Manufacturing
Disconnected processes make customer commitments harder to keep.
A ship date can change because material is late, production is rescheduled, quality puts product on hold, or engineering changes the job. If those changes do not reach the people who depend on them, sales may give the customer an outdated ship date, production may keep working to an outdated plan, and the order may cost more than expected.
The order is only the beginning.
The customer order sets the quantity, specification, price, and expected delivery date.
Keeping that commitment depends on what happens next.
Material has to arrive. Capacity has to be available. Production has to run. Engineering changes have to reach the people doing the work. Quality has to release the product. The warehouse has to ship it. Service has to support it.
The business still has to make the margin it expected.
A shortage, schedule change, quality hold, or engineering revision can change the ship date and the cost of the order. If sales still has the old date, purchasing is buying against the old material requirement, production has the old revision, or finance has the original cost assumption, the order can keep moving on information that is already out of date.
What can change after the order is accepted
The promised ship date can move.
The date may be realistic when the order is booked. Then material arrives late, a machine goes down, quality puts the order on hold, the required labor is unavailable, or another job takes priority. Planning may already know the date will move while sales is still giving the customer the original ship date. The longer that gap remains, the later the customer hears about the delay.
Inventory on hand does not always mean material is available for the order.
Material may already be allocated to another job, waiting for inspection, short against demand, or arriving later than expected. Purchasing may know a receipt is late while planning still assumes the material will be available. By the time production finds the shortage, rescheduling, expediting material, or moving other work may be the only options left.
A quality hold can delay shipment and increase the cost of the order.
A failed inspection, nonconformance, or rework decision can delay release, consume more material or labor, and move the ship date. Planning may need to reschedule the job. The warehouse may need to stop shipment. Sales may need to reset the customer date. Finance may need to account for additional material, labor, scrap, or rework.
An engineering change can affect work already underway.
A drawing is revised. A specification changes. A component is replaced. The customer changes a requirement after the order is released. Purchasing may need different material. Production may need a different routing or instruction. Quality may need different inspection criteria. Cost may change. The customer may need a new delivery date. Everyone affected by the change needs the correct version before more work is done.
A repeat customer issue can reveal a larger product problem.
A return, warranty claim, field failure, or repeat complaint may trace back to a component, supplier, revision, production run, or quality issue. Service can replace a part or close a case without anyone seeing that several customers are reporting the same failure. Connecting those issues back to the product gives quality, engineering, and operations a chance to identify the pattern before more customers are affected.
The order can ship on time and still miss the expected margin.
Material costs change. Labor takes longer. Scrap increases. Rework is required. Overtime is added. Freight is expedited. Service is needed after delivery. The customer may receive the order on time while the margin on the order is lower than expected.
Manufacturing leaders need to know both:
Did we deliver what we promised?
Did we make the margin we expected?
Manufacturing runs across specialized systems.
Production, scheduling, MES, warehouse operations, quality, engineering, PLM, maintenance, shipping, customer service, finance, and reporting may all be managed in different applications.
A change recorded in one system can affect a customer promise, production schedule, shipment, service response, or financial result somewhere else in the business.
A production delay may change the date sales gives the customer.
A quality hold may change what the warehouse can ship.
A customer revision may change what engineering releases, what purchasing buys, and what production builds.
A repeat warranty issue may point back to a component, supplier, revision, or production run.
Actual material and labor usage may change the margin finance reports on the order.
Some systems may need to stay. Others may need to change, be replaced, or connect differently. The decision starts with how the work is actually done, who owns each part of it, and which system should support it.
Microsoft applications can support different parts of the manufacturing process.
Dynamics 365 Sales
Manage customer relationships, requirements, and commitments
Manage accounts, opportunities, quotes, customer requirements, and sales activity. Give sellers access to order and production information when it affects the date, quantity, or requirement they are discussing with the customer.
Questions manufacturing leaders need answered
President / Owner
Can we take on more business without more expediting, overtime, and customer escalations?
Leadership needs to know whether the operation can support the volume and commitments sales is taking on, and whether that growth is producing the margin the business expects.
COO / Operations Leadership
What changed that could disrupt today's schedule?
A material shortage, machine issue, quality hold, engineering revision, labor constraint, or priority change can alter the plan quickly. Operations needs to know about those changes while there is still time to move work, secure material, change the schedule, or give customer-facing teams time to reset expectations.
CFO / Finance Leadership
Why did the margin change between quote and shipment?
Finance needs to connect actual margin to the material, labor, scrap, rework, overtime, freight, inventory adjustments, and service activity that changed the cost of the order. The answer should not depend on rebuilding the history of the order in a spreadsheet after it ships.
Sales / Customer Service Leadership
What can we tell the customer with confidence right now?
Customer-facing teams need the current ship date, order status, production changes, quality issues, and service history without calling several departments to assemble an answer.
IT Leadership
Which system should own each part of the process?
A manufacturer may already have ERP, CRM, MES, quality, engineering, warehouse, service, document, and reporting systems. Before adding another application or integration, IT needs to know where the customer record belongs, where production is managed, where quality is managed, where service history is kept, and which changes need to pass between those systems.
Understand the problem before deciding what should change.
Manufacturers often come to Alliason with an existing mix of ERP, CRM, MES, quality, engineering, warehouse, service, reporting, spreadsheets, and custom tools. We start with the problem the business is trying to solve.
What did the customer expect?
What changed?
Who knew about the change?
Who needed to act on it?
What happened next?
What did the delay, rework, expedited shipment, service issue, or other failure cost the business?
That shows where the problem begins and what has to change to stop it from happening again. The answer may be a process change, a change in how existing systems exchange information, the replacement of a system that no longer fits, or no technology change at all.
Our recommendation is based on how the manufacturing process needs to work, even when that means recommending less technology.
"From leading our CRM reimplementation to expanding into Customer Insights, they've consistently delivered high-quality results with professionalism, transparency, and a deep understanding of our business."
Andrew H.
Applications Manager, Manufacturing Company