ERP for manufacturing
Planning + Manufacturing + Shop Floor + Warehouse + Supply Chain + Reporting,
built on Microsoft technology with Business Central at the core
Discrete manufacturing
Process manufacturing
Production with multiple outputs
Make-to-order manufacturing
Choose your own modules
At Abakion you get a business solution built for manufacturing companies.
No two manufacturing companies are alike. Most have their own mix of purchasing, in-house production, subcontractors, warehouse and perhaps a bit of project management on top. That is why we have built our solution so you can compose it yourself according to your needs.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is the foundation, and at Abakion we have built a wide range of apps and features on top.
These are modules you can freely combine, so your solution covers exactly what you need. No more, no less. And because all modules share the same data model, everything fits together and is easy to maintain going forward.
You might as well take advantage of our experience from many other manufacturing companies that look like yours.
Microsoft Dynamics 365
Business Central
Abakion’s solution for manufacturing companies
Routings and BOMs
BOMs and routings are the foundation of all manufacturing in Business Central. The BOM describes which components and raw materials make up a finished item, and the routing specifies which operations must be performed and in what order. Read more »
Business Central handles BOMs and routings out of the box and lets you create production orders with material requisitions, job cards and shortage lists. Once the production order is released, you can see exactly what to pick from the warehouse, which operations to perform, and which capacities to use.
The structure of BOMs and routings is also the basis for cost calculation, planning and capacity management. The more accurately your BOMs and routings reflect reality, the more precise your calculations of time, materials and finance become.
The benefits of Routings and BOMs are:
- Precise calculation of material requirements and production time for each finished item
- Foundation for MRP planning, capacity management and cost calculation
- Shortage calculation that shows whether you have enough components to start production
- Full traceability from finished item down to individual components and operations
Master Data on items and documents
Manufacturing companies often have large volumes of master data that must be maintained across departments and flow through the entire process from items to sales orders, and on to production orders and purchase orders. Read more »
Business Central supports master data out of the box, but many companies end up with an unmanageable number of fields on the item card, where different departments have built their own structures. With Abakion’s Master Data app, you can create structured, language-controlled and hierarchically organised master data that is maintained in one place and automatically flows along to the documents and processes where it is relevant.
Information registered on an item or a customer can be carried through to sales orders, production orders, purchase orders and posted documents. This means that specifications, colour codes, technical data and customer-specific requirements follow all the way through without being re-entered.
The benefits of Master Data management are:
- Master data is maintained in one place and automatically flows to orders, production and documents
- Structured data with validation, so searches and reporting are always reliable
- Language control, so master data is automatically shown in the right language on documents and in webshop
- Mass update of data across many items in a single operation
- Fewer errors and less duplicate work, because data does not need to be entered in multiple places
Product Life Cycle Management (PLM)
When a new item is created in a manufacturing company, it typically has to pass through a series of steps where several departments contribute information and approvals before the item can be released for sale and production. Read more »
Abakion has built a Master Data Life Cycle solution that controls this process. When a new item is created, the relevant employees receive a notification, and the item goes through a defined sequence of steps. The engineer fills in technical specifications, purchasing adds vendor information, and each step has its own fields, validations and completion requirements. The item cannot be released until all steps are completed and approved.
The solution can be set up with templates that define which fields must be filled in, which are mandatory, and in what order the steps must be completed. This provides a controlled and consistent process for item approval across the organisation.
The benefits of Product Life Cycle Management are:
- Controlled item approval, where the item cannot be released before all steps are completed
- Templates with mandatory fields and validations for each step in the process
- Automatic notification to the right employees when it is their turn
- Full traceability of who has approved what and when
- Fewer errors when creating items, because all relevant information is secured before release
Product Information Management (PIM)
Many manufacturing companies need to manage large volumes of product information that is used in sales, on the webshop, in documents and internally within the organisation. Read more »
Our PIM solution is built on the same technology as PLM but focuses on maintaining and distributing product information. You can manage specifications, descriptions, technical data and categorisations directly in Business Central and synchronise them to webshop and other channels. AI-based suggestions can help fill in fields, based on the item’s existing characteristics and master data.
The PIM functionality goes beyond traditional solutions that only focus on items. You can use the same structure to manage information on customers, vendors, serial numbers and other tables in Business Central.
The benefits of Product Information Management are:
- Product information is maintained in Business Central and synchronised to webshop and other channels
- AI-based suggestions for filling in fields based on the item’s characteristics
- The same solution can be used for information management on customers, vendors and other tables
- Structured and language-controlled data that can be filtered, sorted and mass updated
- Fewer systems to maintain, because PIM data is managed directly in the ERP
Task coordination with notifications
In a manufacturing company, there is an ongoing need to coordinate tasks between departments and employees. A production worker needs a pallet moved, an engineer needs to approve a new item, or purchasing needs to react to a change. Read more »
Abakion has built a notification solution that gathers these signals. Employees are subscribed to notification groups, and when a task arises, everyone in the group gets a signal on their Role Center or scanner. When one employee takes the task, it automatically disappears for everyone else. This eliminates the familiar problem of email threads and messenger chats, where you have to read through a long history to find out whether someone has already handled the task.
The notifications can be used broadly across the organisation. A production worker can call on a warehouse worker via a hail function directly from the shop floor. They can also be used for signals from external systems via API, Power Automate or other integrations.
The benefits of notifications are:
- Tasks are distributed to groups and disappear for everyone else when one person takes them
- No long email threads or messenger chats to figure out who is handling what
- Direct integration with shop floor, so production workers can call for help
- Can be used across the entire organisation and for many types of signals
- Can be triggered from external systems via API
Product configuration
Configuration is about assembling products based on customer requirements, where the combination possibilities are often too many to create an item number for each variant. Read more »
With Business Central we support configuration, and there are add-on solutions that handle configuration logic with dependencies, validity validation and automation of choices. The system ensures that only valid combinations can be selected. The configuration can start as early as on the sales quote and is carried through to sales order and production order without re-entry.
With a master configuration model you avoid creating a new item number for each individual order. Instead, the item is produced on the master configuration’s item number, and the customer-specific choices are registered as related data. This results in cleaner master data and better reporting capabilities.
The benefits of Product Configuration are:
- Customers and salespeople can only make valid choices in the configuration
- Configuration data is automatically carried from quote to sales order to production order
- Master configurations prevent the system from drowning in one-off item numbers
- The configuration logic can be made available as self-service on the webshop
- Better reporting, because production and sales are recorded on shared item numbers
Planning
Business Central handles purchase orders out of the box and integrates with MRP planning, so purchasing requirements can be generated from production plans and inventory levels. Read more »
Planning of purchasing and production is about ensuring that the right materials and capacities are available when the production order needs to start, without unnecessarily growing inventory tied up. It is a balance between service level and tied-up capital, and it is rarely as simple as a fully automated MRP calculation assumes.
Business Central can break down demand from sales orders and forecasts into concrete production and purchase proposals. In practice, many mid-sized companies find that fully automated MRP creates noise. Due dates on sales orders become outdated, MRP schedules backwards and suggests purchases that should have been ordered months ago, and every time the picture changes, new action messages are generated that the planner must handle manually. This is one of the reasons many companies in practice only run MRP on a subset of their items and handle the rest with simpler reordering policies.
Reverse Planning inverts the logic. Instead of taking the due date as the starting point, the solution calculates which items will fall below safety stock within the item’s lead time, and suggests actions based on all known supply and demand. The planner gets an overview of which items are critical now and can focus their efforts there.
The benefits of planning are:
- Identify critical items that fall below safety stock or zero within lead time
- Calculation of total lead time up through the item hierarchy, so the planner can react in time on manufactured items
- Combine forecast, orders, supply and history in a single overview per item with export and import to Excel
- Combination of MRP and reverse planning, so the company can choose the method that fits each item’s complexity
- Better decision basis for the balance between service level and tied-up inventory, because the planner works with an overview rather than action messages
MRP planning
Business Central handles purchase orders out of the box and integrates with MRP planning, so purchasing requirements can be generated from production plans and inventory levels. Read more »
Purchase orders can be created manually or via planning suggestions, and the system keeps track of lead times, vendor prices and outstanding quantities.
For manufacturing companies it is critical that purchasing and production work closely together. A delay in purchasing directly affects whether a production order can be started on time. A shortage calculation shows whether all required components are present or on their way in.
The benefits of MRP planning are:
- Purchasing requirements can be generated from production plans and inventory levels
- Shortage calculation shows whether all components are present before production starts
- Lead times and vendor prices are managed centrally
- Close integration between purchasing and planning reduces the risk of production stops
- Better predictability in material requirements and purchasing volume
Capacity planning, bottlenecks and Gantt charts
Capacity planning is about managing the load on your machines and employees, and whether there is sufficient capacity for the planned production runs. Read more »
Business Central calculates production time and allocates operations to work centers, but works with infinite capacity. This means the system calculates how long an operation takes, assuming the machine is not to be used for anything else at the same time. When multiple production orders are scheduled on the same machine, overlaps can occur that Business Central does not automatically resolve.
Graphical planning tools like Gantt charts provide a visual overview of allocated operations and make it possible to move and adjust plans. Bottleneck planning takes the capacity that actually limits production as its starting point and extends planning based on what the bottleneck can deliver. This produces a more realistic plan than the standard calculation.
The benefits of Capacity Planning are:
- Visual overview of operation allocation via Gantt charts
- Identification of bottlenecks that actually determine how much you can produce
- More realistic planning that takes overlapping operations into account
- Better decision basis for when capacity is fully utilised
- Insight into where production can be optimised
Subcontracting
Many manufacturing companies outsource parts of production to subcontractors, where components are sent out for processing and subsequently returned to the company’s own warehouse. Read more »
Business Central handles subcontracting out of the box. The functionality is reliable and robust, and the system keeps track of what has been sent out, what has been returned, and what it costs.
The benefits of Subcontracting are:
- Full traceability of what has been sent to the subcontractor and what has been returned
- Robust data model that tracks finance and item movements in outsourced production
- Standard Business Central functionality with no need for customisations
- Can be combined with planning and purchasing, so the subcontractor’s lead time is included in the overall plan
Consumption registration on the shop floor
In many manufacturing companies, employees still note consumption and time on a printout of the production order, and ultimately it is entered into the ERP at the production office. A Shop Floor solution enables electronic registrations directly in production. Read more »
Shop Floor should ideally take a flow-based approach, where the operator scans a barcode on their work sheet and the system registers operation, production order and start time in a single action. When the barcode is scanned again, the operation stops, and the time consumption is calculated automatically and posted.
The biggest challenge with Shop Floor is availability. In the warehouse, employees typically have handheld terminals at hand, but in production few have their own terminal. The solution must run on mobile phones, tablets and shared touchscreen terminals, so the employee does not need to leave their machine.
There is also an overview of production order lines, operations and capacity load, so planners and production managers can filter, sort and export data directly from the same solution.
The benefits of Shop Floor Management in production are:
- Electronic registration of time and materials directly in production via scanner or mobile phone
- Flow-based registration, where a single scan starts the time registration on an operation on a production order
- Overview of production order lines, operations and capacity load in the same solution
- Lower equipment cost than traditional Shop Floor terminals, because the solution runs on standard mobile phones
Reverse manufacturing
Reverse manufacturing occurs when one input becomes many outputs. A classic example is a slaughterhouse process, where a pig is cut into many different cuts, each with its own item number and its own unit cost. Read more »
Business Central does not support reverse manufacturing out of the box. We have built a solution that handles it by linking two production orders. You see an overview of which raw materials go in and which finished goods come out. The unit cost is split via a BOM structure that allocates value correctly across the individual outputs.
Under the hood, the solution is built on standard Business Central postings. No posting logic has been altered, and the same registration could in principle be done manually with a calculator. This makes the solution robust with regard to upgrades and future versions of Business Central.
The benefits of Reverse manufacturing are:
- Handling of production runs where one input is split into many outputs with individual unit cost
- Correct allocation of unit cost via BOM structure
- Built on standard Business Central postings with no changes to the posting logic
- Robust with regard to upgrades and new versions
- Clear display of input and output for the user
Project manufacturing
Project manufacturing covers situations where production is linked directly to a project with its own costs, deadlines and customer-specific requirements. Read more »
Business Central supports projects and manufacturing as separate functional areas, and we can help link them together so that production orders, material consumption and time consumption are linked to the relevant project. This provides full traceability from project to finished item and an accurate statement of the project’s production costs.
The benefits of Project manufacturing are:
- Production orders are linked directly to projects with full traceability
- Accurate statement of materials, time and costs per project
- Consolidated overview of the project’s status, finances and progress
- Supports companies that produce customer-specific orders with project structure
- Ability to leverage Warehouse functionality from Sales Orders in conjunction with the Project module
Item tracking and lot management
Item tracking with lot, batch or serial numbers is a prerequisite for companies that need to document which materials have been used in a given production run and where the finished goods have been delivered. Read more »
Business Central has solid standard functionality for item tracking. Tracking data follows all postings and provides full traceability from raw material to finished item and on to the customer. You can see which lot numbers have been used in a production order and which customers have received items from a particular lot.
We almost never make customisations for item tracking, because the standard covers the need well. It is a matter of setting up and using the functionality correctly.
The benefits of Item tracking and lot management are:
- Full traceability from raw material through production to delivery at the customer
- Standard Business Central functionality without customisations
- Supports lot, batch and serial numbers
- Meets documentation requirements in industries such as food, pharma and electronics
- Tracking data automatically follows all postings in the system
Quality control (QA)
Quality control is about having defined checkpoints in the supply chain where an item or process must be evaluated, measured or approved before it can move on. Read more »
Business Central has limited standard functionality for quality control. For companies with more advanced needs, we recommend Yaveon, which has a well-established quality module with good integration to Business Central. Yaveon covers needs for flexible check points, measurements, approvals and blocking logic.
Our PLM solution can also be used for quality control. When an item or a lot number needs to go through an approval process with defined steps and mandatory fields, the same template-based logic can be applied. This produces a control process where the item is not released until all requirements are met.
The benefits of Quality control are:
- Defined quality checks at the right points in the supply chain
- Items can be blocked until quality requirements are met and approved
- Yaveon as the recommended solution for advanced quality needs with full Business Central integration
- The PLM solution can be used for approval processes with mandatory fields and step-by-step release
- Quality control covers the entire supply chain, from receipt of raw materials to delivery of finished goods
Cost of Goods Sold, Landed Cost and actual costing
For a manufacturing company, it is critical to know the actual unit cost of each finished item, so pricing, contribution margin and accounting are correct. Read more »
Business Central calculates Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) out of the box. When you produce items and put them in inventory, they enter the inventory value on your balance sheet. The items only affect your operating result when they are sold. This provides correct accrual of production costs.
Landed Cost covers the total cost of bringing an item home, including freight, customs, insurance and other surcharges. Actual costing compares the calculated unit cost with the actual consumption of materials and time, so you can see where production deviates from the plan.
The benefits of Cost of Goods Sold, Landed Cost and actual costing are:
- Correct accrual of production costs in the accounts
- Overview of the actual unit cost including freight, customs and other surcharges
- Actual costing that shows variances between planned and actual consumption
- Better basis for pricing and calculation of contribution margin
- Standard Business Central functionality for COGS and inventory value
Business Intelligence
A manufacturing company’s ERP data only creates value when it turns into insight. Business Intelligence is about visualising and analysing data, so management, finance, planning, production and sales can make decisions on a qualified basis. Read more »
Microsoft Power BI is a reporting and analysis tool that pulls data directly from Business Central and other data sources and presents it in dashboards that users can filter, sort and drill into themselves.
Abakion has built standard reports in Power BI that are ready to use and cover the entire supply chain: management, finance, planning, purchasing, sales, warehouse, production and project.
We integrate with everything you need
- Proficy Scheduler / ROB-EX (Gantt)
- Netronic Scheduler (Gantt)
- Yaveon (quality control)
- Qarma (quality control)
- Struct (PIM)
- CaDesign (configurator)
- Shopify (B2C)
- ESG with Business Central / Power BI)
- NxM (EDI)
- Tasklet (scanners)
- Continia (finance automation)
- Power BI (reporting)
Abakion are experts in Microsoft’s business solutions for ERP, CRM and BI for Danish companies. We deliver both simple solutions that are ready to use at smaller companies, and tailored solutions for larger companies.
Call us on +45 70 23 23 16
or write to abakion@abakion.com
We are happy to give advice, whether you choose to buy from us or another Microsoft partner.