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Everything in Sight:

Production and Assembly in Dynamics 365 Business Central

Manage your assembly and production effortlessly with Dynamics 365 Business Central. From production and material planning based on sales and demand forecasts to variant configuration and workstation and machine utilization, you can map and control all areas. Special features such as agile manufacturing or finite loading, and limited capacities can also be taken into account.

Alternative:

Assembly or Production: What is Happening in Your Company?

If you do not have complex products and production lines, the “assembly” functional area can be a sensible alternative to production. Colloquially, this is referred to as “small-scale production”. The end result of both areas is the same: the finished product. Only the way to get there differs.

You can see the exact differences in the tables below:

  • Planning processes

    Function Production Assembly
    Orders ✔ = Production Orders ✔ = Assembly Orders
    Production Planning ✔ limited
    Routing
    Capacity Planning
    Work Centers and Groups
    Scheduling
    Variant Configuration optional: orderbase VariPlus optional: anaptis Configuration
  • Function

    Function Production Assembly
    Agile Manufacturing ✔ = no Capacity Planning
    Outsourcing
    Resource and Material Consumption
    Bills of Materials
    Scrap
    Time Expenditure ✔ limited, time per resource (but no work steps)
Dynamics 365 Production:

Your Functions for the Production

  • If the following functionalities seem too complex for your company, feel free to explore the comparison with the “Assembly” module. The Assembly module is designed to be simpler and is fully sufficient for many companies.

    • Production orders

      What is a production order used for?
      Easily create production orders. These are used in the ERP system to manage the transformation of purchased materials into production items. Production orders (work or shop orders) plan work through various facilities such as work centers or work center groups in the manufacturing area.

      Production orders are the central components of the system’s manufacturing functionality. They contain the following information:

      • Planned products including required materials for the planned production orders
      • Recently manufactured products including materials used for corresponding production orders
      • Previously manufactured products including materials used in previous manufacturing operations

      Production orders serve as the starting points for:

      • planning future production
      • controlling ongoing production
      • tracking completed production

      How do I create a production order?
      Production orders can be manually created from the Production Order pages on an order-by-order basis or automatically generated from sales order planning and/or order planning. Multiple orders are created from the Planning Worksheet page.

      Information from various sources, including but not limited to, the following is used to create a production order:

      • Items
      • Bill of materials
      • Routing
      • Work centers
      • Work center groups
    • Production planning

      Production planning forms the basis for manufacturing. The production steps needed to process raw materials into finished products must be regularly planned, depending on the volume and type of products.

      Planning can also be seen as the preparation of the necessary purchase orders in the purchasing, assembly, or manufacturing departments to meet demand. The system offers functions to meet expected and actual demand from sales, assembly, and production, as well as distribution planning functions.

    • Routings

      Manufacturing companies use routings to define the production process. The routing also serves as the basis for process planning, capacity planning, and documenting production.

      Like bill of materials, routings are associated with the finished product or semi-finished goods. A routing contains master data that capture the process requirements for a specific produced item. Once a production order for this item is created, the routing governs the scheduling of operations.

      Routing in Dynamics 365 Business Central
      Routing in Dynamics 365 Business Central
    • Capacity planning

      As part of production planning, it is possible to plan capacities. The utilization and task list for your capacities can be displayed at any time based on planned and released production orders.

      Also: Limited capacities
      With the system, it is also possible to prevent overloading of certain resources. Additionally, it ensures that no capacity remains unassigned if it could increase the lead time of a production order. Bottlenecks are identified, and resource overloads are prevented.

    • Work centers and work center groups

      The system distinguishes between three different types of capacity units. These are arranged hierarchically. Each level contains the subordinate levels:

      1. Department
      2. Work center group
      3. Work center

      The top level is the department. Work center groups are assigned to departments. Each work center group belongs to exactly one department. You can group different work centers into a work center group. A work center can only belong to one work center group.

      The planned capacity of a work center group consists of the availability of the corresponding work centers and the additional planned availability of the work center group. The planned availability of the department is the sum of all availabilities of the corresponding work centers and work center groups.

      The system allows setting up work centers as part of manufacturing capacity planning and production management processes. With work centers, it is possible to monitor manufacturing activity, collect information on productivity, scrap rates, etc.

      Dynamics 365 Business Central - Workplaces
      Dynamics 365 Business Central – workplaces
    • Graphic planning (add-on)

      Keep track of and control your production planning in a more user-friendly way by visually enhancing it. Simply expand the existing scheduling board in Dynamics 365 Business Central with your own individual functional areas using the Visual (Advanced) Production Scheduler add-on from Netronic.

      In addition to the Netronic add-on, etagis APS also enables interactive production planning and control with limited capacities and all relevant planning data.

    • Agile manufacturing

      Agile companies aim to be able to quickly respond to market changes or shifting customer needs. With the system, you can dynamically adjust delivery and capacity planning accordingly. Moreover, it enables the automatic creation of production orders and purchase orders. Capacity planning including finite loading completes the module.

    • Subcontracting

      In some manufacturing companies, operations are outsourced to vendors. You can easily represent this process in the system.

    • Production costs

      Calculate the costs of manufactured items based on raw materials and labor hours.

    • Resource consumption (optional customization)

      Track the consumption of your components and the quantity of your manufactured finished goods. The values are booked as items under the released production order.

      Order terminal for orders (customization)
      For one company, we introduced a custom order terminal. To streamline order entry, we developed custom screens for the terminals, which work optimally for touch operation and scanner input.

    • Bill of materials

      Manufacturing bill of materials
      A manufacturing bill of materials describes the components that go into a manufactured item.

      Production bill of materials in Dynamics 365 Business Central
      Production bill of materials in Dynamics 365 Business Central
    • Handling scrap

      If there is any scrap generated during production, it can be easily recorded and booked digitally. Scrap can also be accounted for in planning.

    • Time tracking

      Record the time spent on operations. The values are booked as items under the released production order. The recorded times are booked as capacity entries. Such booked entries can also be displayed as actual quantities in the bottom of the journal.

Microsoft Dynamics Production is Strong in Comparison:

Your Benefits through our Functions in the Area of Production

Icon showing a checklist

Traceability

Digital production orders and parts lists make it easy for your employees to understand what needs to be done.

Icon showing gear wheels

Flexible Design

You can react quickly to changing customer requirements and optimize your production processes in the long term.

Icon showing a hierarchy

Optimal Capacity Utilization

Thanks to the constant overview of resources, you can optimally plan the utilization of employees and machines at all times.

Icon showing a calendar

Exact Delivery Dates

Reliably guarantee your customers the planned delivery date. This is easily possible with good planning.

From Theory to Practice:

Tutorial: Production in Business Central

  • How do I plan the production process so that it runs smoothly?

    Production managers are primarily responsible for planning processes. The system takes a lot of work off your hands with AI-powered sales and inventory forecasting. This forecasts potential sales based on historical data, providing an overview of expected demand and anticipated stockouts.

    Sales and inventory forecast Sales and stock forecast on an article card

    Production and material requirements planning

    Using the Calculate Regeneration function, production and material requirements can be calculated based on actual and planned demand. Both production program planning and net requirements can be calculated separately or simultaneously.

    Material requirements planning/net requirements

    Material requirements planning forecasts the material needs for components based on actual demand. The main purpose of net requirements planning is to schedule formal plans for each item to provide the right item at the right time, in the right place, and in the right quantity.

    Production program planning

    Production program planning is the calculation of a production plan based on actual demand and sales planning. The calculation of the production program planning is performed for finished items with a plan or a sales order line. These items are referred to as “production program planning items” and are marked as dynamic when the calculation is started.

    The visual representation of your planning can be expanded with various add-ons such as the Netronic Visual (Advanced) Production Scheduler.

    Outsourcing

    Outsourcing selected operations to vendors is common in many manufacturing companies. Outsourcing is realized through special work center groups assigned to vendors. The software recognizes the need for subcontracting, which can be created through the subcontracting proposal. Service costs can be added to the cost of production through this process.

    Bills of materials

    With bills of materials (production or assembly bills of materials), you structure higher-level products consisting of individual components.

    Production bill of materials in Dynamics 365 Business Central Production parts list
  • How do I create a production order?

    Fulfillment orders can be created directly from sales orders, from production planning (planning proposal), or from order planning.

    Within the system, a production order (abbreviated as PO) can have different statuses depending on its processing stage (PO status). The following PO statuses are distinguished:

    • Simulated production orders: A simulated production order is mainly used for order creation and calculation. One could say it is an example of a production order. Thus, it has no impact on order planning.
    • Planned production orders: A planned production order represents the best estimate of future workload at the work center or work center group based on available information. It also provides information for capacity planning by showing the capacity requirements by work center or work center group.
    • Firm planned production orders: A firm planned production order, as the name suggests, is planned and can be released soon. Unlike the simulated and planned production orders, it is not deleted in the planning proposal.
    • Released production orders: Changing the status of the production order to “released” initiates work for the corresponding order. Actual material consumption and actual reporting can be recorded with a released production order. Additionally, automatic consumption and reporting can only be done for released production orders.
    • Completed production orders: A completed production order is typically a production order whose items have been produced in the specified quantity. Completing a production order is an important task when finalizing the overall cost assessment of the item being produced. Completing a production order allows for adjustment and reconciliation of the assessment. Completed production orders are used for generating statistical reports and supporting traceability to other orders (e.g., sales orders, production orders, and purchase orders). The ability to trace to a completed production order enables you to trace the exact history. A completed production order cannot be modified retrospectively.
  • How do I execute a production order?

    As soon as the production order has been created and planned, it can be released for the production area and then executed. In the meantime, the materials, working time and quantity of the manufactured item are recorded.

    The material consumption can be recorded either manually via the FA consumption book sheet or the production book sheet. In addition to the manual method, you can also use forward or backward posting. With forward and backward booking, you also have the choice of whether this should be recorded for the entire order or for each work step.

    There are various options for material postings. Small parts, such as screws, can be configured so that they are automatically booked according to the planned quantity from the parts list. Other items may require picking and should be entered manually as consumption by the production employees. Subsequent correction postings are also possible.

    Create production order in Dynamics 365 Business Central Create planned production order

    Actual reporting

    Actual reporting can be processed through the PO Actual Reporting Journal. It serves to track how much time the order has taken and the quantity produced of the manufactured item. Actual reporting helps determine the exact manufacturing costs.

    Similar to material consumption, there are three methods for actual reporting: manual, forward, or backward. Through the PO Actual Reporting Journal, you can also book scrap and downtimes.

    Journals

    The Production Journal, the PO Consumption Journal, and the aforementioned PO Actual Reporting Journal are essential in the production process. The Production Journal is essentially a combination of the other two journals, allowing you to capture both consumption and actual reporting of a production order in one place.

  • How do I monitor the production process in the best possible way?

    Analysis and error source minimization

    With the system, you can monitor production declines or scrap and identify causes more easily to avoid scrap in the long term.

    You can also enter and record scrap and downtimes in the system. The same applies to downtimes.

    Production key performance indicator reporting

    Reports on essential production key performance indicators can be easily generated due to the system’s robust reporting capabilities and scheduled as desired. For example, you can set up a report to be delivered to management every Monday morning at 8 a.m.

    Report: Detailed calculation “Detailed calculation” report

    Monitoring (quantity and quality)

    Through Azure IoT, it’s possible to connect physical objects (e.g., machines) and virtual objects (e.g., cloud). Why? This allows for proactive and predictive minimization of error sources (e.g., machine failures, machine overheating). To achieve this, a large amount of data is collected and analyzed.

Dynamics 365 Business Central chart of accounts
Chart of accounts in Dynamics 365 Business Central
Decision Made Easy:

Why anaptis? Your Benefits

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Why should you choose us as your partner company for ERP implementation from the vast Microsoft network? Here’s an overview of what makes us unique:

  1. Standard-oriented and flexible approach
  2. Fair usage rights to the code
  3. Personalized support
  4. Honest and fair communication
  5. Experienced and stable company
What Are You Waiting For?

Let's Craft Your Success Story together

Get to know us! In a free initial consultation, we’ll determine together if we, as a partner company, and the ERP system for medium-sized businesses, are the right solution for you and your company.

We are looking forward to your inquiry!

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