Case study · Discrete manufacturing
Plans the shop floor can actually follow
Discrete manufacturers juggle engineering changes, capacity limits and customer dates. This is how we set up Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management with clean BOMs and routes, master planning and shop floor execution, so plans reflect what the factory can really do.
Project overview
Production planning and execution on D365 SCM.
- Industry
- Discrete manufacturing
- Client
- Confidential
- Solution
- Manufacturing ERP
- Platform
- D365 SCM + Finance
- Timeline
- 9–14 months
- Team
- 6 people
- Planning
- Master planning with capacity
- Shop floor
- Production floor execution
- Costing
- Standard cost with variances
Expected business outcomes
What the client set out to achieve
Planning accuracy and on-time delivery are the headline measures.
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5–15 pts
Better on-time delivery
Plans respect capacity and material availability.
Percentage-point range; depends on starting data quality
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10–25%
Lower work in progress
Production released according to plan, not by habit.
Target range after two to three planning cycles
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Per order
Production cost variances
Actual versus standard cost visible for every production order.
Where time and material are reported on the shop floor
Business challenges
How manufacturing planning worked before
The ERP holds orders; the plan lives in a spreadsheet next to it.
Engineering
BOMs maintained in engineering tools and copied into the ERP by hand.
Planning
A planner's spreadsheet decides what gets made each week.
Shop floor
Paper travellers and end-of-shift reporting.
Materials
Shortages discovered when a job is about to start.
Costing
Product costs updated once a year and rarely compared with actuals.
Proposed solution
What the Supply Chain build covers
Standard manufacturing features, with data quality as the foundation.
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BOMs and routes
Engineering data with versions, operations and resources, synchronised from engineering.
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Master planning
Planned orders from demand, stock and capacity, reviewed by planners.
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Production control
Release, scheduling and tracking of production orders.
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Shop floor execution
Operators report time, quantities and scrap on tablets.
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Quality management
Inspection plans and non-conformances tied to production.
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Costing
Standard costs and variance analysis per order and product.
Project requirements
What the client asked us for
The request was better planning. Planning is only as good as BOMs, routes and capacities, so engineering data quality is a first-class workstream.
Shop floor reporting closes the loop: without real times and quantities, plans and costs drift.
What the project had to deliver
- 01Accurate BOMs and routes
- 02Plans that respect capacity
- 03Real-time shop floor reporting
- 04Costs compared with actuals
Key challenges & considerations
What made it harder, and what we did
-
Engineering changes during implementation
What we did
Engineering data was run as its own workstream, with changes controlled through release management.
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Inaccurate routing times
What we did
Routing times were validated with operators on the shop floor and corrected before planning relied on them.
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Operators unused to reporting
What we did
Shop floor reporting was piloted on one line, with screens designed for a gloved hand.
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Mixed make-to-stock and make-to-order
What we did
Planning was configured for both make-to-stock and make-to-order items and tuned over several cycles.
What we watched for
- Treat engineering data as a workstream
- Tune planning parameters over several cycles
- Pilot shop floor reporting on one line
- Validate routing times with operators
Development process
Data, planning, execution, costing
Each layer depends on the one before it.
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Engineering data
BOMs and routes cleaned, validated and loaded.
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Planning design
Coverage rules, capacities and planning parameters set and simulated.
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Shop floor
Production floor execution piloted on one line.
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Quality and costing
Quality orders and standard costing configured.
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Go-live and tuning
Full go-live and several cycles of planning parameter tuning.
Technology stack
Dynamics 365 SCM for manufacturing
Microsoft's manufacturing capabilities with engineering integration.
ERP
- D365 Supply Chain Management
- D365 Finance
- Planning Optimization
Shop floor
- Production floor execution
- Tablets
Engineering
- Engineering change management
- PLM integration
Reporting
- Power BI
- Production KPIs
Quality assurance & deployment
Rehearsed until cut-over was routine
Finance and supply chain systems cannot be tested in production. Processes were proved end to end in test environments, and the cut-over was rehearsed until it held no surprises.
- End-to-end process tests across finance and operations
- Automated regression tests for standard and extended processes
- Data migration rehearsals, reconciled entity by entity
- User acceptance testing by business process owners
- Performance tests at real transaction volumes
Deployment
- 01Quality and costingQuality orders and standard costing configured.
- 02Go-live and tuningFull go-live and several cycles of planning parameter tuning.
- 03Rehearsed cut-overA timed cut-over plan, rehearsed at least twice, with a go or no-go decision by the business.
- 04Hypercare and warrantyOn-site or remote support through the first period close, and six months of free bug fixing.
Final deliverables
A factory that runs to plan
Plans are built from accurate data and real capacity, operators report on the shop floor as they work, and material shortages surface before they stop a line.
Finance sees production costs per order and understands variances while they can still be acted on.
- Clean engineering data
- Capacity-aware plans
- Live shop floor reporting
- Order-level costing
Handed over to the client
- 01Configured Dynamics 365Production and test environments
- 02Extensions and integrationsSource code and documentation
- 03Migrated dataReconciled entity by entity
- 04Process documentation and trainingBy business process
- 05Six-month warrantyFree bug fixing after delivery
Success metrics
How success is measured
| Measure | Outcome | How it is measured |
|---|---|---|
| Better on-time delivery | 5–15 pts | Percentage-point range; depends on starting data quality |
| Lower work in progress | 10–25% | Target range after two to three planning cycles |
| Production cost variances | Per order | Where time and material are reported on the shop floor |
Verified reviews
What clients say about our Dynamics work
Verified reviews from our clients on the same kind of work, published on Clutch.
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Custom Software Development
Web-Based Coupon App Development
The work produced by the team was of exceptional quality.
Jon Thies
CTO, Model Rocket Feb 2022 – Mar 2023
-
Custom Software Development
Mobile & Web Platform Development & Design
Silver Scintilla was responsive, respectful, and enjoyable to work with, quickly addressing any questions or requests.
DeShawn Brown
CEO & Founder, Lithios Jun 2021 – Nov 2022
-
Custom Software Development
Web-Based HRM System Development
Silver Scintilla provided the best solution with scalable functionality, personalized features, and robust security.
Suheb Khan
Director, Collaborative Insight Technologies Jul 2020 – Jun 2022
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