Boost Efficiency and Growth: Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management for Mid & Large Firms

67.4% of supply chain managers rely only on spreadsheets as their solution for supply chain management. If you are one of them, then the following statistics might be familiar to you. 34% of retailers experienced delayed shipments due to items being out of stock. If this is the situation of your supply chain business, then let me show you how you are falling behind.

The order processing integration into the inventory system can lead to a 25% boost in productivity, a 20% reduction in space consumption and a 30% improvement in stock use efficiency. Businesses are achieving these outstanding results with a robust cloud-based supply chain management system.

A well-maintained supply chain is crucial for effectively distributing a company’s products or services. The cost savings and improved output achieved through a finely tuned supply network highlight its critical role in supply chain management.

In fact, following the supply chain disruptions of 2020, 58.6% of retail supply chain executives are planning to invest in omnichannel fulfilment.

So, if you don’t want to be left behind in this cut-throat competition but want to improve your customer experience with a seamless supply chain management process, then it’s high time to embrace digitalisation.

Evolution of Supply Chain in the Face of Digitalisation

Are you finding that your supply chain is a series of disconnected steps from marketing and product development to manufacturing and distribution, finally reaching the customer?

Imagine if digitalisation could break down those barriers, transforming the chain into a fully integrated ecosystem. This would make everything transparent to all involved parties – from raw material suppliers and transporters of supplies and finished goods to the customers waiting for fulfilment.

How can this transformation happen? It hinges on several key technologies: integrated planning, real-time logistics visibility, autonomous logistics, smart procurement and warehousing and advanced analytics. These cutting-edge technologies enable businesses to not only react to supply chain disruptions but also accurately anticipate them.

Ultimately, the goal is to evolve from traditional supply chains to a connected, smart and highly efficient supply chain ecosystem. Are you ready to embrace this evolution? Then, it’s time to invest in a robust ERP system like Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management to seamlessly control your supply chain processes and take your business to new heights.

But before diving deep into how Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management transforms your business processes, let’s start by understanding what this system is all about.

What is Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management?

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management is a comprehensive cloud-based solution that transforms your supply chain, increasing real-time visibility, refining planning, streamlining procurement and optimising fulfilment. With the addition of Copilot, this adaptable, collaborative and connected platform is better equipped to handle disruptions.

The solution is tailored to fit the unique requirements of diverse industries and is scalable to manage varying workloads. At its foundation, the application supports building a customer-centric supply chain, offering insights into ordering, transport and final delivery.

What are the Modern-Day Challenges in the Supply Chain?

Supply chain managers must be vigilant about potential challenges to mitigate risks and minimise damage during disruptions and breakdowns effectively. Here are five critical challenges in supply chain management that need attention for a smooth operation.

Supply Chain Visibility Issues

Hamper operations by making it challenging to predict and mitigate potential issues before they escalate, which is crucial for maintaining efficiency. Businesses without clear end-to-end visibility struggle to track supplies, components and finished goods across their supply chain, leading to delays and inefficiencies that can disrupt operations and increase costs significantly.

Lack of Real-Time Collaboration

Real-time collaboration gaps in supply chain operations can result in delayed notifications of inventory shortages or issues among external partners, impacting supply continuity. Additionally, internal inefficiencies, like redundant quality control checks across procurement and manufacturing, highlight the need for transparent communication to optimise processes and expedite delivery timelines.

Absence of Accurate Demand Forecasting

Disrupt inventory management by causing both overstocks, which increases storage expenses and stockouts, resulting in unmet customer demands and potential loss of sales to competitors. Inadequate demand forecasting, stemming from insufficient historical data and market research, hinders the ability to anticipate and prepare for fluctuating demand, resulting in inefficient production planning and inventory management.

Lack of a Centralised System

As the management teams operate independently, decisions made in one area, such as a manufacturer increasing output, can cause unexpected repercussions like raw material shortages or backlogs in shipping. Without a centralised database to share real-time crucial information, other departments remain unprepared for these changes, leading to inefficiencies and delays.

Lack of Integrated Warehouse Management System

Lead to cluttered warehouses filled with unsold inventory and inefficient layouts. Without a proper WMS, automated sorting and picking are impossible, preventing the clearance of unsellable inventory and debris. Consequently, businesses face increased lead times and a lack of real-time information on stock levels and order fulfilment times, negatively impacting customer satisfaction and employee efficiency.

How does Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management Transform Businesses?

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management empowers businesses in diverse industries to enhance productivity and adapt to shifting customer demands. The robust cloud-based solution delivers a complete range of tools needed by business users and decision-makers for managing production, MRP, inventory, warehousing, transportation and more.

Accurate Supply Chain Planning

The solution leverages AI-powered predictions and historical data to improve forecast accuracy. Users can integrate their own machine learning models and customise forecasts through a no-code approach, allowing for tailored and precise planning.

It supports faster replenishment cycles and shorter delivery lead times by enabling complete MRP (Material Requirement Planning) runs within minutes. This capability ensures that the planners can respond to demand changes almost in real time, thereby maintaining a responsive and agile supply chain.

The solution further optimises inventory management through dynamic stock buffers and DDMRP (Demand Driven MRP), which refine fulfilment processes by automating inventory placement with the assistance of Copilot. Additionally, it facilitates efficient collaboration across departments by integrating Microsoft Teams, enabling quick consensus on-demand plans.

Optimised Sourcing and Procurement

The integration of Copilot with Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management aids in making well-informed sourcing decisions by providing rapid assessments of order changes and automating approval workflows. The solution offers a comprehensive workspace that consolidates data on past supplier performance and product metrics, enabling the identification of potential purchase risks.

By automatically applying negotiated pricing based on predefined business purchase policies, it ensures maximum cost savings, making procurement more cost-effective. Additionally, it simplifies vendor onboarding and fosters collaboration across procurement activities through a secure, unified application.

Embedded Microsoft Power BI templates facilitate effectively tracking vendor performance, lead times and product quality, providing valuable insights for continuous improvement.

Streamlined Manufacturing and Shop-Floor Management

The solution supports a variety of production strategies, including discrete processes and lean manufacturing. By offering real-time production views, it allows businesses to proactively manage the shop floor, leading to improved quality and throughput while minimising downtime. Integrating IoT (Internet of Things) and mixed reality technologies helps accelerate the time-to-market for new products by streamlining manufacturing processes. Additionally, incorporating data from external manufacturing execution systems (MES) eliminates data silos, resulting in better quality control and optimised production.

The solution improves worker safety, efficiency and accuracy through the interactive holographic experience provided by Dynamics 365 Guides. This feature allows workers to follow precise, step-by-step instructions, enhancing their ability to perform tasks correctly and safely. It drives process improvement by providing a detailed analysis of production costs, enabling businesses to identify areas for cost reduction and efficiency gains.

Improved Order Management and Pricing

The solution enhances order management by utilising real-time data on on-hand inventory and future availability to optimise fulfilment locations, ensuring sustainable and efficient deliveries. It provides accurate inventory information during order entry, allowing for precise reservations using real-time inventory and ATP (Available-to-Promise) data.

The centralised platform enables efficient management of sales orders and provides real-time visibility into delayed orders, helping businesses respond promptly to potential disruptions and maintain customer satisfaction.

Regarding pricing, Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management offers consistent and automated pricing, discounts and rebates, which enhances customer trust and satisfaction. By leveraging insights into profitability and revenue, businesses can drive accurate and competitive pricing strategies. It ensures pricing is not only consistent but also aligned with market dynamics and business objectives.

Optimised Warehouse Management

The solution enables the rapid establishment of new warehouses through a warehouse management-only mode. The feature allows for easy replication of configurations across multiple warehouses, streamlining the setup process. Warehousing operations are automated to expedite deliveries and increase throughput, while an intuitive and customisable mobile app further improves operational efficiency.

By augmenting staff with robots for material handling, the system increases throughput and mitigates labour shortages. Embedded Power BI dashboards provide critical insights, maximising OTIF (on-time, in-full) rates and guiding efficient warehouse operations.

For fulfilment, it ensures accurate and timely order deliveries. The mobile app supports guided picking, packing and sorting, enhancing order accuracy and speed. Real-time insights into warehouse process inefficiencies are obtained through process mining, enabling swift corrective actions. The solution also automates allocation and reservation, ensuring precise order delivery promises.

Additionally, it connects disparate inventory feeds using plug-and-play APIs, providing a seamless and integrated inventory management experience. These features collectively ensure a highly efficient and responsive fulfilment process, meeting customer demands effectively.

Enhanced Asset Management and Maintenance

The solution enables businesses to manage their critical equipment proactively. Through predictive, corrective, condition-based and preventive maintenance strategies, the platform ensures that assets are kept in optimal condition, reducing the risk of unexpected breakdowns.

Dynamics 365 Remote Assist enhances this capability by allowing maintenance teams to collaborate safely and sustainably with remote experts, ensuring timely and effective interventions. Integrating sensor data intelligence and AI-powered anomaly detection further drives proactive maintenance efforts, enabling businesses to detect and address potential issues before they escalate, thereby improving OEE (overall equipment effectiveness).

Additionally, it minimises downtime and optimises resource utilisation through advanced scheduling and mobile execution of maintenance tasks with Copilot. The solution’s advanced scheduling features help avoid conflicts between maintenance work and production activities, ensuring smooth workflow and maximised productivity.

Moreover, real-time maintenance and production planning enable optimised spare-part inventory management, reducing manufacturing downtime and ensuring that necessary parts are available when needed.

Uncover the Robust Features of Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management

With Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, organisations save on manufacturing costs, mitigate raw material shortages and ensure on-time delivery of goods. Utilising the solution enables businesses to streamline operations and effectively manage their entire supply chain network.

Drive Productivity with AI

With Copilot leverages natural language processing-based AI capabilities to automate action across processes.

Enhance Privacy, Security and Reliability

Offer robust cybersecurity measures, physical security management and endpoint security, ensuring 99.9% uptime to ensure your data remains accessible whenever required.

Advance Sustainability

Collaborate closely with the sustainability manager to minimise emissions throughout the supply chain operations, spanning from design and sourcing to delivery and recycling.

Manage Risk Through Collaboration

Facilitate collaboration among hybrid supply chain teams, supplies and customers to streamline workflow directly within Dynamics 365.

Improve User Experience With a Modern UI

Enable rapid onboarding of new front-line workers with an intuitive and user-friendly interface on handled devices for manufacturing and warehousing operations.

Respond Quickly with Generative help

Enhance user experience by offering intuitive, natural language-based assistance that guides users through each workflow step.

Boost Modernisation Through Composability

Revamp supply chain technology step-by-step, avoiding the need for a complete system overhaul at once.

Enhanced Warehouse Process Efficiency

Utilise process mining to gain real-time insights into warehouse inefficiencies and implement corrective measures.

Conclusion

Whether you own a supply chain business or are a professional looking for a better way to manage your supply chain, this robust solution optimises your operations and boosts efficiency.

The cloud-based Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management capabilities ensure a secure and scalable supply chain to unleash your business potential. Leverage this robust solution to make informed, real-time decisions across your entire business and supply chain operations.

Try out Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management today and experience the positive results it brings to your business. To obtain pricing details and a competitive offer for implementation, consultation and support services for Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management

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