.’”

The company still needed detailed operational and financial reporting, but its established methods no longer applied. Building a new reporting environment internally was possible, but doing so would require the team to understand Business Central’s APIs, relationships and data model while also managing refreshes, security and ongoing maintenance.

The immediate alternative was Excel. Teams extracted information, manipulated it in spreadsheets and circulated reports by email. However, static spreadsheets could not provide the live visibility a complex manufacturing operation required.

“The minute you email it, it’s not live — it’s out of date,” Neville says.

Different departments also began producing their own reports, sometimes using different dates, filters or interpretations. Sales, production and CRM teams could all be reviewing what appeared to be the same KPI while working from different underlying figures.

Robert Walker, Business Improvement Manager at Hutchinson Engineering, describes the result simply:

“We had people looking at different data, trying to get it out of Business Central in their own way. There was no single source of truth.”

Why Excel could not support complex manufacturing reporting

The problem extended beyond version control.

Hutchinson’s manufacturing processes generate a substantial amount of interconnected data. A finished assembly may contain multiple subassemblies, hundreds of parts and several production stages. Some work is completed internally, while other processes are carried out by subcontractors.

A standard report might show that an order was late, but it would not necessarily explain whether the delay occurred during cutting, folding, fabrication, painting, subcontracting or another stage.

“It’s not a straight-line production model,” Robert explains. “Things sit between stages. Without proper reporting, you can’t see where or why things get stuck.”

Manual reporting also created a significant operational burden. Across the business, employees were collectively spending an estimated 40 to 50 hours each week cleaning data, comparing spreadsheets, investigating inconsistencies and preparing reports.

That was time business unit leaders could not spend on process improvement, production performance or customer service.

Reporting had become a task to manage rather than a tool for managing the business.

Finding a reporting platform built for Business Central

Hutchinson explored several options, including Jet Reports and internally developed Power BI dashboards.

Jet Reports served a purpose, but the team found it required considerable experience and did not provide the interactive visual reporting they wanted.

“We looked at Jet, but you need to be quite experienced,” Neville says. “It’s clunky, it’s hard to build, and it wasn’t giving us the visuals we needed.”

Creating everything internally in Power BI would also require significant time. The team would need to extract data through Business Central APIs, create and maintain semantic models, build calculations and ensure every report continued to work as the ERP environment changed.

Business Central Insights provided a more immediate route. Its ready-made Power BI apps already covered Sales, Manufacturing, Finance, Inventory and Purchasing, giving Hutchinson access to structured reports without having to build the reporting foundation first.

“We ultimately chose BCI because it met our needs straight away,” Neville explains. “Given the volume and quality of the reports included, the cost was easy to justify.”

The reports also helped the internal team better understand how Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central data fits together. Robert, who had been developing his own Power BI skills, found that seeing the relationships, measures and filters within the Insights reports improved his understanding of the underlying system.

Making on-time delivery visible

On-time delivery is one of Hutchinson Engineering’s most important KPIs.

Several of its largest customers review delivery performance in quarterly meetings, meaning late orders can affect customer satisfaction, commercial relationships and future contract renewals. Delivering good-quality products correctly and on time is central to maintaining repeat business.

Before Business Central Insights, measuring delivery performance consistently was difficult. Different teams sometimes disagreed over the relevant promised or agreed delivery date, and investigating a late order required people to gather information from several sources.

The Sales On-Time Delivery report changed that.

Leadership can now view delivery performance by month, customer or order and drill into the details behind a late shipment. Instead of debating which report is correct, the team can investigate the specific lines and transactions contributing to the delay.

Robert explains:

“Now our COO can drill into why something was five days late. It’s driving conversations that never happened before — and surfacing production issues that would’ve gone unnoticed.”

The report is no longer simply an IT or reporting tool. It has become part of operational management. Leaders can quickly identify underperformance, ask targeted questions and focus meetings on exceptions rather than spending time assembling the figures.

From external delivery to internal performance

Hutchinson has taken the same principle further by treating each production department as an internal customer.

A finished product can only be delivered on time if work moves reliably between each manufacturing stage. A delay moving from cutting to folding, or from fabrication to painting, can eventually affect the customer delivery date even if the final department completes its work efficiently.

Business Central Insights now helps Hutchinson monitor internal handovers and on-time routing between work centres, including subcontracted operations.

“We’ve got internal on-time delivery between cut, fold, fabrication, paint and beyond — even subcontracted work centres,” Neville says. “That simply wasn’t visible before.”

This gives managers a clearer view of where work is becoming delayed and allows accountability to be applied throughout the production process rather than only at the point of customer delivery.

The company is also using on-time analytics to evaluate suppliers. By monitoring whether materials and components arrive when promised, purchasing teams can identify unreliable vendors and understand how inbound delays affect production and customer commitments.

Reports that exposed problems rather than hiding them

One of the most valuable outcomes was not a dashboard or KPI. It was improved data quality.

Business Central Insights reports reflected the data held in the ERP system, which meant inconsistencies that had previously remained hidden became visible. The team found outdated subcontractors still appearing in delivery analysis because Bills of Materials had not been updated correctly.

“We found subcontractors showing up in our delivery stats that we no longer used,” Neville explains. “BCI helped flag that instantly — it turned out a BOM hadn’t been updated.”

This is an important distinction. Reporting does not improve poor underlying data by itself, but clear and consistent reporting makes those problems easier to find.

As Robert puts it:

“The reports didn’t just give us answers — they exposed problems.”

Once Hutchinson could see those inconsistencies, the team corrected the source data inside Business Central. The result was progressively cleaner information and greater trust in every subsequent report.

Instead of spending time reconciling conflicting outputs, users could start asking more meaningful operational questions.

The impact

Business Central Insights has changed how information is accessed and used across Hutchinson Engineering.

The company has reclaimed approximately two days of manual reporting effort each week, with the broader interview estimate suggesting that data clean-up and reconciliation had previously consumed 40 to 50 hours collectively during the most intensive periods. Time once spent extracting information, checking spreadsheets and investigating discrepancies is now available for analysis and operational improvement.

Leadership can access live dashboards without waiting for someone to prepare and circulate a report. Production meetings can focus on exceptions and root causes rather than debating whose figures are correct. Teams can drill directly into individual customers, orders and transactions to understand what happened.

Hutchinson has also strengthened its reporting across sales, manufacturing, finance, inventory and purchasing while improving its ability to measure customer delivery, supplier performance and internal production handovers.

Beyond the time savings, the biggest improvement is confidence. Employees across the business are now working from the same reporting foundation and the same Business Central data.

What other manufacturers can learn

Hutchinson Engineering’s experience reflects a wider reporting challenge for manufacturers moving to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central SaaS.

The move to the cloud may remove traditional database access, but it does not reduce the need for detailed operational reporting. In fact, complex manufacturing environments often require more visibility because production orders, routings, subcontractors, Bills of Materials and delivery commitments must all be understood together.

Building every report internally is possible, but the organisation must also maintain the data model, calculations, security and connections supporting those reports. Spreadsheet-based workarounds may provide short-term answers, yet they become increasingly difficult to control as more departments and users create their own versions.

Hutchinson’s story shows the value of establishing a professionally maintained reporting foundation first. With trusted models and ready-made reports in place, teams can focus on improving the business rather than recreating basic reporting infrastructure.

The reports also provide a starting point rather than a fixed endpoint. Hutchinson has worked with Business Central Insights to adapt views for its own manufacturing processes and plans to expand adoption as more users become comfortable with Power BI.

As Neville explains:

“We’ve only scratched the surface. But already the value is clear — it’s saving us time, giving us confidence in our data and opening up insights we never had before.”

Frequently Asked Questions

How much reporting time did Hutchinson Engineering save?

Hutchinson Engineering reduced approximately two days of manual reporting effort each week. During the earlier data-cleanup phase, teams estimated they had collectively spent between 40 and 50 hours per week cleaning data, validating figures and reconciling reports.

Why did Hutchinson need a new reporting solution after moving to Business Central SaaS?

Moving to the SaaS version of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central removed the IT team’s direct SQL database access. Hutchinson needed a new way to access, model and analyse Business Central data without recreating its previous reporting infrastructure from scratch.

How does Hutchinson use Business Central Insights for on-time delivery?

The company uses interactive Power BI reports to analyse on-time delivery by customer, month, order and other dimensions. Leadership can drill into late deliveries, identify contributing transactions and ask targeted questions about the cause.

How does the reporting support manufacturing operations?

Hutchinson monitors internal on-time delivery between production stages such as cutting, folding, fabrication and painting. This helps identify delays and bottlenecks before they affect the final customer delivery.

Can Business Central Insights help improve data quality?

The reports make inconsistencies in Business Central data easier to identify. Hutchinson discovered outdated suppliers and Bills of Materials through its reporting, allowing the team to correct the underlying ERP data.

Does Business Central Insights replace Power BI?

No. Business Central Insights is built on Microsoft Power BI. It provides maintained semantic models and ready-made reports designed specifically for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, while still allowing organisations to customise and extend their reporting.

Want to see how Business Central Insights could support your manufacturing reporting?

If your teams still spend hours extracting data, reconciling spreadsheets or building reports manually, Business Central Insights can help you create a trusted reporting foundation for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Explore interactive Power BI reporting across manufacturing, sales, inventory, purchasing, finance and warehouse operations, with drill-through access to the transactions behind every KPI.

Learn more about Business Central Insights:
https://businesscentralinsights.com

Explore Manufacturing Insights:
https://businesscentralinsights.com/manufacturing

Book a personalised demonstration:
https://businesscentralinsights.com/demo