One aerospace manufacturer, known for designing advanced pyrotechnic devices such as separation bolts, cartridge actuators, and flight termination systems, has taken this philosophy to heart. Their not-so-secret weapon? InetSoft's StyleBI, a lightweight, open-source business intelligence tool that delivers real-time, actionable insights through interactive dashboards and embedded analytics.
This article dives into how the company's IT and analytics teams deployed StyleBI to modernize their reporting workflows, what kind of analytics they run, and how visual storytelling helps engineers and executives align on explosive (pun intended) performance goals.
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Pyrotechnics, Precision, and the Pressure to Perform
In aerospace pyrotechnics, product life cycles span decades, but decisions are made in seconds. Every bolt that separates a spacecraft payload must perform perfectly under incredible thermal and mechanical stress. Even minor anomalies in assembly line torque application, supply chain variation, or telemetry sensor data can result in costly delays—or worse, mission failure.
Before adopting StyleBI, this manufacturer relied on fragmented spreadsheets, manually generated PDF reports, and vendor-specific monitoring tools that lacked interoperability. Engineering and operations worked in silos, making root-cause analysis time-consuming and reactive.
IT leadership saw an opportunity: unify data from ERP, QA, sensor logs, and MES into a single, accessible, and highly customizable analytics platform.
Choosing StyleBI: Lightweight, Extensible, and Open
Why did the team select StyleBI, InetSoft's open-source sibling of its enterprise-grade solutions?
Real-Time Manufacturing Metrics: Dashboards in Action
Let's explore how StyleBI is being used across the organization:
1. Torque Variance Dashboard – Assembly Line Monitoring
Users: Manufacturing engineers, shift supervisors Data Sources: Torque wrench logs, operator ID logs, lot tracking in ERP
Key Charts:
Outcome: Engineers can immediately identify which workstations are drifting toward non-compliance and intervene before defects are baked in.
2. Flight Readiness Scorecard
Users: QA, program managers, execs Data Sources: QA sampling rates, defect logs, calibration reports, environmental test results
Key Visuals:
Outcome: A 360-degree view of which programs are greenlit for next-stage integration—without scouring through 15 PDFs.
3. Supplier Quality Index
Users: Procurement, quality analysts Data Sources: Supplier on-time delivery logs, incoming inspection reports, cost of quality calculations
Key Analytics:
Outcome: Procurement can renegotiate with data on their side or identify alternate vendors before a critical failure cascades.
Embedded Alerts: From Data to Action
One of the more clever integrations is the use of StyleBI's embedded alerts and conditional logic. For instance, if a defect is logged on a critical flight component twice within a week, an alert is triggered in the supplier dashboard. A rule-based engine flags the data point, sends a webhook to Slack, and opens a corrective action ticket in their Jira instance.
This is one area where StyleBI's extensibility shines. While the platform isn't a full-blown workflow engine, the combination of filters, data-driven triggers, and APIs made it straightforward for IT to bridge analytics and operations.
IT's Role: From Report Builders to Insight Enablers
For the IT department, the transition to StyleBI was more than a tooling change—it was a philosophical shift. Instead of being bottlenecks for report generation, the team now focuses on:
Engineers can now run time-series regressions, build what-if dashboards, and publish them to cross-functional teams—all without waiting for BI team turnaround.
ROI: Saving Time, Boosting Confidence
Within six months of going live with StyleBI:
But perhaps the biggest gain? Confidence. From the shop floor to the C-suite, stakeholders now act on data they trust—visualized clearly, updated continuously, and accessible wherever needed.
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This dashboard is designed to help manufacturing engineers and quality supervisors monitor torque application during assembly processes. In aerospace pyrotechnics, over- or under-torquing fasteners—such as on a separation bolt—can compromise performance or even mission safety. The dashboard provides visual cues for anomaly detection, root-cause investigation, and trend analysis.
Key KPIs and What They Mean
How to Read the Dashboard
The Torque Variance Dashboard typically consists of four visual panels:
1. Heat Map – Workstation Deviation Matrix
2. Box-and-Whisker Plot – Torque Distribution
3. Line Chart with Control Bands – Mean Torque Over Time
4. Drilldown Table – Operator & Batch Detail
Example Insight Scenario
Let's say Bolt Type "CX-39" is frequently installed at Workstation 3. The heat map shows this cell in red. Drilling into the box plot reveals that Workstation 3 has high torque variability for CX-39. The operator table shows that one technician has an Operator Drift Index of -5%, suggesting consistent under-torquing.
This leads to a three-part follow-up:
Without this dashboard, catching this pattern might take days of detective work—or worse, result in field failures.
StyleBI Features in Play