Labour & Chemical Cost Dashboards
Two linked Power BI HTML visuals for monitoring labour costs and chemical treatment costs across TRE Chem facilities — with drill-down to employee and site level
Labour & Chemical Cost Dashboards
Role: Lead Developer & Analyst · Organization: Select Water Services — TRE Chem · Status: Production
The Problem
TRE Chem facilities operate at the intersection of labour-intensive site work and high-value chemical treatment processes. Leadership needed to track cost performance at a level that existing reporting couldn’t provide:
- No cost-per-barrel metric — knowing total spend without relating it to volume processed made it impossible to assess true efficiency
- Labour costs untracked by site — total headcount and payroll were visible, but cost distribution across specific sites and teams was opaque
- Anomalies invisible — unusual cost spikes or efficiency drops had no automated flagging; issues were found reactively, not proactively
- No employee-level drill-down — managers couldn’t see which teams or employees were driving cost variance without manual data extraction
- Chemical costs disconnected from labour — the two biggest cost drivers were tracked separately, making total operational cost analysis difficult
The Solution
I built two linked Power BI HTML Content visuals that give leadership a layered view of operational cost — from portfolio-level KPIs down to individual site and employee detail.
Labour Dashboard
The Labour Dashboard is the primary analytical surface, organized in three panels:
Left Panel — Site Selector: A site listing with inline indicators for: - Labour spend distribution (relative spend vs. other sites) - Monthly spend trend (sparkline-style) - Employee headcount - Anomaly indicator (amber/red dot for sites with unusual activity)
Main Panel — KPI Summary: 16 KPI cards organized in 4 rows covering:
| Row | Metrics |
|---|---|
| Spend | Labor Spend YTD · Monthly Spend · Spend vs. Prior Period · Forecast |
| Efficiency | Avg Cost/Bbl · Labor Efficiency Index · Cost Variance · Trend Direction |
| Workforce | Active Employees · Avg Cost/Employee · Headcount Change · Turnover Rate |
| Performance | Site Performance Score · Ranking vs. Portfolio · Goal Attainment · Alert Count |
Right Panel — Drill-Down Detail: Selecting a site reveals: - Site-specific KPIs with period-over-period comparison - Employee detail table (name, role, hours, cost, cost/bbl) - Monthly cost breakdown table - Cost component breakdown (labour categories)
Alert System: An automated alert banner at the top of the dashboard surfaces anomalies before users have to find them: - Red banner — high-variance sites requiring immediate attention - Amber banner — medium-variance sites to monitor - Alert dots on site selector for at-a-glance triage
Chemical Cost Overview Dashboard
The companion overview dashboard focuses on chemical treatment costs alongside the labour view:
- Header KPI metrics (total chemical cost, cost per barrel, variance)
- Monthly trend charts with cost trajectory analysis
- Site-level cost breakdown tables
- Cost variance visualization comparing sites and periods
Design System
Dark Theme
Both dashboards use a consistent dark theme designed for screen display in control rooms and field offices:
| Variable | Color | Usage |
|---|---|---|
--bg |
#08101e |
Primary background |
--sf |
#0d1929 |
Surface / card background |
--s2 |
#122035 |
Secondary surface |
--tx |
#e8f0fe |
Primary text |
--bl |
#4d9fff |
Blue accent / charts |
--cy |
#00d4ff |
Cyan highlights |
--gn |
#00e676 |
Positive / on-track |
--rd |
#ff5252 |
Negative / alert |
Theme Toggle
Both dashboards include a light/dark theme toggle — allowing presentation in bright meeting rooms (light mode) without a separate report version.
Responsive Grid
The layout adjusts across viewport sizes: - 4-column — full dashboard on wide displays - 2-column — narrower panels or split screen - 1-column — single-focus or mobile view
Animation & Interactivity
- Pulsing alert dots on anomaly indicators
- Hover transitions on site selector and detail cards
- Scrollable tables for large site lists or employee rosters
- Tooltip system providing metric context on hover
DAX Architecture
The dashboards are driven by a structured set of DAX measures across four measure files:
| File | Purpose |
|---|---|
labor_kpis.dax |
YTD spend, efficiency index, performance score, alert logic |
labor_monthdata.dax |
Monthly cost trends, period-over-period calculations |
labor_sitedata.dax |
Site-level aggregations, ranking, goal attainment |
labor_employeedata.dax |
Employee-level cost, hours, cost-per-barrel attribution |
avg_lbr_cost_per_bbl.dax |
The key efficiency metric — labour cost per barrel processed |
The avg_lbr_cost_per_bbl measure is the cornerstone metric of the dashboard — normalizing raw labour spend against volume to produce a true efficiency comparison across sites of different scale.
Visual Walkthrough
Labour KPI Summary 16 KPI cards across spend, efficiency, workforce, and performance rows
Site Selector Panel Site list with spend distribution, trends, and anomaly indicators
Employee Drill-Down Per-employee cost, hours, and cost/bbl for selected site
Chemical Cost Overview Chemical cost per barrel, monthly trends, site variance
Anonymized screenshots of both dashboards are available upon request. The visuals contain operational cost and headcount data.
Results & Impact
16 KPIs
Labour metrics across 4 dimensions
Cost/Bbl
Key efficiency metric surfaced
Proactive
Automated anomaly alerting
Employee Level
Drill-down to individual contributor
Technical Stack
| Component | Technology | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| BI Platform | Power BI | Dashboard embedding, slicer integration |
| Calculations | DAX (3,000+ lines across 5 files) | All KPI calculations and HTML generation |
| Visual Layer | HTML/CSS/JavaScript | Rendering within Power BI HTML Content visual |
| Theme System | CSS variables (12 tokens) | Consistent dark/light theming |
| Data Sources | dbt load models (5 tables) | Labour, employee, site, and monthly data |
| Layout | CSS Grid (responsive) | 4-col / 2-col / 1-col breakpoints |
Key Skills Demonstrated
Cost Analytics
Labour efficiency measurement (cost per barrel), site performance scoring, anomaly detection, and chemical cost tracking in a multi-site operational environment
Advanced Power BI
Multi-dashboard architecture with linked visuals, complex DAX across 5 measure files, and HTML Content visual with full interactivity
Executive Design
Alert-driven layout that surfaces what needs attention first — anomaly banners, color-coded indicators, and a progressive drill-down from portfolio to employee level
Operational Domain Knowledge
Understanding of oilfield service economics — cost-per-barrel as the unit of measure, labour distribution across site types, and chemical treatment cost drivers