+1 480 485 7373
Microsoft Teams
What Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management covers
Master planning in Supply Chain Management
Planning Optimization works out net needs across sites and warehouses. Then it proposes planned purchase, transfer and production orders. It also respects coverage groups, lead times and safety stock per item.
- ✓Demand forecasts
- ✓Coverage groups per item and site
- ✓Planned order firming
- ✓Intercompany planning
Advanced warehouse management in Dynamics 365
Location directives, waves and work templates drive picking, packing and put-away. Staff use scanners and the mobile app instead of paper.
- ✓Wave and cluster picking
- ✓License plate tracking
- ✓Cycle counting
- ✓Cross-docking
Production control
Discrete routings, process formulas and kanban lean flows can run side by side. They can even share one legal entity, with co-products and by-products.
- ✓Formulas and batch orders
- ✓Catch weight items
- ✓Shop floor execution
- ✓Quality orders
Transportation and assets
Transportation management handles carrier rating, load building and freight checks. Also, asset management tracks upkeep on the equipment that keeps the plant running.
- ✓Load planning
- ✓Freight bill matching
- ✓Preventive maintenance
- ✓Work orders on assets
Supply Chain Management or Business Central?
Where a Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management consultant would steer you away
Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management rewards companies that have the volume and complexity to use it. Take a distributor with one warehouse and a few thousand SKUs. It usually spends more on work templates than the templates ever save. So Business Central with directed put-away and pick, or a warehouse add-on, tends to fit better.
It also asks more of your own people. Someone inside the business has to own item coverage settings, location directives and production parameters after go-live. If nobody can take that on, the system drifts back to spreadsheets within a year, whichever Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management consultant set it up.
Finally, most designs license it per user on top of Dynamics 365 Finance. We explain the license shape Microsoft publishes. However, the numbers belong with your licensing partner, not on this page.
How a Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management consultant runs the project
- 1
Walk the floor
First, we walk receiving docks, pick faces, lines and shipping lanes with the people who work them. Paper forms and whiteboards on the floor tell you more about real process than any process map.
- 2
Decide the design choices that are hard to reverse
We agree legal entities, site and warehouse layout, item model groups, dimensions and costing in writing first. After all, changing them later means reposting history.
- 3
Build in conference room pilots
Each pilot runs a full scenario in a sandbox with your items and locations. For example, purchase to receipt to put-away to invoice. Gaps found here cost far less than gaps found after cutover.
- 4
Prove it with volume
We test planning runs and wave releases at real volume. A design that works for ten orders can stall at ten thousand.
- 5
Cut over by site
Multi-site businesses usually go live one site or one legal entity at a time. As your Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management consultant, we use the scoping call to set the order and the fallback plan for each.
Questions operations leaders ask a Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management consultant
Do we need Dynamics 365 Finance as well?
In almost every design, yes. Supply Chain Management and Finance run on the same platform and share one database. The general ledger, payables and receivables live in Finance. A few companies run it against another ledger. But that adds integration work and removes much of the benefit of one system.
Can we run only the warehouse part?
Microsoft does support warehouse-only scenarios, where Supply Chain Management runs the warehouse and another ERP keeps orders and finance. It suits companies with a demanding distribution center and an ERP they are not ready to replace. Then the link between the two systems becomes the key part of the project. So it needs its own design.
Is it too big for a company with a few hundred employees?
Headcount is a poor guide. What matters is the number of sites, legal entities, planning complexity and warehouse volume. Some mid-sized manufacturers with process formulas and several plants fit it well. Meanwhile, some larger distributors with simple flows run happily on Business Central. A readiness assessment by a Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management consultant answers the question for your specific operation.
Updates and taking over a live Supply Chain Management system
How are updates handled?
Microsoft ships service updates to these apps on a published schedule. Customers can pause a limited number of them. We build customizations as extensions, so updates apply without code merges. We test your extensions and key scenarios in a sandbox before each update reaches production.
Can a new Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management consultant take over an existing system?
Yes. As your new Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management consultant, we start with a written review of the setup, extensions and open issues. Then we tell you what is sound and what needs attention, before we agree any support.
Talk to us about your project.
Tell us what you run today and what has to change. A senior consultant replies with a written next step.