Manufacturing Renaissance Article

This AME-sponsored event, hosted by capital equipment and engineering solutions provider Barry-Wehmiller, brought together manufacturing leaders whose companies represent what is possible when people-centric leadership is coupled with enterprise excellence.

View: Manufacturing Renaissance Article

Webinar - Best Practices ERP Selection

Organizations change their Business Software, such as an ERP, for various reasons. Some feel the pain in operations due to an antiquated ERP; some suffer revenue loss due to restrictions imposed. Whatever the reason, most organizations agree there is a need for an Objective, Structured, and Thorough process for ERP selection.

Join BWIR for an interactive discussion during which, you will find out:
 

• How to establish a compelling business need for a new ERP
• How to establish a set of evaluation parameters
• How to execute the actual selection process
• What are the major elements of the deliverables

Join Hosts: Pat McGrath and Shantanoo Govilkar

October 17, 2013 - 10:00 - 11:00 AM CST

 
The panel will also take questions from the community and provide practical insights.


Register Here

Register for this informative webinar to kick-start your objective, structured, and thorough ERP selection process!

ERP Modernization with Dynamics AX

A savvy business should stay informed about new or upcoming technologies. The same can be said about your ERP system. A system created in the 1990’s will not be able to cater to the needs of a modern business. If your systems is one or two generations behind the modern iteration then you are missing out on exciting new features and losing ground to more modern competitors. The chart below contains just a sample of the benefits a business can achieve when using Dynamics AX 2012.

Benefits	Features
Manufacturing Flexibly manage resources Perform better with flexible routings Enhance production flow Gain increased production efficiency Easily monitor production costs Gain insight into production	Manufacturing Capacity Scheduling can produce a reliable overview of the manufacturing resources required to meet customer demand Set up different routing versions and network routes to help you avoid bottlenecks Perform scheduling at different levels of detail Minimize lead times by creating cross-group links between resources that handle the same task Job monitoring gives you an overview of individual work center’s activities Record consumption and costs prior to production or record actual consumption during production Use the Gantt chart to easily schedule changes using simple drag and drop functionality
Project Increase productivity More control over projects Gain business insight Increased cash flow management	Project Speed up project creation by using templates from previous projects Break down large and complex projects into sub-projects Project Accounting will help you identify and address delays and cost overruns Get actionable data to help you identify market trends and take on the right projects while avoiding unprofitable Keep your customers updated with accurate and timely progress reports Shorten the billing cycle when you generate invoices immediately and get paid for projects faster
MRP Optimize the flow of production Function across multiple warehouses Increase efficiency with flexible planning Easy outsourcing of production Quick response to changes Reduce costs by minimizing inventory levels Keep delivery promises	MRP Run simulations and scenarios to foresee the effect of plans and strategies Changes to purchase and production orders will be suggested by, Action messages based on changing requirements Run available-to-promise and capable-to-promise calculations Project production and purchasing plans that match your demand with forecast scheduling Automatically generate transfer orders to fulfill inventory requirements
Inventory Easy to create bills of material Efficient management of bills of material Optimized inventory levels Detailed inventory insight	Inventory The graphical BOM designer makes it easy to create BOMs using drag and drop features Manage forty BOM levels effectively Perform price calculations for each level of the BOM Create sales and purchase forecasts based on items and time periods Use serial and batch numbers to track items in the system
Order Management Greater cost control with more visibility Optimized purchasing process Easily trade with subsidiaries Better customer service	Order Management Cost and Price inventory is consistently  updated to reflect the actual price Look into real time available to promise data Compare quotes from suppliers on multiple parameters Make informed purchasing decisions with historical data and analysis tools Apply various intercompany trading policies Gain advanced control over sales orders
Finance Greater insight into your finances Efficient financial operations and planning Effective cash flow management Fewer geographic boundaries	Finance Generate reports financial reports with advanced reporting tools. Register financial data in the ledger in real time Analyze you financials with cash flow forecasts Use electronic payments visible on all accounts Support for multiple languages and currencies Manage local legal and regulatory compliance
Reporting Easy to customize and create Integrates with your general ledger Access reports in various ways Greater financial intelligence	Reporting The report wizard  can create key financial reports in as few as seven steps Quickly create accurate and up-to-date reports Gain a greater understanding business trends with comparative data
HRM Manage talent Centralized employee information Automated recruitment processes Model organizational units	HRM Track and compare professional skills and aptitudes, and personal skills Manage employees, teams and departments throughout your organization Control the entire hiring process from application to employment Make changes in the organizational structure easily

Get ahead of the competition with a modern ERP and prepare your company for the future.

 

Is an AX upgrade or implementation right for you? Email me any questions you might have.

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Going Lean with an ERP

Chances are your company has already embarked on lean initiatives. Many companies have realized that waste is the opposite of value. Because of this they work to optimize in order to remain profitable and competitive. But what value can an ERP bring to your lean initiatives? First, let’s assess our lean practices.

How many of these rules do you follow?

1.       Do not over-purchase

2.       Do not over-produce

3.       Simplify processes and procedures

4.       Minimize wait-time

5.       Optimize human movement in moving material

6.       Measure and Improve continuously

What is your score on the practices above? 3 out of 6? Maybe more or maybe less? Did you know that an ERP system such as Dynamics AX can help you achieve the above practices right out of the box?

ERP systems are built with lean in mind, and can really aid in a manufacturer’s lean efforts.

What can an ERP do specifically?

Reduce waste: An ERP will increase your flow of information through its routings and workflows. The planning module will minimize inventory while making effective use of transportation and warehouse facilities. It will also eliminate waste or delays in the supply chain by becoming a link to your trading partners. This means that your warehouse will be able to capitalize on the available space provided by trade and logistics, while your supply chain eliminates excess inventory and shortages through supply chain management.

Increase your Business Intelligence: An ERP system contains documentation of your processes and procedures. It will record and implement any changes placed into the system. This will deliver the most up-to-date information while providing info on changes in relation to costs, lead-times, and efficiency. Built in Business Intelligence tools will monitor performance indicators and notify management of changes whether they are good or bad. BI tools will also allow for the analysis of data that, in turn, can reduce waste.

Increase Collaboration: Use the knowledge that resides in your sales people, representatives, distributors, agents and customers. AX in conjunction with MS Office provides electronic collaboration tools to make doing business easy. Trading partners can forecast accuracy; ensure quality service and timely delivery.

Are you the lean super star of your business? Are you leveraging the lean capabilities of your ERP software? Make sure your ERP system keeps with your lean practices.

 

Check out BWIR's website, or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter for access to the most up-to-date information.

Free Webinar - Dynamics AX Upgrade Options

Are you considering an upgrade to your AX environment, while streamlining licenses and hardware?

 

Things that you might want to consider: 

• Reducing the hardware footprint
• Restructuring license models
• Deploying automation
• Agile project execution approach

Each of the items above has resulted in cost savings and other intangible benefits. In some cases, the savings funded the cost of the upgrade itself!

 

BWIR's AX experts will work with you to define a holistic upgrade strategy. After a thorough review of your AX environment we will define a plan that will deliver savings and results.

 

Register for the Webinar!

 

 

And please feel free to check out BWIR's website, or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter for access to the most up-to-date information.

Configuring Vendor Ratings and Scorecards in Dynamics AX - A Tinkerers Notebook - Microsoft Dynamics AX - Microsoft Dynamics Community

Dynamics AX allows you to configure your own Vendor Evaluation Criteria and then track the vendor performance against any or all of the criteria that you have defined. When you combine this with the Power BI tools, you get a great way to rate vendors, and also a nice way to present Vendor Scorecards.

In this worked example we will show how to configure the Vendor Evaluations, and also how to create a simple Vendor Scorecard without breaking a sweat.

Creating Vendor Evaluation Criteria Groups

The first step in configuring the Vendor Ratings within Dynamics AX is to create some Vendor Evaluation Criteria Groups. These will be used to group common sets of evaluation criteria together and allow you to get summary results on the evaluations at the criteria group level.

Read More at Murry Fife's Blog

Some info on Microsoft Dynamics AX 2014/2015 Next Major Release codenamed "Rainier" or "Rainer

There has been some buzz around on the next release of AX codenamed "Rainier" or "Rainer" - I'm not sure on the correct codename.

I'm not able to find this particular link anymore but here are some of the striking points which I had noted down from the original poster.

Features:

a. Cloud Based Solutions
b. Platform independence - Browser enabled clients
c. AD Federation and more integration with Azure
d. More investments on Visual Studio (Development Environment will be VS)
e. Application Development targetting any OS through Rainier
f. No longer need to invest on Sharepoint hosting as Enterprise portal will be eliminated
g. 3 key pillars - New client, Cloud Readiness, New Development Stack
h. No RPC based communication (Atleast, now it's assured that the event logs won't get full by RPC errors which was the case with AX 2009)
i. Programming language will still be X++ but everything will be .net compiled
j. Capability to expose updatable views using OData
k. HTML 5 based Web Client so more faster and richer experience

So, all looks exciting for the next major release of Dynamics AX which would be somewhere in end of 2014 or early 2015!


Read Dilip's original post here

If you have a question about Dynamics AX that you would like answered, please email us. Or visit the BWIR website for more information about the company.