A Power BI Consultant for Cleveland's Manufacturers and the Firms That Supply Them
Northeast Ohio has more than ten thousand manufacturing companies and a healthcare sector that buys from thousands of local suppliers. Most of those businesses know their numbers only at month end. A Power BI consultant who builds with you on screen share can change that in weeks, not quarters.
A Power BI consultant Cleveland manufacturers can hire by the hour rather than by the project: Edward Pinela, MBA, builds your data model and reports with your controller and plant manager on a video call, from Lightray Solutions' base in Fullerton, California. There is no Cleveland office. The work is remote because it does not need to be anything else: your ERP, your accounting system and your spreadsheets are already on a screen, and that is where the dashboard gets built.
The Greater Cleveland Partnership describes the region as a centre for healthcare, smart manufacturing, materials and financial services, with more than ten thousand manufacturing companies, industrial headquarters such as Parker Hannifin, Lincoln Electric and Sherwin-Williams, and NASA Glenn Research Center. Below those names sit the businesses this page is for: a precision machining shop in Euclid, a metal finisher in the Flats, a medical-device contract manufacturer in Solon, a staffing agency feeding all three, a specialty contractor working the hospital campuses.
Start with a free 30-minute strategy call. Power BI Flex Support is $2,500 for a 20-hour prepaid block at $100–$125 per hour, with no retainer and hours that never expire; a larger fixed-scope build is quoted in writing. If you don't like working with us within the first 4 hours, you get your money back.
What should a manufacturer expect a Power BI consultant to deliver?
A model that joins the shop floor to the ledger, and reports that answer the Monday-morning questions: what shipped, what is late, what did we scrap, what did each job actually earn. The consultant's job is the join. Production data from the ERP or MES and cost data from accounting rarely share a key, and the measures that reconcile them are the real deliverable. Microsoft's on-premises data gateway is how an ERP on a server in the plant feeds a cloud report without opening the firewall.
Which Cleveland businesses are a fit?
Owner-led and department-led companies with 10 to 250 staff and a system of record. In Northeast Ohio the common ones are:
- Machine shops, stampers, finishers and fabricators. Output, scrap, on-time delivery, machine utilisation and margin per job from Epicor, JobBOSS, E2 or Plex.
- Medical-device and healthcare suppliers. Lot and batch records, nonconformance, on-time delivery to the hospital systems' purchasing scorecards.
- Industrial distributors. Fill rate, inventory turns, gross margin by customer and branch.
- Staffing and professional services firms. Placements, fill time, bill-to-pay spread and consultant utilisation.
- Specialty contractors. Job cost against estimate, work in progress, backlog and cash from Sage or QuickBooks.
- Nonprofits and foundations. Program spend against grant budgets, donor retention and restricted-fund balances.
How does remote delivery work with a Cleveland plant?
Your IT contact installs the gateway, you share the ERP's reporting views or exports, and the model is built live on a weekly call while the people who will use it watch. Reviews happen on Teams or Zoom with the plant manager, the controller and whoever else argues about the numbers, because that argument is what makes a dashboard trusted. Notes follow every session, reports are published to your Microsoft tenant, and no visit is offered or needed.
What does a Power BI consultant cost in Cleveland?
Hourly, prepaid, published: $2,500 for a 20-hour Flex block at $100–$125 per hour, with the 40 and 80-hour blocks at the $100 rate and unused hours kept on your account. A first production or financial dashboard from one system plus accounting usually fits inside the first block. Larger scopes are quoted in writing before any work starts. Power BI licenses go to Microsoft at $14 (Pro) or $24 (Premium Per User) per user per month.
The table maps Cleveland's main business types to the measures they ask for first and the system the data usually comes from.
| Business type | First measures | Usual source |
|---|---|---|
| Machine shop or fabricator | On-time delivery, scrap rate, margin per job, utilisation | Epicor, JobBOSS, E2, Plex via the gateway |
| Medical-device supplier | Nonconformance rate, lot traceability, delivery to scorecard | ERP plus quality system exports |
| Industrial distributor | Fill rate, turns, gross margin by customer and rep | ERP and WMS |
| Staffing agency | Open orders, fill time, spread, consultant utilisation | ATS and payroll |
| Specialty contractor | Job cost vs estimate, WIP, backlog, cash | Sage 100, QuickBooks, Procore |
| Nonprofit | Spend vs grant budget, donor retention, fund balances | QuickBooks, donor CRM |
Why hire Lightray Solutions as your Power BI consultant?
One senior consultant from discovery to training, with 20+ years in data and web work, 200+ delivered projects, a 4.9★ Google rating and an A+ BBB rating. You never get handed to a junior, and the Power BI guarantee means the first 4 hours cost nothing if the fit is wrong.
In Ohio, Cincinnati has its own page written for that region's consumer-goods suppliers and logistics firms, and Columbus and Toledo are covered separately. The Power BI consulting locations page lists every city by state, the Power BI consulting services hub explains the full service, and KPI dashboard creation goes deeper on choosing the measures.
Further reading: Greater Cleveland Partnership — Our region.
Want the shop floor and the ledger on one screen?
Book a free 30-minute call with Edward Pinela, MBA. You get an honest read on what to fix first — and if we are not the right fit, you will hear that on the call.
Frequently asked questions
Are you a Cleveland-based Power BI consultant?
No. Lightray Solutions is based in Fullerton, California, and every Power BI engagement is delivered remotely over video and screen share, with reports built in your own Microsoft tenant. Cleveland clients get the same senior consultant, the same hourly rate and the same guarantee as anyone else.
Our ERP vendor says their reports are enough. Why Power BI?
ERP reports show the ERP. Power BI joins the ERP to accounting, payroll, quality and the spreadsheets around them, so you can see margin per job after actual labor, or on-time delivery against what the customer's scorecard says. If the ERP report answers the question, we tell you so on the call.
How much does it cost and is there a minimum?
The minimum is one 20-hour Flex block at $2,500, billed at $100–$125 per hour depending on block size, prepaid with no retainer and no expiry. Fixed-scope builds are quoted in writing after the free strategy call. Licenses are paid to Microsoft at $14 or $24 per user per month.
How long does a first production dashboard take?
With ERP data reachable through the gateway, a first working report appears in the first week and a finished dashboard in two to three. Data trapped in a legacy MES or in years of spreadsheets adds modelling time, and you hear that after the data review, not halfway through the block.
What is the money-back guarantee?
The Power BI guarantee is simple: if you don't like working with us within the first 4 hours, you get your money back. It covers Power BI work only. For a manufacturer, four hours usually means the gateway is connected and the first production measures are on screen, so you are judging real output, not a proposal.
You Won’t Get Handed Off to Junior Staff.
At most consulting firms, the senior person who sold you shows up for the kickoff — then you get handed to a team of juniors learning on your dime. That’s not how we work.
When you hire Lightray Solutions, you work directly with Edward Pinela, MBA — a principal consultant with 20+ years of experience across Power BI, web development, SEO, and CRM systems. Edward architects every engagement personally, stays involved through delivery, and answers his own phone.
Read Edward’s Full Bio“Mid-market companies deserve senior-level expertise without paying enterprise-agency prices. That’s the gap Lightray fills.”
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