If your costing process still starts with spreadsheets and ends with late-night reconciliations, you’re not alone. Many packaging companies are stuck using manual processes that eat up days—sometimes weeks—before producing a “final” number. By the time the report is ready, the data is already stale.

Generic BI tools like Power BI or Crystal Reports might seem like the solution, but in reality, they come with their own challenges:

  • They require heavy IT involvement.
  • Building meaningful reports from scratch can take days.
  • They aren’t tailored to the unique needs of the packaging industry.

In today’s market, where raw material costs can change overnight and customer demand shifts rapidly, delays in understanding your true costs mean missed opportunities. Margins can shrink quietly until they become a serious problem.

That’s where the combination of Automated Performance Costing (APC) and Amtech Visual Analytics (AVA) comes in. Automated Performance Costing delivers fast, accurate cost models based on live production, costing, and accounting data. Visual Analytics transforms that data into easy-to-read, industry-specific dashboards—no coding, no IT queue, no delay.

The result:

  • Speed – From days to hours for costing updates.
  • Clarity – Real-time dashboards show exactly where you’re making and losing money.
  • Action – Spotting problems early enough to actually do something about them.

In short, manual costing and generic Business Intelligence tools might give you data eventually whereas APC + AVA give you insight now.

Here are two other articles that may be of value to you:

Learn more about APC and AVA: