Manufacturing dataset for Power BI practice — production, work orders and cost
DATA DARE on findi360 has a free manufacturing practice set at five levels: production output and plant efficiency (L1), work orders, materials and production variance (L2), manufacturing cost, quality and supply chain performance (L3), a network-wide capacity planning package (L4) and a three-plant group close of 12 million general-ledger lines (L5). Each level has its own graded question bank, with the expected results in the Question Book up to L4; the files download with a free account.
What each level covers
- L1 — Production Output and Plant Efficiency: output by plant, line and shift; efficiency and downtime. Opens in Excel.
- L2 — Work Orders, Materials and Production Variance: planned against actual, material usage, variance by work order.
- L3 — Manufacturing Cost, Quality and Supply Chain Performance: cost per unit, scrap and rework, supplier performance.
- L4 — Manufacturing Network Performance and Capacity Planning: several plants, millions of transactions, capacity questions.
- L5 — a group close across three plants on three ledgers and currencies: build the account mapping from a written manual, reconcile it to control totals, then close the year. Answers are held back.
Why cost accountants use it
Production variance, standard against actual cost and the cost of poor quality are questions a cost accountant answers every month. Here they come with real-shaped data — work orders, bills of material, transactions — so the practice is the modelling and the DAX, not inventing a dataset first.
The kind of question you will answer
- Which plant and line lose the most output to downtime, and on which shift.
- Material usage variance by work order, and which products drive it.
- Cost per good unit once scrap and rework are counted.
The sets live now
- Production Output and Plant Efficiency DD-MFG-001 L1 — XLSX / ~10,000 rows Manufacturing Explore production orders, output, scrap, run time and basic cost for a single plant.
- Work Orders, Materials and Production Variance DD-MFG-002 L2 — CSV / ~30,000 rows Manufacturing Analyse work orders, material consumption, machine and labour hours and standard-cost variance across two plants.
- Manufacturing Cost, Quality and Supply Chain Performance DD-MFG-003 L3 — Parquet / ~500,000 rows Manufacturing Follow work orders through materials, quality defects and inventory movements across a four-plant group to see where cost and yield are lost.
- Manufacturing Network Performance and Capacity Planning DD-MFG-004 L4 — Parquet / ~3,000,000 rows Manufacturing Plan capacity, budgets and demand across a twelve-plant network with daily capacity, monthly budgets, demand forecasts and maintenance events.
- Group Reporting: Mapping, Reconciliation and Product Profitability DD-MFG-005 L5 — Parquet / 12–14 million rows Manufacturing Three plants, three ERPs, one group P&L. Build the account mapping from the Group Accounting Manual, reconcile it to the management accounts and report true pro...