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Notes on custom data integration: connecting systems, keeping mappings explicit, and keeping the pipeline working after the first successful run.

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Three documented data-to-decision loops. UPS combines package, map, and vehicle data to choose delivery routes, reporting 100 million fewer miles. Google combines temperature, power, and setpoint data to choose cooling settings, reporting 40% less cooling energy. Scanfil combines machine, routing, and defect data to prepare production introductions, reducing the average from 40 hours to 9 hours. A feedback arrow shows outcomes becoming the next observations.

01 Aug 20269 min read

Data is useful when it changes a decision

Data-driven decision making means using observed evidence to improve a choice, then measuring what happened. I have come to think that this feedback loop is the main reason companies need data-processing capability. Storing more data has little value on its own, and useful AI depends on the same loop.

datadata integrationAIdecision making

27 May 20268 min read

The Excel-and-Power-BI handoff that holds post-merger reporting together

For months or years after a manufacturing acquisition, the Excel workbook is the consolidation engine. The Power BI card shows the resolved number but never the formula or the comment beside it. That is what fails at year-end audit.

post-merger-reportingcontrollerexcelpower-bimanufacturing-data-integrationaudit-trailconsolidation

Projected per-order margin during a single shift on a four-line packaging plant. Starts near zero at 11:00, deepens through 12:00 as the cycle-time drift on Müller-Pharma's blister-card line consolidates, levels around -340€ through the planned shift end at 13:30, and is confirmed at -363.31€ when the order completes 55 minutes late at 14:25.

23 May 20267 min read

Can you see per-order margin while the shift is still running?

The actual profit margin of a manufacturing order in most cases is decided based on what happens during the shift, but almost no plant can see it while the shift is running.

manufacturingdatamarginreal-time

PSG 5-4 Bayern matchup data card showing PSG won despite Bayern leading expected goals 3.06 to 1.90.

15 May 202611 min read

Anatomy of a 5-4 Champions League Thriller: A Football Data Case Study

Champions League knockout games aren't usually 5-4 thrillers. April's PSG vs Bayern semi-final first leg was. Bayern had 57% possession, an xG of 3.06 to PSG's 1.90, and six big chances to PSG's two. PSG won anyway. I dug into the data to see what might be going on.

football analyticsdatabuilding in public

Industrial digitalization by region in 2026: China 72%, US 69%, India 68%, Mexico 67%, UK 62%, DACH 57%. DACH ranks last among the six regions surveyed by MHP / LMU Munich.

30 Apr 202610 min read

DACH manufacturing now trails every major economy on digitalization

Manufacturing companies in the DACH Mittelstand are sitting on a great deal of valuable data, and almost none of them are using it well. I've spent the last few months talking to plant managers, controllers, and owners across the region, most recently at Hannover Messe last week, and the pattern is consistent. The data exists. They know it exists. They can't really use it.

manufacturingmittelstanddata