Case study · Manufacturing
Moving twenty years of batch records without losing one
A specialist coatings manufacturer was running an ERP that had stopped receiving updates. Migration is routine; migrating a regulated manufacturer with batch traceability obligations is not. The history had to survive intact.
Engagement · Migration & cutover
A regulated manufacturer moved onto Business Central with its history.
- Industry
- Chemicals & manufacturing
- Solution
- ERP migration
- Platform
- Dynamics 365 Business Central
- Engagement model
- Dedicated project team
- From
- Legacy on-premise ERP
- Scope
- Migration, extension, cutover
- Sites
- Multiple production sites
- Constraint
- Batch traceability obligations
Outcomes
What a migration is actually judged on
Not the go-live date. Whether the business could still answer a regulator on the Monday after.
-
100%
Of batch history migrated and reconciled
Every batch, its formulation, its quality results and its shipment records came across and were checked against the legacy system before cutover.
Reconciled batch-by-batch against the source system
-
0
Days of production lost at cutover
The switch happened over a planned shutdown with the legacy system still readable, so production resumed on the new system without a gap.
Measured across the cutover weekend
-
2 mins
To trace a batch end to end
From a finished product back through its formulation, raw material lots and supplier certificates — a query rather than an afternoon in the archive.
Measured against the recall-simulation exercise
Context
The situation before the migration
Why manufacturers stay on ERP systems long past their support date.
The business
A manufacturer of specialist nano-coatings, producing to formulation across several sites, selling into industries that require full material traceability.
The starting point
An on-premise ERP that had stopped receiving updates, running on a server the IT contractor was increasingly unwilling to guarantee.
The trigger
The risk was not the software failing. It was that nobody could any longer promise the batch records would be retrievable if a regulator or a customer asked.
What they wanted
Business Central, with formulations, batch traceability and quality holds working from day one, and twenty years of history still queryable.
Constraints
Batch traceability is a legal obligation, not a feature · formulations are the company's intellectual property · production cannot stop for a migration · the shop-floor team are not office workers.
System
What it runs at today
The system as it runs today.
-
20 yrs
Of batch history queryable
Migrated, reconciled and searchable in Business Central
-
3
Traceability directions
Forward, backward and by raw material lot
-
1
System across sites
Replacing per-site workarounds
-
0
Formulations held outside the ERP
Intellectual property in one controlled place
The engineering problem
Four problems in migrating a regulated manufacturer
A migration that loses data is a compliance incident, not an IT delay.
-
Batch history is a legal record, not archive data
The instinct on any migration is to bring current data and archive the rest. For a manufacturer with traceability obligations, the history *is* the obligation — a recall can reach back years.
What we did
Full batch history migrated into Business Central's own lot tracking, reconciled batch by batch against the legacy system, and proven with a recall simulation before cutover.
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Formulations are the intellectual property
The recipes are the business. Migrating them badly risks both losing them and exposing them more widely than they were before.
What we did
Formulations migrated into production BOMs with access restricted to the roles that need them, tighter than the legacy system had managed.
-
Production cannot pause for a cutover
A factory running to order cannot stop for a week while finance reconciles. The window is a planned shutdown, and it does not move.
What we did
Cutover staged across a planned shutdown with the legacy system left readable, so a query during the first weeks had a fallback that did not involve restoring a backup.
-
The shop floor is not an office
Operators entering batch results are wearing gloves, standing at a line, often on a shared terminal. An interface designed for a finance desk will be worked around with paper.
What we did
Shop-floor entry kept to the fewest fields, on screens designed for a shared terminal, with the paper forms they replaced used as the layout reference.
Architecture
How it fits together
Simplified — the shape of the system rather than every service in it.
-
Business Central
- Lot tracking
- Production BOMs
- Routings
- Quality
Standard manufacturing functionality doing the work it is designed for, rather than a bespoke traceability layer.
-
Migration
- History extraction
- Reconciliation
- Staged cutover
The legacy data extracted, mapped and reconciled in repeated dry runs before anything switched.
-
Shop floor
- Batch entry
- Quality results
- Shared terminals
Simplified entry screens for the production line, designed around the paper forms they replaced.
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Traceability
- Forward trace
- Backward trace
- Supplier certificates
Lot genealogy in both directions, with supplier material certificates attached to the incoming lot.
Business Central's standard lot tracking is genuinely good. The work was migrating into it faithfully rather than building something parallel — which is the temptation when the legacy system did things its own way.
Solutions
What the project delivered
A migration, an implementation, and a small extension where standard functionality genuinely fell short.
-
Business Central implementation
Manufacturing, inventory, purchasing and finance on supported software.
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History migration
Twenty years of batch records, reconciled batch by batch.
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Formulation control
Production BOMs with versioning and restricted access.
-
Quality holds
Batches held until results pass, release attributed to a person.
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Traceability queries
Forward and backward lot genealogy, proven by recall simulation.
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Shop-floor entry
Simplified screens for shared line terminals.
Key capabilities
What it does day to day
Six capabilities across production and compliance.
| Capability | Runs | Refresh | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Formulation management | Technical | On revision | Production BOMs with version control and restricted access |
| Batch production | Shop floor | Per batch | Production orders with lot assignment and consumption recorded at the line |
| Quality holds | Quality | Per batch | Batches held until results pass, with release recorded against a person |
| Forward traceability | On demand | Any time | From a raw material lot to every finished batch and customer it reached |
| Backward traceability | On demand | Any time | From a finished batch back to every raw lot and supplier certificate |
| Historical archive | On demand | Any time | Twenty years of migrated batch records, searchable in the same system |
Integrations
How the moving parts plug in
A raw material lot is followed all the way to the customer who received it.
Incoming
- Raw material lotsWith supplier certificates
- Goods receiptLot recorded at receipt
- Quality testingHeld until released
Production
- FormulationThe controlled BOM
- Batch consumptionLots recorded at the line
- Quality releaseAttributed to a person
Outbound & trace
- Finished batches
- Shipments
- Forward & backward trace
Because consumption is recorded at the line rather than reconstructed afterwards, a recall question is a query against real data rather than an inference from production schedules.
Security & data
What protects the formulations and the record
The recipes are the company's value, and the batch record is its legal position.
-
Formulation access
Production BOMs restricted to the technical and production roles that need them — tighter than the legacy system enforced.
-
Attributed quality release
A batch release records who authorised it and against which results, which is what an auditor asks for.
-
Immutable batch history
Posted batch records follow Business Central's standard posting rules, so history cannot be quietly amended.
-
Reconciled migration
Every migrated batch was checked against the source before the legacy system was retired.
The brief
The risk in an ERP migration is the data, not the software
Implementing Business Central for a manufacturer is well-trodden. Moving twenty years of legally significant batch history into it, proving nothing was lost, and doing it over a shutdown weekend is where migrations actually fail.
We treated the migration as the project and the implementation as the easy half, which is the opposite of how these are usually scoped.
- Full batch history, not just open transactions
- Reconciliation before cutover, not after
- Formulations migrated with tighter access than before
- A cutover that fits inside a planned shutdown
What the migration had to respect
- 01Traceability obligations that reach back years
- 02A production schedule with one shutdown window
- 03Formulations that are the company's intellectual property
- 04Shop-floor users on shared terminals, not desks
Process
We rehearsed the cutover three times
A migration you have not rehearsed is a migration you are performing for the first time in front of the business.
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Data audit
Establishing what was actually in the legacy system, including the fields people had repurposed over two decades.
-
Mapping and first dry run
A full extract and load into a test environment, with the first reconciliation exposing the gaps.
-
Second and third dry runs
Repeated until the reconciliation was clean and the elapsed time fitted inside the shutdown window.
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Recall simulation
Tracing a real historical batch end to end in the new system and comparing it against the legacy answer.
-
Cutover
Executed over the planned shutdown, with the legacy system left readable for the following months.
Technology
Standard manufacturing functionality, faithfully migrated into
The less bespoke a regulated system is, the easier it is to keep supported.
Business Central
- Lot tracking
- Production BOMs
- Routings
- Quality management
Migration tooling
- Extraction
- Mapping
- Reconciliation reports
Shop floor
- Line terminals
- Simplified entry
- Barcode scanning
Compliance
- Forward & backward trace
- Supplier certificates
- Attributed release
Business impact
What changed for the manufacturer
Three things the business noticed after cutover.
-
A supported platform
The compliance risk of an unsupported server holding the legal record is gone.
-
Recalls answered in minutes
A trace query that used to mean a day in the archive now runs while the customer is on the phone.
-
Updates without projects
Business Central updates itself, so the business will not be in this position again in ten years.
The result
Supported software, and a history that survived the move
The manufacturer runs on Business Central across its sites, with formulations, batch traceability and quality holds working as standard functionality rather than as a bespoke layer.
Twenty years of batch history came across and was reconciled before the legacy system was retired. A trace query that once meant a day in the archive now takes minutes.
- Full batch history migrated and reconciled
- Cutover inside a planned shutdown, no production lost
- Formulations under tighter access than before
- Traceability proven by recall simulation before go-live
What we would repeat on an ERP migration
- 01Scope the migration as the project, not as a phase
- 02Rehearse the cutover until the reconciliation is clean
- 03Prove traceability with a real historical case before go-live
- 04Leave the legacy system readable for months afterwards
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