Top 7 Challenges in Industrial Project Operations & How Dynamics 365 Solves Them

Top 7 Challenges in Industrial Project Operations and How Dynamics 365 Business Central + Project operations Solves Them

Industrial project businesses in Australia are delivering essential work across infrastructure, utilities, and energy-related programs often across multiple sites, tight schedules, and strict safety expectations.

The problem isn’t that teams aren’t working hard. It’s that many industrial project businesses are still running on disconnected tools: spreadsheets for quoting, separate systems for finance, manual tracking for materials, and delayed visibility on project costs. That makes it harder to standardise delivery, protect margins, and bill on time.

This is where ERP for Industrial Projects becomes essential especially when it’s built to connect projects + finance + materials + resources end-to-end.

In this blog, we’ll break down the top 7 challenges we see in industrial project operations and how Dynamics 365 Business Central and Dynamics 365 Project Operations help address them.

Why connected operations matters in industrial projects

Industrial projects are not just projects. They are an operating model:

Bid/Quote → Plan → Procure → Execute (site) → Control → Claim/Bill → Close

When your systems don’t connect, each stage becomes a handoff. And every handoff creates risk:

• Quote revisions don’t translate cleanly into delivery baselines
• Materials aren’t reserved and staged correctly to project sites
• Labour and equipment utilisation is planned without a reliable capacity view
• Actual costs show up late, when margin has already leaked
• Billing depends on manual chasing for approvals, dockets, and evidence
• Reporting becomes inconsistent across PM, Ops, and Finance

A connected platform solves the root issue: it links project delivery with financial reality, so you’re managing based on what’s happening now, not what you discover after the month ends.

What Dynamics 365 Business Central + Project Operations does

Dynamics 365 Business Central is the ERP foundation that brings finance, purchasing, inventory, warehousing, and project cost tracking into one integrated system. It supports project budgeting, tracking, and time sheets as part of project management.

Dynamics 365 Project Operations adds stronger delivery controls, especially around capturing and approving time and expenses (and keeping delivery activity aligned with what becomes billable).

Together, they support a connected quote-to-cash approach so projects, materials, resources, and finance stay aligned across the full delivery cycle.

Challenge 1: Managing multiple project lifecycles without standard workflows

Industrial project businesses rarely deliver one consistent project type. You might run shutdowns and maintenance programs alongside fixed-price installs and time-and-materials service projects. Each team builds its own way of working- different templates, different spreadsheets, different approval habits.

Why it hurts:

When workflows vary by person or project type, governance breaks down:

• Controls aren’t applied consistently
• Progress tracking is not comparable across projects
• Reporting becomes inconsistent
• Scaling means adding chaos, not profit

How Dynamics 365 helps

With Dynamics 365 Business Central, you can structure project management foundations-setting up projects, resources, and time sheets to manage budgets and track machine/employee hours.

Practical Outcome

You move from every project is a one-off to repeatable delivery discipline making it easier to scale across project types without losing control.

Challenge 2: Inefficient quoting and revision control (scope + margin risk)

Quotes change constantly. Scope clarifications, client requests, engineering changes, and site realities all drive revisions. Without structure, revisions sit in email chains and spreadsheets, and teams lose confidence in which version is final.

Why it hurts

This is where margin leakage starts early:

• Pricing accuracy drops
• Scope assumptions get missed
• Delivery teams inherit unclear baselines
• Variations are harder to justify later because the paper trail is weak

How Dynamics 365 helps

A connected ERP + project delivery approach reduces the quote-to-project gap by helping teams baseline projects more clearly and keep a consistent delivery structure as work progresses.

Project Operations also supports more controlled capture/approval of delivery inputs (like time and expenses), which improves traceability as you move through delivery.

Practical outcome

Cleaner handover from what was sold to what is delivered- reducing disputes, reducing rework, and protecting margins from day one.

Challenge 3: Resource scheduling without a real capacity view (people + equipment)

What it looks like

Industrial scheduling is not only labour. It’s also equipment, specialised skills, subcontractors, and site access windows. Many teams schedule in spreadsheets and then spend the week firefighting clashes.

Why it hurts

Without strong Resource & Capacity Planning ERP, you see:

• Over-allocated crews and equipment conflicts
• Underutilised resources in other parts of the business
• Delays caused by last-minute reshuffles
• Higher subcontractor reliance because internal capacity wasn’t visible

How Dynamics 365 helps

Business Central supports setting up resources and scheduling them against projects, and time sheets help capture utilisation for people and machines giving managers visibility to identify issues early.

Project Operations strengthens delivery execution by supporting structured time/expense capture with approvals, so resource usage is easier to track during delivery (not after the fact)

Practical outcome

More predictable schedules, fewer clashes, and better utilisation so you can run more work with the same team without burning out your planners.

Challenge 4:Procurement and materials-to-site visibility gaps (warehouse ↔ site)

Stock moves between warehouses, vans, subcontractors, and project sites. Materials get staged, split, returned, replaced, or consumed unexpectedly. When the warehouse system and project plan don’t connect, teams can’t answer basic questions quickly:

• Is the part on hand?
• Where is it right now?
• Was it reserved for this project or another project?
• Do we need to reorder before we hit site?

Why it hurts

Weak Inventory and Warehouse Management for Projects creates:

• Site downtime (waiting for parts)
• Emergency buying (higher costs)
• Duplicate purchasing (because no one trusts the stock position)
• Budget leakage (materials not linked to project cost correctly)

How Dynamics 365 helps

Business Central includes strong warehouse capabilities such as locations with bins, and processes for directed put-away and pick supporting more structured inbound/outbound control in warehouse operations.

When warehouse operations are structured, materials control improves across locations and movements, making it easier to support project staging and prevent last-minute surprises.

Practical outcome

Better materials readiness, fewer stockouts, fewer emergency buys, and fewer avoidable site delays.

Challenge 5:Poor job cost control and delayed project accounting

Labour timesheets come in late. Subcontractor invoices arrive after the work is done. Materials consumption isn’t captured consistently. The result: budget vs actuals becomes a hindsight report.

Why it hurts

This is the most common reason “projects look profitable until they aren’t.”

• Overruns are discovered too late to correct
• Margin erosion becomes normal
• PMs spend time explaining the past instead of controlling the future

How Dynamics 365 helps

Business Central supports project management with time sheets for employees and machines helping track time spent on projects and identify issues early to avoid delays or cost overruns.

It also provides a structured base for Project Accounting in Business Central, where project-related costs and progress tracking can be managed more consistently across projects.

Practical outcome

Earlier visibility into budget vs actuals and profitability so teams can course-correct while there’s still time to protect margin.

Challenge 6: Delayed billing and unpredictable cash flow

In industrial projects, billing often depends on progress claims, milestones, or time-and-materials approvals. But when approvals, timesheets, dockets, and evidence are scattered, invoicing becomes manual and slow.

Why it hurts

• Cash flow becomes unpredictable
• Finance teams chase evidence instead of closing cleanly
• PMs lose momentum because billing becomes an admin burden
• Disputes increase when billing is not backed by clear approvals

How Dynamics 365 helps

Project Operations uses approvals so time, expense, and material usage submissions move through workflow- once approved, transactions are recorded in actuals or time is booked in the schedule.

This creates a cleaner path from work completed → approved→ ready for billing, reducing manual chasing and improving billing rhythm.

Practical outcome

Faster billing cycles, fewer approval bottlenecks, and more predictable cash flow.

Challenge 7: Weak reporting, forecasting, and compliance documentation

Leadership asks: Which projects are at risk this month and teams answer with different spreadsheets. Compliance evidence sits across emails, shared drives, and phones. Audit readiness becomes stressful especially at project close-out.

Why it hurts

• Decisions slow down due to inconsistent reporting
• Forecasting becomes guesswork
• Compliance gaps cause delays at the worst time (handover/close-out)
• Teams spend more time chasing information than delivering work

How Dynamics 365 helps

Connected data across finance, projects, time/expenses, and warehouse operations supports consistent reporting and governance. Power BI integration delivers dashboards for project performance, stock status, project costing, and cash flow all from one source.

And on productivity, Microsoft’s Copilot in Business Central is designed to help boost productivity and reduce tedious tasks inside the ERP experience.

Practical outcome

One version of the truth for PM, Operations, and Finance plus cleaner audit readiness and faster close-outs.

A practical quote-to-cash example for industrial projects

Here’s what connected operations looks like in a real industrial scenario (multi-site upgrade):

• The project is baselined with budget, resources, and delivery structure
• Materials are procured and staged through structured warehouse processes (locations/bins, put-away/pick)
• Time is captured consistently through time sheets, creating early visibility into resource usage and cost movement
• As delivery progresses, time/expense entries in Project Operations support cost visibility and structured approvals
• Approved actuals and progress evidence accelerate billing readiness
• PMs and finance work from consistent project and financial truth, reducing disputes and rework

Choosing ERP for Industrial Projects: a simple checklist

If you’re evaluating ERP for Industrial Projects, look for a solution that supports:

• Standard workflows across different project types
• Cost visibility during delivery (not only after month-end)
• Materials and purchasing control linked to project needs
• Stronger Resource & Capacity Planning ERP (people + equipment)
• More reliable job costing and Project Accounting in Business Central
• Faster billing readiness (less chasing)
• Consistent reporting across PM, ops, and finance
• Integration with tools teams already use (Excel/Teams/Power BI)

Why Dynamics Square Is the Preferred Partner 

Adopting a modern ERP system is not just about software, it’s about choosing a partner who understands how industrial projects run in the real world.

Dynamics Square brings experience in project-driven industries to help implement Dynamics 365 Business Central and Dynamics 365 Project Operations with clarity, minimal disruption, and measurable ROI. We are more than just an IT solutions provider and believes in partnering with you in your digital transformation journey and building successful long-term relationships. 

• 150+Man Years of Expertise
• 100+ Subject Matter Experts
• 500+Project Deliveries
• 99% Customer Satisfaction

Book your free consultation

Join the webinar: see how Dynamics 365 supports industrial project delivery

In our webinar, we’ll walk through:

• Where industrial project operations typically break (and why)
• How Dynamics 365 Business Central + Project Operations creates connected control
• Practical outcomes: cost control, materials readiness, utilisation, billing speed, and reporting confidence

If you’re planning your next step toward connected operations, this session will help you evaluate what good looks like and how to get there with confidence.

Reserve your spot