Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management - ABC's

Here's a thing about life and career I have learned: The destination of the current step you are taking is often unknown and some times does not materialize in the way anticipated. But as Steve Jobs rightly said "You can only connect the dots looking backwards".

Although I enjoy driving Human Resources transformation projects continously learning, keeping projects and teams positive and bringing in some awesome industry experience - My university education designed me to be a Mechanical Engineer (a pretty good one??). I will be working through brushing up my Supply Chain Management and D365 knowledge trying to connect my past mechanical engineering dots - I will be sharing my journey via some super cool articles with a #nocodehr touch . Stay with me, exchange your exertise and guide my learning journey!

Jumping into my first article about D365 SCM...

Harry is a baker passionate about baking themed birthday cakes and has a really cool website to sell his cakes. As the market matures the demand for his birthday cakes rapidly rise - he starts to struggle in meeting the demand - that's a supply chain management to solve. High demand with low supply

What is Supply Chain Management?

The art of procuring, storing and converting the raw materials flour, creme, food colors and taste makers into a fully finished product a themed cake in a efficient manner to predict the demand, optimize and control the manufacturing process and delivery of the cakes for absolute customer satisfaction and best price quality ratio sums up the process of Supply Chain Management.

What are the pillars of supply chain management process?

01: Procure to Pay

Harry always says "garbage in garbage out". In order to bake the perfect cakes harry needs to identify the best of the raw materials and who are the suppliers who can supply them at the correct prices on a perfect timeline to meet the demands. This is primarily dependent on the relationships he is able to establish with the suppliers. On Dynamics 365 think of purchase requisition, Request for quotation, Purchase Order, Purchase receipt, Purchase invoice related to procure to pay

02: Inventory and Warehouse

Harry finds the perfect supplier that is aligned with his goal of baking the best birthday cakes and starts supplying all the raw materials - the next important step is to define the process of managing the fluctuating costs of the raw materials, design the warehouse configuration, and manage the inventory in a way where the raw materials are not ordered less or more to meet the current demand at the same time they are utilized in the correct order to avoid any wastage. On Dynamics 365 think of costing methods, on-hand inventory, inventory journals.

Once there are raw materials and finished products in the warehouse Harry needs to put away items, pick them as needed or move them from one location to another to optimize the warehouse layout. On Dynamics 365 think of Zones, Locations, Work pools, Location directives, Wave templates and Work templates.

03: Manufacturing

Harry is starting off the baking business with specialized cake designs per order (discrete manufacturing), as the volumes grows and Harry's cake design become extremely popular he can think of baking them in bulk with a defined process ( Process manufacturing). As his company grows in size he can think of reducing operational waste adopting (Lean manufacturing). Harry also has to think of placing the baking ovens optimally in the shop floor to make the manufacturing process efficient. A master planning excercise becomes essential to manage a large organization for efficient and error free delivery of the birthday cakes. On Dynamics 365 think of Bill of materials, routes, operations, lifecycle stages, shop floor management, master planning.

04: Order to Cash

As the customer's orders start coming in Harry needs to be prepared to process the orders in the correct sequence, release the invoices for payment, accept payments, work with the delivery companies, process successful deliveries and returns in an efficient manner to keep customers happy and manage the right expectations. On Dynamics 365 think of sales quotation, Sales order, Packaging slip, Sales invoice, Return order.

Curious to know more about Harry's Supply Chain Management struggles and do you want help him solve his challenges using Dynamics 365 SCM... stay tuned, more supply chain awesomeness coming your way!

See you in the next one

Kamal

#supplychainmanagement #D365F&SCM #nocodehr