Supply chain management is a key process for successful business operations. It positively impacts efficiency, customer satisfaction, and reduces operational costs.
Supply chain management covers various aspects, such as inventory management, warehouse operations, and logistics, and it demands a modern ERP solution like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management.
What is Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management?
Microsoft dynamics 365 supply chain management is an ERP solution designed to manage entire supply chain activities. It covers procurement and sourcing, inventory management, warehouse operations, distribution, and logistics.
The software provides a centralized platform that helps organizations gain a comprehensive visibility into supply chain activities. Dynamics 365 supply chain leverages advanced AI and automation to streamline supply chain activities, reduce costs, and enhance productivity.
Dynamics 365 supply chain management features
- Inventory and warehouse management – Optimise inventory with real time visibility of stock across all locations and warehouses.
- Procurement and sourcing – Simplify procurement and sourcing to ensure efficient acquisition of goods and identify reliable vendors.
- Manufacturing – Streamline manufacturing through production planning, operational visibility on the production floor, and improved employee efficiency.
- Asset management – Effectively manage both physical (machines) and digital assets throughout their entire lifecycle.
- Planning and forecasting – AI-powered demand forecasting helps organizations better analyze future needs of customers and plan accordingly.
- Transportation and logistics – Effectively manage the movement of goods to ensure timely delivery to end users.
Beyond the operational features, the supply chain management software from Microsoft takes advantage of AI and automation to improve supply chain efficiency. This powerful combination of technology trends allows organizations to gain real-time visibility into operations and obtain predictive insights for smarter decision-making.
We look over how D365 SCM accelerate supply chain operations by AI and automation.
Supply Chain Automation
Supply chain automation helps automate various processes across supply chain. Here are some processes that can be streamlined through automation.
- Purchase order generation: Automate purchase order creation based on demand, stock levels, or sales forecasts.
- Vendor collaboration: Automate vendor communication to simplify interactions, order approvals and confirmations, and delivery schedules.
- Production scheduling: D365 SCM automates production scheduling based on priority material availability, and other resources availability.
- Inventory management: Automatically triggers reorders when inventory count fall below predefined limits to ensure optimal stocks always.
- Warehouse management: Automate warehouse operations like inventory put-away, picking, and packing.
- Transportation: The platform automates transportation activities like order aggregation, identifying the most efficient shippers, load planning, and supply route planning.
- Demand forecasting: Generate forecasts based on the analysis of historic data. This enables organizations to predict future customer demand and make smarter decisions across production and inventory.
Supply Chain Automation Benefits
- Reduce manual efforts on executing tedious tasks
- Employees can save time and focus on other strategic tasks
- Reduce data entry errors
- Improved accuracy and visibility
- Better utilize resources
- Improved decision-making
AI In Supply Chain Management
AI in supply chain management helps organizations make a big leap in their operations. It transforms the traditional way of handling supply chain activities which results in time saving and reducing operational costs through automation and AI insights.
Here is where Microsoft Dynamics 365 AI capabilities positively influence supply chain processes.
- Demand forecasting – AI is highly effective in analyzing historical data and trends. This analysis helps organizations forecast demands which makes an impact in planning production, inventory, and purchasing decisions.
- Predictive maintenance: AI integration enables predictive maintenance in supply chain. It analyzes data from IOT sensors to identify any potential issues in the equipment. This leads organizations to predict machine failures and plan equipment maintenance.
- Inventory management: AI helps organizations with managing their inventory at optimal levels through demand predictions. This helps organizations to maintain accurate stocks across warehouses and other locations, reduce overstocking and stock-out situations, and avoid inventory overhead costs.
- Supplier risk analysis: AI evaluate supplier performance data which helps organizations to identify potential vendor risks and other elements related to supply issues.
- Intelligent order fulfilment: AI prioritize order fulfilment based on customer importance, delivery timeframes, stock availability.
- Route optimization: AI helps determine the most efficient route for logistics which helps to reduce transportation costs and ensure proper delivery.
- Supply chain challenges: By analysing supply chain data and market trends, AI helps companies overcome supply chain challenges like weather disruptions, identifying best routes, and other challenges.
With AI and automation capabilities in Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, you can streamline every aspect of your supply chain operations.
When planning to implement Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, it is essential to partner with a trusted Microsoft Dynamics 365 partner. By collaborating with experienced D365 consultants, you get a tailored D365 SCM solution that helps you meet your supply chain goals.
With expert guidance, customization, seamless integration, ongoing support, and personalized training, their implementation approach ensures that Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management meets your unique business needs and drives long-term success.
