From IoT, machine learning and mixed reality to inventory automation, Microsoft Dynamics 365 has been updating its features from the beginning. They always help businesses to stay up to date and have all the latest needs of organizations met with a top-notch list of features. Besides, with the recent August update 2022 in Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management is ready to roll out, you might need to look up the new features in the list below.
Inventory and Logistics
Workers in the warehouse can now pack and ship individual packages connected to the same cargo during the packaging process. Consequently, operations for shipping and packing are more productive.
When inventory arrives at the packing station, this feature enables the creation of “packing work.” The links to load lines are now carried by the packing work rather than the initial picking work. The packing work is modified when a container is closed so that there is one closed work record for each closed container.
Customers may stay updated with the newest Supply Chain Management capabilities by having features enabled by default.
Mandatory features:
From the BOM lines, navigate to the BOM version.
Validation of default order quantities is strictly enforced.
Features enabled by default:
- Pre-processing of a bill of materials reports avoiding a timeout.
- When using item templates, set the financial dimensions independently.
- Product dimension groups must be enabled for item templates.
- Product variation names should be regenerated based on terminology.
- Page enhancements based on variant suggestions
- Engineering Change Management now has improved attribute inheritance.
- Changes to formulations and their constituents must be managed.
- Allow for the management of current products.
- Production engineering notifications
- Engineering product variant generation
- Checks for product readiness.
A universal system for transmitting data across businesses is the GS1 barcode format. Moreover, the standard defines the data format and the different types of data that can be encoded using it.
A single barcode can contain various product information, such as the batch number, expiration date, and more, thanks to GS1 barcodes’ ability to support multiple data components.
Most of the features are now mandatory; you can find the list on Microsoft docs. However, some of the features are enabled by default; below is their list.
- Area of an additional location.
- Views have been saved for load processing.
- The view has been saved for the load planning workbench.
- Handle warehouse app events.
- Visualization of outbound workload.
- Allow for quick certification of warehouse mobile devices.
- Views have been saved for shipping processing.
- From the warehouse app, create and process transfer orders.
- Wave batch job specifics.
- Notifications of execution in waves.
- The view has been saved for wave processing.
- View saved for the work details page.
Retailers and manufacturers can request the next available dates for products or check inventory for a certain day, which is particularly helpful for responding to online client inquiries and large orders. ATP functionality enables you to choose a recalculation date or time frame when requesting inventory on hand.
Making a reservation or allocating products also allows you to verify availability. The system does an instance check and recalculates the most recent inventory changes each time you choose a recalculation date and submit a query.
Microsoft has enhanced the capability of the hazardous material in this edition to offer even more thorough information storage and reporting tools that will assist keep your company compliant with global hazardous material transportation rules.
Organizations can define as many costing ledgers as necessary with this new functionality. Both dual currency and dual valuation inventory accounting are supported.
Businesses can streamline inbound shipping operations using the landed cost module, which offers complete financial and logistical control over imported freight from the manufacturer to the warehouse.
Using transaction data entities for landed cost, external data sources (such as freight forwarder services) can produce journeys and expenses as well as update container tracking records.
By allocating inventory, you can reserve particular items so that you can supply your most lucrative customers or channels. Without inventory allocation, inventory is typically filled using the simple first-come, first-served principle. By enabling you to construct virtual inventory pools that are based on allocation rules and allocation objects, Inventory Visibility gives you more control.
If an item is WHS-enabled, the Inventory Visibility Add-in allows on-hand quantity inquiries, regardless of whether each item has reservation activities that are special to WHS (such as being reserved for WHS work at the WMS location level).
Manufacturing
Some of the highlighted features of Microsoft dynamics 365 supply chain management modules are as below:
Workers can register material consumption, batch numbers, and serial numbers through the production floor execution interface.
Some producers, especially in the process industries, may need to clearly record the material used for each batch or manufacturing order. For instance, workers may use a scale to weigh the amount of material they use while working on a project.
In asset management, you now have Counter-based maintenance enhancements, and one can also apply rules for grouping work orders while running a maintenance plan.
With other enhancements and improvements, the major improvement in manufacturing is Improved production catch weight quantity picking. With this, if you merely alter the catch weight quantity, you can utilize this function to pick manufacturing catch weight quantities. Additionally, it enables you to change the direction of the nominal quantity for the production catch weight quantity.
Workers can now promptly register material consumption for catch-weight products using the production floor execution interface.
Using the production floor execution interface, they can also report on formula items, co-products, and by-products permitted for catch weight.
Planning
This release includes different kinds of feature updates. Some of them are mandatory, default, and transitional.
- Demand forecast details influence forecast model selection.
- Visualization of progress in master planning.
- Enable the features of the master plan setup wizard.
- Parallel confirmation of anticipated orders
- Views for scheduled orders have been saved.
- Order firming with filtering is planned.
- Firming and consolidating in batches for planned bulk and pack batch orders.
- Resource planning with maintenance.
Vendor resources are typically used for specific operations or to handle occasionally excessive demand that exceeds a company’s capacity. Planning Optimization automatically creates the scheduled purchase orders necessary to handle the logistics for materials or semi-finished goods when subcontracting is authorized.
A single centralized calendar update is automatically sent to all individual calendars that use the base calendar in a hierarchical structure established by base calendars. Support for base calendars by Planning Optimization offers a lot of flexibility when it comes to designing unique calendars and allocating them to production resources.
When the system recognizes current supply orders that can be improved due to recent need changes, action messages with recommendations to optimize existing supply are generated. This is essential to ensure the anticipated supply corresponds with the moment’s demands.
As a result of recent requirements modifications, action messages may also advise you to adjust the date or quantity of existing supply orders.
Viewing, approving, and firming scheduled orders is now quicker and simpler thanks to this tool. A page named Planned orders Simplified, a condensed version of the usual Planned orders page, is added. When you only need to examine, approve, and firm your intended orders, the simple page has fewer options but is quicker to use.
Companies can now use planning optimization to automatically restock goods that have reached the end of their shelf life.
With this improvement, you can take perishable item shelf life into account while master planning, ensuring that demand is met with products with the necessary shelf life and that existing on-hand products are replaced when they run out.
When doing CTP calculations, Planning Optimization considers pertinent capacity and material limits.
Also, Planning Optimization uses the results of these calculations during master planning to generate the planned supply necessary to satisfy the corresponding demand as well as planned orders that may be automatically firmed as necessary.
Production scheduling that takes into account limited resource capacity is now supported by planning optimization.
Manufacturers can identify anticipated future delays brought on by constrained resource capacity thanks to finite scheduling. Indeed, this makes it easier for you to adjust your material requirements immediately and, if necessary, inform any affected clients.
With the help of this feature, planners can perform filtered master planning for a limited number of produced items, eliminating the need to run without a filter to include related items.
Planning Optimization must incorporate all items connected to other products in the full bill of materials (BOM) structure of the planned order to calculate the proper result. Thus automatic filtering makes sure that it has all the data necessary.
A formal multi-echelon planning and execution method called DDMRP is used to create and manage decoupling point stock buffers strategically placed to secure and advance the flow of important information.
Bottom line
You can always refer to the Microsoft docs to learn about the detailed dynamics 365 supply chain management capabilities. Else, you can also get in touch with the team of DHRP to work with you and consult you on your business needs for the features.
