How a Production Manager Uses Dynamics 365 Business Central

I want to show you how a production manager might use Dynamics 365 Business Central to help them do their job better. So let’s take a look at it.

Key Areas

Demand Forecasts, MRP, and MPS Process

We’re going to look at demand forecasts, the MRP and MPS process, bills of material, and routings as well. Then we’ll take a look at production orders and how those are processed through the system.

Role Center

This is Business Central, and I’m logged in as a production manager or a manufacturing manager. The first thing I see is my role center. What’s nice about the role center is it consolidates a lot of the activity that a production manager might have into one place, so you can access most of the system from one page.

Demand Forecast

Setup

The first thing we’re going to look at is the demand forecast. I can have a number of demand forecasts in my system and then use them as I want to. I’ve set up this one here for the autodrip. This is the finished good that we’re going to use throughout the demonstration.

Usage

So what I’ve done is I specified a quantity that I want in my demand forecast for this particular product over a period of months. You can see that here. These are the months. Let’s open this up a little bit. And I can have multiple products on the forecast if I want to, or I can have multiple forecasts as well. So any way that makes my job easier, it’s going to make sense for me. And I have this forecast broken down by location. If I want to, I could just have one number that covered all locations, but I’ve decided to break it out. And in this case, we’re looking at one location called main.

MRP Process

Planning Worksheets

Next, let’s take a quick look at the MRP process. These are worksheets. We’ll go to worksheets, planning worksheets, and I’m going to use this one here. I can use this over and over again. I can refresh it if I want to. What you see here is an MRP process that is looking at a couple of things. It’s looking at my demand forecast, any open POs, and open sales orders. It’s looking at the total demand and availability. Do I have POs that are coming in? What do I have in my various locations?

Automatic Creation of Production Orders

The MRP process looks at this, and I’ve also set this up to create production orders. This will automatically create production orders to meet the demand that I forecast and have in my system at the current time. You can see those here. I’ve got production orders and purchase orders set up to go. In this case, they’re just suggested. If I want to act on that, I can select the line items and process them. It’s easy to do.

Selection and Activation

I’ll select this emergency item right here. I’ve got an exception here. I can take my time. I can refresh this anytime I want to. I can also share it with others. I can break it down by buyer, by user, and they can have their own set of things that they’re interested in and take a look at the results. To activate this process, I’ll go to prepare and generate the plan. It will regenerate the plan if I want it to. Once I’ve got the plan regenerated, I can select the actions I want it to take. Once I’ve done that, I say carry out the actions. These are the results I’ll get.

Results

For example, the assembly order I’ve got selected will create an assembly order in my system. You can see that it will also create production orders, purchase orders, and transfer orders from one location to another. I’ll go ahead and hit okay. It’s going to create that assembly order, and I’m done with this. This is an easy-to-use process that’s easy to set up.

Finished Good Item: Autodrip

Item Card

Let’s take a look at the finished good item we’re going to be working with in this demonstration. It’s called autodrip. Autodrip is an assembled product I’m making in my location. This is the item card that tells the system about the item. You can see I’ve got a lot of information here about the item. This is for the MRP process.

Replenishment Area

This is the replenishment area. It tells the system how I’m going to get this item. In this case, the autodrip is something that I’m going to manufacture, and I’m going to use a production order to do that. Other items I’m going to purchase or maybe do an assembly. There’s a number of ways that I can set up an item to acquire that. If I use stock keeping units, I can have different methods in different locations for the same item. But in this case, I’m going to simplify it. I’ve got one location. I’m going to create a production order to make that item and use purchase orders to get the components.

Production Bill of Materials

Components

Let’s take a look at the production bill of materials for this item. These are the component items I’m going to use to create the autodrip. There are two different types of items I can have on the line: an item, as these all are, or a production bill of material. If I use a production bill of material, it would be more like a phantom bill of material in this particular bill of material. In this case, I know this is a subassembly. The reservoir assembly is a separate item that I make and store on my shelves until I need it.

Versions

Here’s another bill of material. This one has different versions. I can set up different bill of material versions for a single item. Here’s an example: a finished good item with different versions displayed. In this case, the versions are primarily identical, but I can vary them and select the version to use in a particular production order.

Routings

Specification

Next, let’s take a look at routings. Here are my routings. I’ve got one for the autodrip, specifying how this product will go through my organization. You can see it goes through three work centers, with specified setup time and runtime for this particular item. There are different statuses of bills of material and routings in the system. This one’s certified, meaning it’s ready to be used. I also have new status, underdevelopment status, and closed status. I can manage different bills of material and routings with different statuses and versions.

Production Order

Creation

I’ve shown you the background of this production process: the item, bill of material, routing, and different versions. Now let’s take a look at an actual production order. Production orders can be entered by hand or generated automatically by a process in Business Central. I use the MRP and MPS process to create a new production order.

Stages

As a manufacturing manager, I’ve got these tiles showing the different stages of production orders in my system. This is handy, giving me an instant view of what’s happening. I can drill down and see the items below. Here are different production orders generated by the MRP MPS process. Let’s sort them by date and open one up.

Processing

This is one production order for a finished good. The way production orders work in Business Central is through different statuses. Right now, these are firm planned production orders. I specified that when I ran the MRP MPS process. I can change the status as it goes through the process. In this case, I’m using a backflush method on this bill of material and work centers. There’s not much to do from a bookkeeping standpoint. If I wanted to, I could track individual components and work orders manually. Business Central can accommodate that and vary it by item and bill of material.

Status Change

Right now, it’s a firm planned production order. I want to release it and update the unit cost. Now that production order has changed status. Back at my role center, it’s now a released production order. If it’s completed, I can finish it by changing the status. The item has been created in my manufacturing organization. Components and costs have been relieved and put into the finished good costs. It’s now in inventory.

Further Demonstration

Autodrip Product

Let’s take a look at another product, the autodrip. This is a finished good item, similar to the one we just processed. Let’s start from the MRP process. I run the MRP process and get suggestions for new production orders. I select them and carry out the action messages, creating production orders.

Review

Back at my role center, I look at the firm plan production orders created from the MRP process. Here’s a production order in a firm planned status. We can see the components and quantities, and the routing through different workstations. I can close out this production order daily or whenever I want until it’s complete. Once it’s completed, I’ll process it by changing the status to release it and then finish it. The finished good has been created, and costs have been relieved.

Reporting

Capacity Planning Availability Report

Let’s take a look at some nice reporting available from the role center. First, the capacity planning availability report. This report shows planning availability for a specific item, with a timeline of quantities involved. It includes forecast items, actual sales orders, and planned production orders.

Production Reports

Next, some production reports. The production shortage report shows items that will be in shortage and need resolution. The detailed calculation report shows the costed elements of a bill of material. For autodrip, it includes work center costs and current costs from inventory. This costed BOM can be used for planning and analysis.

Conclusion

In this demonstration, I showed how production managers might use Dynamics 365 Business Central. We looked at demand forecasts and how they drive the MRP and MPS process. We examined bills of material and routings, including different versions. We processed production orders, running them through different stages to end up with the finished good.