Visual Scheduling Blog

Today we want to talk about scheduling, one of the words that NETRONIC aims to be synonymous with (besides visual 😊). First a little bit of history. NETRONIC brought its decades of expertise from creating Gantt chart software controls and translated this to creating visual scheduling add-ins for Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

When we started offering our first slew of products for NAV in back in the year 2013, we offered plain drag & drop scheduling. This feature allowed Dynamics NAV users to interact with their data via simple drag & drop actions on the Gantt Chart. Since then, our (production) scheduling options and capabilities have grown.

Just in time for Christmas we can present you with the release of  version 1.4 of the Visual Advanced Production Scheduler (VAPS), the only available finite capacity scheduler that fully integrates with the manufacturing module of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

As always, the complete release information can be found in the respective release notes. Moreover, the new version will be  available in AppSource soon.

Now, make yourself comfortable, have some Christmas cookies and enjoy reading about the new features ;-).

Shortly before the Christmas break we stick to our promise of offering you regular releases of our extensions for visual planning in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and present you with version 1.9 of both  the Visual Production Scheduler (VPS) and the Visual Jobs Scheduler (VJS). Version 1.9. 

As always, the complete release information can be found in the respective notes for VPS and VJS. Moreover, both new versions will be  available in AppSource soon.

Imagine this scenario:

You are a production planner and have a full schedule for this week and the upcoming. And now, one of your key customers calls and wants to order 4 additional items. These are Item 3000, 3007, 3008 and 3009. Being one of them a top priority.

The first question the customer asks is: When can you deliver this?

The second: What could be the earliest date to deliver for that priority item?

And a third may rise up, not from the customer, but most likely from your boss: Which jobs will be late and for which clients are they (if you squeeze in that top priority item)?

Typically you would need to make a couple of phone calls to answer, check in one Business Central table after the other (or in the Excel spreadsheets if its the case). But with the VAPS you can get the answer yourself in 6  quick steps.

Let me explain how!

Does the following sound familiar to you? An important customer calls and places a very urgent order - a so-called "boss order" - which needs to be squeezed in.

If yes, the key questions and problems arising from this are also more than familiar to you: "What will be the impact on the overall schedule? Will it be possible at all or will my nice and smooth schedule which I had until a minute ago will become completely shot up? Will all the other customers will be angry?"

In this situation, your head will be spinning and, let's be honest, the ERP system you're using, mostly leaves you "standing in the rain".

If you are only too familiar with everything I described so far, and your ERP system is Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central,  I really recommend you read this post where I present a possible solution in the form of our Visual Advanced Production Scheduler (VAPS)  -  the only available finite capacity scheduler which is built in such a way that it fully integrates with the manufacturing module of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

We are quite proud of the fact that our Visual Advanced Production Scheduler (VAPS)  is the only available finite capacity scheduler which is built in such a way that it fully integrates with the manufacturing module of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. It is our aspiration that both products – Business Central and VAPS – truly work hand in hand. However, the VAPS is a much younger product and as of now it does not support every standard Business Central manufacturing functionality - yet. This concerns a few BC fields that we have compiled in this blog post for you together with the recommended settings.

Be assured that in the process of constantly enhancing the VAPS, this list will simultaneously get shorter and shorter. 

Bottlenecks are common occurrences that happen in any industry that work with limited capacity. In general, the existence of bottlenecks could lead to stalls in production, supply overstock, issues with customers and issues with employees. This blog post shows how visual scheduling can help you identify bottlenecks in production when you work with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

We as NETRONIC Software, but also me personally (in my role as NETRONIC's CEO) have been engaged with Dynamics NAV (now: Business Central) and manufacturing for almost eight years. Year over year, we engaged more, we invested more, and we benefitted more. We benefitted from our customers, from our partners, and from this unprecedented Dynamics NAV / Dynamics 365 Business Central community. I feel that it is about time to give something back.

This "something" is a global market research study and its findings. We decided to leverage our global network of partners and customers to conduct comprehensive market research about the "State of Business Central and Manufacturing" in the year 2020. We do the study, we market the study, we analyze the findings, we write an extensive report, or to say it straight-forward: we do all the work that comes with that study, and we pay for it. However, we will share the report and findings. With everybody, for free.

Continue reading if you want to learn more, and if you want to contribute to the study.