In today’s blog post, let’s look at an in-depth review of Dynamics 365 Business Central’s manufacturing capabilities. At AdCirrus, we’ve been implementing full manufacturing, planning, and warehousing solutions/processes for the past 18 years. We are experts in full-to-end manufacturing implementations that include many types of manufacturing industries such as:

1. 1. Manufacturing – Make to Stock
   2. Manufacturing – Mixed Mode
   3. Manufacturing – project-based manufacturing

Step 1: Item Setup

Make sure your items are set up correctly. In the item card, there is a tab called Planning. In this tab, you define how the item is planned when running MRP and MP processes using the planning worksheet. The first step is to identify the correct reorder policy. This will help activate the related planning fields in this tab. Furthermore, you need to identify safety stock as safety stock lead time should be considered when entering data into this area. If you are using multiple locations where the same item can be stocked, please don’t keep more units. Instead, define the planning parameters at the stock-keeping unit card.

Step 2: Vendor Lead Times

When adding new items to the system, it’s important to identify whether the item is planned as a purchase item or a production order item. This field is located on the item card called the Replenishment System. Once the item identifies as a purchased item, the best practice is to add the default vendor or multiple vendors from whom this item can be bought. Besides, add what the average lead time for the set item will be. This will help in expected receipt dates when the planning process is run.

Step 3: Create Work Center/Machine Centers

The next step is to identify and create the appropriate number of work centers and/or machine centers that will be used in the manufacturing process. Work centers and machine centers are used to help identify the best logical path items have to go through. You can insert these records into the routing tables; I use them to calculate start and end times for production orders.

Step 4: Create Routing and Production Bill of Materials

To get the correct components and work centers for production orders, the correct routing records and production bill of material records should be created. In Business Central, you can utilize routing versions if multiple versions are necessary. The same applies to the production bill of materials as well. Once these records are created, you can assign them back to the respective item cards for each production order item.

Step 5: Demand

Once all the setup is complete, then you’ve to get demand lines in Business Central. Demand includes sales order lines, job planning lines, production order component lines, demand forecasts, etc. This will be the basis to calculate spots for the parent items listed on these various different record types.

Step 6: Planning Worksheet

This is a critical step that brings together on-hand inventory, and lead times while looking at existing open supply lines and demand. It suggests a plan to generate purchase orders and production orders to meet your demand due dates. The planning worksheet uses the best MPS and MRP practices along with focusing on orders that need to be created based on time fences set at the filter level. This process will also help you meet your delivery due dates by focusing on the just-in-time methodology.

Step 7:

Convert  Firm Planned Production Orders to Released Production Orders

Once the firm plan production order is generated from the planning worksheet, it’s time to review capacity and material requirements for the production order before its release to the floor. This step is very important as the firm planned production is used to confirm enough people and machine hours are available to process this production order. Furthermore, users can use this to evaluate if enough inventory is available before production commences. Finally, you can review unit costs also before the production order is released. Once the firm plan order is in place and all the required pieces are confirmed, then the firm planned order becomes a released production order to begin production on the floor.

Step 8: From Work In Process to Finished Good Outputs

At this step, the system will record any labor entries that are happening against the work centers or machine centers. This occurs alongside issuing inventory raw materials from stock to the production order and generating the proper working process journal entries for the production order through its lifecycle. There are many users of this production order such as material handlers. If a go is issued on this production order along with the shopfloor user who is recording their time against the production order, then you can proceed. And finally, the finance team will be reviewing the ongoing costs and variances of the production order before the production order is marked complete. Furthermore, this step is when output is recorded, and the finished good inventory is placed into stock and prepared for shipping.

Our team has extensive experience in implementing Business Central Manufacturing modules. No matter the complexity or sophistication of your current manufacturing environment, let us give you a free assessment and show you how Business Central Manufacturing functionality would work well for your business. Our team is here to ensure the highest level of success in your ERP investment!