Visual Scheduling Blog

A few months ago, I shared with you, on the one hand, my frustration about the lack of generally available market data about Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. Not only, but especially when it comes to manufacturing. On the other hand, I also announced that I volunteered to contribute to closing the gap. This is done now. It is achieved via the State of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and Manufacturing Report. 

The report is the result of an extensive market survey that was conducted in the time from November 2020 to the end of January 2021. It is meant to provide statistically relevant market data about Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (and Dynamics NAV) and the degree it adopted and used by both manufacturing companies and partners selling to manufacturing clients. Hence, it shows findings from both surveying customers and partners - and from having received a whopping number of 318 responses. You can download the State of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and Manufacturing Report here.

This week’s episode is a special edition of the Business Central Manufacturing Show. Last week, hosted our online event called “next by NETRONIC – session 2”. The idea of the “next” events is to talk about topics, not about products as well as to discuss with each other rather than to have a 1-way demo. Hence, last week’s event was a panel discussion in which we looked at the constant battle between production planning and scheduling.

The discussion was led by Martin Karlowitsch, and his guests were experienced Business Central manufacturing experts. If you took some time to attend our event – a big thank you from all of us at NETRONIC, if not then please enjoy this podcast.

We continue our podcast episode by going north of the border. From Wisconsin, we now head to Montreal, Canada where we had the chance to talk to Trevor Moore, the Product Director of ERP Solutions at Gestisoft. Trevor started his career in the manufacturing industry, where he implemented full ERP systems in two different companies as a production scheduler. Given his experience on the end-customer side, he ventured into the NAV world where he now has a 20-year track record of successfully implanting ERP systems to around 100 companies (mostly manufacturing).

Our conversation mainly centered around all aspects of how to right-size a manufacturing ERP solution for each client.

The wait is over! The Business Central Manufacturing Show is back with its 14th episode. In this episode we talk to Olof Simren. A Dynamics 365 Business Central and Dynamics NAV expert who started working with Navision back in 2002, when it was called Navision Attain. With over 18 years of Microsoft Dynamics experience, an awesome blog about Dynamics NAV manufacturing and projects in different parts of the world, Olof now leads a US based company called Naviona. In our interview, we discussed how an ERP system can help manufacturing companies go paperless through full-circle digitization.

In production or project planning the scheduling of backlog items is an essential task. It is important to keep an overview of all work to be done and to include the items step by step in the planning board. In a previous blog post we have already discussed different backlog visualizations. Now, we will see how our Visual Scheduling Widget can help you to perform the handling of backlogs by using Gantt charts.

Paul Hogendoorn was my guest for the 12th episode of the Business Central Manufacturing Show. Paul is an incurable entrepreneur from Canada and has founded, co-founded, or helped launch numerous ventures over his 30+ year career, including most recently, FreePoint Technologies. FreePoint's unique technology captures and delivers real-time productivity information, connecting plant floor manufacturing processes directly to managers and operators in innovative, practical, and cost-effective ways. I picked up one of his recent likes on LinkedIn and started the conversation with a question on gamification. This let to a vital discussion on why gamification matters for manufacturing companies. (spoiler: among other benefits, it can yield a 25% uptick in productivity for high-mix low-volume manufacturers). The good news is: we didn't stop with the why, but also looked at a hands-on recipe how it can get implemented, and what metrics can help with gamification.  

I met with Chris de Visser for the 11th episode of the Business Central Manufacturing Show. Chris is from the Netherlands, but lives in New York and works as CEO North America for Continia. Before taking that role, he successfully ran the American business of Sana Commerce in Northern America. As such, Chris does not represent a partner being specialized in manufacturing with deep vertical know-how. Instead, he brings a lot of experience with horizontal topics such as sales and process efficiencies that are crucial for any company, and hence also for manufacturers. Hence, I took the opportunity to fly a full circle on back-office process efficiency, which includes administrative processes as well as sales and even marketing efficiency and effectiveness.

This is the 10th episode of the Business Central Manufacturing Show. This week, I spoke with Christophe Billard, who is from France, but lives and works in Spain. After working as a business demand planner and in supply chain management for pharmaceutical and FMCG companies, Christophe became an ERP consultant 15 years ago. Since then has helped many manufacturing companies to fully embrace the power of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. In our conversation, we looked at best practices when implementing an ERP, getting started with MRP, and introducing an MES. Throughout this round-trip, Christophe's advice for manufacturing companies stayed consistent: do not try to take it all. Instead, start small with balanced information, before you then unleash the power of these systems by constant fine-tuning. He repeated this advice when we looked at the similarities of a successful wrestler and a successful manufacturing company.