A customizable ERP system for small and mid-size businesses, Dynamics 365 Business Central is gaining popularity in the manufacturing industry due to its robust capabilities, enabling companies to streamline production planning, product servicing, and other routine, manual workflows.
This article highlights in more detail how Dynamics 365 Business Central implementation can improve back-office processes at your manufacturing company.
1. Accurate demand forecasting
Calculating customer demand is critical in the manufacturing industry, as it allows production managers to understand how many products the company needs to create and when, which is key to efficient procurement and production planning. Basically, Business Central enables a manufacturer to accurately anticipate the needed product quantities based on existing production orders.
Furthermore, Business Central functionality allows manufacturers to anticipate how many production orders they may receive in the coming weeks or months, which can help a company set more accurate production targets.
Production managers can create one of two types of forecasts: sales or production forecasts, which are based on a company’s sales and production historical data, respectively. Additionally, manufacturers can create component forecasts related to different product items to estimate the future need in components more precisely and source them in advance.
2. Streamlined production planning
Dynamics 365 Business Central can help manufacturing companies plan and organize production workflows, ensuring efficient resource utilization and timely delivery. In practice, production managers can use the ERP system to generate accurate production schedules automatically.
For example, the system can create an optimal master production schedule (MPS) based on a company’s existing production orders and demand forecasts, which were described earlier. The generated MPS will help production managers plan key production activities and allocate workforce and machinery resources more efficiently.
In addition to MPS, Business Central also can generate the material requirements plan (MRP) to help a manufacturer estimate the required material quantities for their production schedules automatically.
The system can then compare these estimations with current inventory data to help the manufacturer understand whether it has enough resources to maintain an uninterrupted production workflow. If the system identifies a potential resource shortage, it can also propose suitable actions to employees, such as placing a purchase order and replenishing inventory levels.
3. Rigorous production control
Having a clear understanding of how many production orders need to be completed and possessing the required amount of materials to fulfill them, a manufacturer can proceed to production execution. With the help of Business Central, manufacturers do not even have to manually create production orders but instead can do it automatically in the planning worksheet in the ERP system.
Moreover, orders can also be automatically allocated to manufacturing teams based on predefined business rules. To specify how teams should execute these orders, a manufacturer can additionally implement the routing rules based on its unique production requirements.
These routing rules determine the sequence of key production operations, define which employees should perform them and how, and specify what material and equipment resources should be allocated for these operations.
Once an order is put into work, production managers can monitor the production progress and efficiency by tracking data input by employees or integrated from MES, EAM, and other tools to Business Central, including material consumption, production time, quantities of created products, and more.
4. Optimized product shipping
Business Central can not only help a manufacturer timely create the right amount of products but also ensure they are delivered to customers efficiently. For example, once a production order is completed, an employee can use Business Central to initiate the process of transferring the order to the warehouse and even generate the necessary warehousing documents.
Later, when the order is physically prepared for shipment at the warehouse, employees can leverage Business Central to automatically generate invoices and other documents needed.
To enhance packaging efficiency, businesses can also use custom boxes, ensuring products are securely packed and professionally presented. Once the order leaves the warehouse, the ERP system will automatically update the company’s inventory data, which can be crucial for sourcing and procurement teams to prevent potential stockouts.
5. Improved product servicing
Today, manufacturing companies need to provide a decent level of after-sales product servicing to remain competitive. Unfortunately, providing outstanding service to each individual customer can be challenging, especially as the company grows and its clientele expands over time.
This is where marketplace app development can play a vital role, enabling manufacturers to streamline service requests and enhance customer engagement through dedicated platforms.
Business Central can make product servicing more manageable, helping efficiently schedule and manage technicians’ service visits and automatically distributing service tasks among employees based on their availability or qualifications.
Managers can also monitor the execution of service orders via a control panel embedded into the Business Central interface and track their progress in real time.
Final thoughts
If you are operating in the manufacturing sector and striving to improve production performance and cost-efficacy, you should consider implementing Dynamics 365 Business Central. By integrating and optimizing production processes with the help of this powerful ERP system, you can dramatically foster operational efficiency and enhance customer satisfaction.
To learn if Business Central implementation is feasible in your unique business case, you can ask for certified Business Central consultants’ advice who will analyze your business needs and determine whether Business Central can cover them.
If Business Central adoption proves to be viable for your company, a partner can also provide you with an actionable implementation strategy to help you streamline solution conceptualization, software integration, user training, and other project aspects.