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Designing a GMP System: Key Considerations and Benefits of Implementation
  • Xcelpros Team
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Designing a GMP System: Key Considerations and Benefits of Implementation
Designing a GMP System: Key Considerations and Benefits of Implementation 700 500 Xcelpros Team

Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) ensure that products meet quality standards and are safe for use or consumption. A GMP-compliant system is essential for companies that must adhere to regulatory requirements to produce safe and effective products. A GMP system involves guidelines and procedures regulating the manufacturing process, including the design, production, and testing of products. Regulatory bodies, such as the FDA, set these guidelines, and compliance is mandatory for companies operating in industries like pharmaceuticals, biotech, and food and beverage. Implementing a GMP system can be complex, but the right design can help companies streamline processes, minimize errors, and maintain compliance.

A study published in the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences found that implementing an electronic GMP system resulted in a 15% reduction in product defects and a 20% reduction in manufacturing time.

Key Considerations for Designing a System to Handle GMP Processes

Understand the Regulatory Requirements

The first step in designing a GMP system is understanding the regulatory requirements for your industry. GMP guidelines are detailed and can be complex, so it is essential to have a clear understanding of the expectations and standards. FDA regulations, for example, require documentation of every step in the manufacturing process, from raw material selection to final product release. A GMP system must also ensure products are produced in a controlled environment that minimizes contamination risk. Once you clearly understand the regulations, you can design your GMP system to ensure compliance.

Identify Critical Control Points

Critical control points (CCPs) are points in the manufacturing process where control can be applied to prevent, eliminate, or reduce a significant hazard to product quality or safety. In a GMP system, CCPs are identified and monitored to ensure the process operates within acceptable limits. Designing a system that identifies CCPs and monitors them is critical to ensuring product quality and safety.

Implement a Document Management System

Document control is an essential part of any GMP system. The FDA requires companies to maintain accurate records of every step in the manufacturing process, including raw material and component receipt, manufacturing and packaging, and product testing. A document management system can help ensure that all documents are accurate, up-to-date, and easily accessible. The system should provide version control, document tracking, and secure storage to maintain the integrity of the records.

Choose the Right Equipment

Equipment selection is critical in designing a GMP system. All equipment used in the manufacturing process must meet certain standards, including being designed for easy cleaning and maintenance. Equipment must also be calibrated and validated to ensure it works correctly. Choosing the right equipment can help streamline the manufacturing process and minimize the risk of product contamination.

Train Employees

GMP compliance requires that all employees involved in the manufacturing process are adequately trained in GMP guidelines, procedures, and practices. Designing a GMP system should include employee training and ongoing education to ensure that employees know their responsibilities and can effectively execute the procedures. Employee training should also include instruction on identifying and reporting potential quality issues.

Conduct Regular Audits

Regular audits of the GMP system are essential to ensure that the system is functioning as intended and that compliance is maintained. Audits should include reviewing all documentation and records, verifying equipment calibration and validation, and observing employees performing their tasks. Audits should be conducted at regular intervals and documented to provide a record of compliance.

Designing a system to handle GMP processes requires careful planning and attention to detail. Understanding regulatory requirements, identifying CCPs, implementing a document management system, choosing the right equipment, training employees, and conducting regular audits are all essential components of a successful GMP system. By implementing a well-designed GMP system, companies can streamline processes, minimize errors, and maintain compliance, ultimately improving product quality and safety.

In a case study conducted by UL, a pharmaceutical company that implemented an electronic GMP system reported a 50% reduction in batch review time and a 70% reduction in product release time.

Book a free consultation with our technology experts to learn more about considerations for maintaining GMP processes.

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What Features Should a Good GMP Software Have?

Here are some important features that good GMP software should have:

Figure 1:Essential Components of Effective GMP Software

Essential Components of Effective GMP Software

  • Electronic signatures: GMP regulations require documentation of all activities related to the manufacturing process, and electronic signatures provide a secure and traceable way to authenticate these records.
  • Audit trails: The software should have a comprehensive audit trail that tracks all changes made to the system, including who made the changes, when they were made and the reason for the change.
  • Role-based access control: The system should have a robust access control mechanism that ensures that users only have access to the information they need to do their job.
  • Electronic batch records: The software should provide a centralized location to store all batch records electronically, allowing for real-time tracking and analysis.
  • Validation and compliance: The GMP software should be validated according to regulatory guidelines. The vendor should provide ongoing support to ensure that the system remains compliant with any regulation updates or changes.
  • Risk management: The system should have features to manage and mitigate risks associated with the manufacturing process. This includes the ability to perform risk assessments and track corrective actions and preventive actions (CAPA).
  • Integration with other systems: The software should integrate with other systems, such as ERP systems or LIMS systems, to provide a seamless end-to-end manufacturing process.
  • Reporting and analytics: The software should provide comprehensive reporting and analytics capabilities to enable companies to analyze and optimize their manufacturing processes.
  • Training and support: The vendor should provide comprehensive training and support to ensure that users can effectively use the software and comply with regulatory requirements.

Electronic GMP software can enhance the implementation of a GMP system, providing features such as electronic signatures, audit trails, role-based access control, electronic batch records, validation and compliance, risk management, integration with other systems, reporting and analytics, and training and support. By using good GMP software, companies can further optimize their manufacturing processes and ensure ongoing compliance with regulatory requirements.

Overall, companies that prioritize implementing GMP practices and invest in a well-designed GMP system and software can benefit from improved product quality and safety, increased efficiency, and reduced costs. By maintaining compliance with regulatory requirements and prioritizing quality and safety, companies can build a strong reputation and gain the trust of customers, regulators, and stakeholders.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the implementation of Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) is crucial for companies operating in industries such as pharmaceuticals, biotech, and food and beverage to ensure product quality and safety. Designing and implementing a robust GMP system requires careful planning and attention to regulatory requirements, critical control points, document management, equipment selection, employee training, and regular audits.

XcelPros has decades of experience helping build and implement GMP practices as a Microsoft Gold Partner. Our team understands the importance of implementing the right system and can guide your business every step of the way.

With the use of electronic GMP software, companies can further enhance their GMP system and optimize their manufacturing processes while ensuring ongoing compliance with regulations. By prioritizing GMP practices, companies can benefit from improved product quality and safety, increased efficiency, and reduced costs, building a strong reputation and gaining the trust of customers, regulators, and stakeholders.

Why You Should Upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics 365 in 2023
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Why You Should Upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics 365 in 2023
Why You Should Upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics 365 in 2023 700 500 Xcelpros Team

As industries like Pharmaceuticals and Chemicals become more and more connected, it’s important for businesses to make sure they’re using the right tools to keep up with the competition. As we start 2023, we’ve identified several reasons why these businesses should upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics 365 that we cover in this post. We’ll look at how Microsoft Dynamics 365 can help you streamline processes, increase efficiency, and stay up to date with the latest technology.

Reasons to move to Microsoft Dynamics 365

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software has seen major changes in recent years.

With the growth of the cloud and the rise of powerful analytics, today’s ERP solutions are better than ever. Microsoft Dynamics 365 gives businesses power and flexibility to streamline their operations in a way that makes the most sense.

Businesses still struggling with an aging legacy system will see that Microsoft Dynamics 365 offers the right combination of price and performance. D365 is built on the latest technology and provides powerful insights into your business processes with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) enhancements that help you make better decisions. Its cloud-based architecture lets you access your data from anywhere at any time.

With older systems it will keep getting harder and harder to accommodate things like AI/ML, remote work or more complicated SOPs. Some of the top reasons you should say goodbye to your legacy system and finally make the move to Microsoft Dynamics 365 include

  • Aging legacy system
  • End of support for AX
  • Accessibility
  • Efficiency
  • Scalability

Figure 1:Reasons to Move to Microsoft Dynamics 365

Reasons to Move to Microsoft Dynamics 365

Upgrading to Microsoft Dynamics 365 gives you the opportunity to optimize your business processes, and make better decisions, faster.

Aging legacy system

It’s common to see businesses reliant on legacy systems that are no longer up to date. These aging systems can not only slow operations but can also cause an increased cost for the business. An aging legacy system may not offer the same features, functionalities, or reliability as modern solutions.

For businesses that are relying on an aging legacy system, they’re sure to encounter more and more costly issues as the system grows older. Most notably, the cost to maintain the system will increase dramatically as parts become harder to find, outdated technologies require replacement, and more complex issues begin to arise. Additionally, the risk of data loss is ever-present due to system vulnerabilities and lack of security updates. Moreover, the organization’s ability to scale with the demands of the market can be severely limited with a legacy system.

As technology advances, the need for modern features like AI/ ML increases. An aging legacy system won’t be able to provide the same support for new features as a more up-to-date system like Microsoft Dynamics 365. A legacy system may not be able to keep up with changes in the market, or even worse, can be missing out on features that could improve your business. By upgrading to Microsoft Dynamics 365, you’ll be able to access these new features and keep up with the competition.

End of support for AX

Microsoft has announced the end of support for AX 2012 in 2023, making it an ideal time for these organizations to upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics 365. For businesses still using AX 2012, this is an opportunity to make the most of the latest technology and achieve greater efficiency and customer experience than ever before. With features like integrated AI capabilities, cloud-enabled analytics and business process automation, Dynamics 365 can help reduce operational costs and provide powerful insights that drive better decision-making.

Organizations seeking to upgrade to Dynamics 365 will find the most benefits by partnering with a Microsoft Gold Partner. These Partners have in-depth knowledge and experience with Dynamics 365, and they can provide comprehensive support throughout your transition process. This includes helping to customize Dynamics 365 to meet your organization’s specific requirements and ensuring that you get the most out of the platform. On top of that, Partners will be able to assist with data migration tasks and provide ongoing support for any post-implementation issues.

Accessibility

Microsoft Dynamics 365 offers businesses exceptional accessibility and convenience. D365 provides a secure and reliable platform for business operations, with the added benefits of mobile accessibility and cloud computing.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is built on the cloud, allowing your data to be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection. Your employees and customers will be able to access the system from any device with an internet connection, whether in the office or on the go. Unlike AX, where remote users can only access the system with a VPN.

With Microsoft Dynamics 365, businesses have access to intuitive tools that enable them to monitor performance and develop strategies for improvement. You can customize the system for maximum flexibility in a tailored solution.

Efficiency

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a powerful enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that can help streamline SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures). From improved forecasting and analysis capabilities to automation, D365 makes it easy to reduce manual processes.

By combining multiple functions like CRM, ERP, and analytics into a single platform, D365 reduces the need for manual data entry and tedious paperwork.

This complete solution provides AI/ML- based analytics, giving you real-time insights into performance and trends – something you can’t fully get with legacy systems. Working with a Dynamics Partner, you’ll gain access to industry-specific understanding and advice on how to best use D365 to maximize efficiency and improve your bottom line.

Scalability

For businesses looking to expand their operations, scalability is key. Microsoft Dynamics 365 is designed to grow with your organization, allowing you to seamlessly transition from one stage of your business’s development to the next. This is especially important with legacy overhead costs continuing to rise.

As a cloud-based system, the scalability of Dynamics 365 is a major advantage for any business. With the help of your Microsoft Partner, you can gain access to additional support and resources when it comes to transitioning your organization to Dynamics 365.

Whether you’re launching new products or services, opening new offices, or exploring different markets, Dynamics 365 will ensure that your business can scale as you need it to.

Next steps if you’re ready to upgrade now

When your business is ready to get started, the best way to upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics 365 is with the help of a Microsoft Gold Partner.

A Partner will provide expertise in how to best utilize the software, implement it for your organization, and answer any questions you may have about the system. They can also advise on which versions of Dynamics 365 is best for your business. With a Gold Partner, you can be sure that you are getting the most out of your technology investment and can use it to its fullest potential.

Upgrade to Dynamics 365 with the help of a Microsoft Gold Partner

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Once you identify potential partners, take some time to evaluate their services and expertise to ensure that you are getting the best deal. Talk to them about their experience in the industry, pricing structure, and any other details that you may have questions on.

Your Partner will guide you through the entire installation process and provide support and training if needed. Once the software is up and running, they can provide additional resources and training on how to use it more effectively.

You’ll receive access to new features before they are released, helping you stay up-to-date on any major changes that may come along. With the right Partner, you can ensure a smooth transition to Microsoft D365 and reap the benefits of a powerful business solution.

About XcelPros

XcelPros is a Chicago-based company and delivers transformation through technology. We offer business and technology solutions with deep industry experience in Chemical, Pharma, Life Sciences (including Medical Devices, Bio-Medical & Biotech), Insurance, Discrete Manufacturing, Process Manufacturing, Distribution and Food & Beverage.

XcelPros is a Microsoft Gold Partner, Direct Cloud Solutions Provider (CSP) and a Systems Integrator (SI) offering software licensing, implementation and consulting services for Microsoft Dynamics 365, CRM, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Business Intelligence & Analytics (Power BI), SharePoint, Office 365 and Azure (Cloud, IOT, Microsoft Flow amongst many others).

Our mission is to provide integrated technology solutions that amplify impact and empower our customer’s businesses. We believe technology is the key enabler of exponential growth for us and our customers.

Contact XcelPros today to transform your business.

Call us toll-free – 1.855.411.0585 (or) visit https://xcelpros.com/

On-time delivery with Dynamics 365: Job scheduling and Capacity planning
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On-time delivery with Dynamics 365: Job scheduling and Capacity planning
On-time delivery with Dynamics 365: Job scheduling and Capacity planning 700 500 shahid.anis

Ensuring your customers receive their orders punctually is an essential part of any successful enterprise – especially true when it comes to manufacturing. Many organizations use scheduling and capacity planning systems to guarantee their services and products reach their destination without delay. Microsoft Dynamics 365 offers solutions for optimal job scheduling and capacity planning that can give you a competitive edge and keep your customers satisfied. Through this post, we’ll be taking a closer look at how Dynamics 365 can facilitate efficient job scheduling and capacity planning to guarantee timely deliveries.

The importance of on-time delivery

Delivering products on time is essential for businesses that want to maintain a successful reputation. Customers expect their orders to arrive when they’re promised, and any delays in the supply chain can lead to lost sales and damaged relationships. On-time delivery is even more crucial in the current competitive landscape where customers have an abundance of options to choose from.

Having a reliable system in place to ensure that orders are delivered on time is critical for any business. Job scheduling and capacity planning are two key tools designed to help companies achieve this goal.

  • Job scheduling involves creating plans for how to use resources, including people and machines, to complete tasks.
  • Capacity planning focuses on understanding the maximum capacity of resources so that orders can be completed efficiently.

To streamline job scheduling and capacity planning, more companies are utilizing cloud-based Supply Chain Management systems like Microsoft Dynamics 365. With its easy-to-use graphical user interface (GUI), users can quickly create job schedules without having to write complicated code or manually enter data. It also provides insights into capacities and resources used so that users can make better decisions on resource allocation.

This helps organizations optimize their operations while also meeting customer expectations of timely delivery. Additionally, the cloud-based solution allows businesses to access data across multiple sites or departments, so they always have visibility into what needs to be done.

How job scheduling and capacity planning can help

Described above, job scheduling and capacity planning have become essential tools for businesses that want to ensure on-time delivery. Carefully planned and executed job scheduling and capacity planning can help improve efficiency, reduce costs, and prevent bottlenecks from forming.

With efficient job scheduling and capacity planning, businesses can reduce their lead times, increase on–time delivery, and improve customer satisfaction. All things that can increase a business’s revenue. Job scheduling and capacity planning can help businesses plan for potential problems and take preventive measures to avoid delays or other issues to save time, money, and effort overall.

What to consider when implementing job scheduling and capacity planning

Job scheduling and capacity planning can be implemented for any business that needs to ensure their orders are delivered on time. However, this process can become complex when managing multiple orders from multiple customers. To ensure successful and timely order fulfillment, there are several factors to consider when implementing job scheduling and capacity planning in your supply chain.

Figure 1:Considerations While Implementing Job Scheduling and Capacity Planning

Considerations While Implementing Job Scheduling and Capacity Planning

One of the first things businesses can do is review the demand for each product or service. This helps to determine the number of resources needed to complete orders within a desired period. You should also consider any external factors that may impact the capacity of your resources such as changing customer demand, unexpected delays, or seasonal fluctuations.

It’s also important to consider the availability of your resources. Make sure you understand the current workload of your employees, their skills, and any additional tasks they may need to complete to finish the job. This will help you effectively manage staffing and allocate resources so orders can be fulfilled in a timely manner.

Finally, don’t forget to look at the tools you are using for job scheduling and capacity planning. It is important to have a system in place that allows for easy visibility and management of jobs, resources, and customer data. This way you can ensure that every aspect of the job scheduling and capacity planning process runs smoothly and efficiently.

This is a perfect case for solutions like Microsoft Dynamics 365 that offer an intuitive job scheduling and capacity planning solution that makes it easier to manage these processes. With Microsoft Dynamics, businesses can easily track customer orders, view available resources, and manage workloads—all while providing greater transparency into the entire process. As a result, businesses can deliver on-time orders with confidence.

How Microsoft Dynamics can help

Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) is a well-known cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that enables businesses to efficiently manage their entire supply chain, including resources and processes. D365 provides users with a comprehensive set of tools to manage job scheduling and capacity planning, including features such as project-level resource scheduling, job costing, inventory control, job tracking, and demand forecasting.

Things like job scheduling and capacity planning can be difficult to implement on their own, which is why many businesses turn to Microsoft Dynamics for help. Microsoft’s D365 provides powerful tools for job scheduling and capacity planning, allowing businesses to easily manage resources and meet customer expectations.

With D365, businesses can;

  • create optimized production plans,
  • set production goals, and
  • monitor progress to ensure timely delivery.

The software also includes dashboards and performance analytics that make it easy to view overall performance quickly, and easily. Additionally, D365 allows users to track inventory levels and find out when additional materials need to be ordered to meet deadlines. This helps ensure that all necessary materials are available and that orders are processed as quickly as possible. Moreover, it also helps reduce costs associated with excess inventory.

Using D365 to automate processes like job scheduling and capacity planning helps businesses save time and money by reducing manual labor costs. All of this leads to improved efficiency, reduced expenses, and better customer satisfaction.

D365’s job scheduling helps businesses optimize their operations by ensuring the right resources are allocated at the right time. By assigning jobs to the most qualified team members and grouping them into batches, users can easily identify potential delays and adjust in real-time. This helps businesses plan and execute their operations on time.

D365’s capacity planning makes it easier for businesses to plan for future needs and better manage their resources. The system offers a variety of reporting options which allow users to track their current and projected capacities, identify any gaps in resources, and plan accordingly. With this information, businesses can optimize their resources, adjust their job schedules to meet customer demands, and ultimately improve on-time delivery rates.

Overall, Microsoft Dynamics 365 provides users with a comprehensive suite of tools to effectively manage job scheduling and capacity planning. By leveraging the features offered by D365, businesses can optimize their supply chain operations, reduce delays, and improve their overall on-time delivery rates.

Contact us today for more information and to find out how we can help streamline your delivery.

About XcelPros

XcelPros is a Chicago-based company and delivers transformation through technology. We offer business and technology solutions with deep industry experience in Chemical, Pharma, Life Sciences (including Medical Devices, Bio-Medical & Biotech), Insurance, Discrete Manufacturing, Process Manufacturing, Distribution and Food & Beverage.

XcelPros is a Microsoft Gold Partner, Direct Cloud Solutions Provider (CSP) and a Systems Integrator (SI) offering software licensing, implementation and consulting services for Microsoft Dynamics 365, CRM, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Business Intelligence & Analytics (Power BI), SharePoint, Office 365 and Azure (Cloud, IOT, Microsoft Flow amongst many others).

Our mission is to provide integrated technology solutions that amplify impact and empower our customer’s businesses. We believe technology is the key enabler of exponential growth for us and our customers.

Contact XcelPros today to transform your business.

Call us toll-free – 1.855.411.0585 (or) visit https://xcelpros.com/

Production Floor Management in Microsoft Dynamics 365
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Production Floor Management in Microsoft Dynamics 365
Production Floor Management in Microsoft Dynamics 365 700 500 shahid.anis

Efficient production floor management is an increasingly important part of any manufacturing operation. To keep production running smoothly, businesses need systems in place to track upcoming jobs and manage resources effectively – For many businesses this is still a combination of legacy systems and manual processes.

New products like Microsoft Dynamics 365 give businesses a comprehensive way to manage and automate their production floor operations, track jobs, and manage resources in one integrated system. In this blog we explore Microsoft Dynamics 365 and how it helps streamline production floor management.

Overview of production floor management

Production floor management is one of the most important parts of any manufacturing business. Production floor managers are responsible for day-to-day operations, scheduling, staffing, monitoring and control, quality assurance, and more.

Figure 1:Elements of Effective Production Floor Management

Elements of Effective Production Floor Management

Efficient Production Floor Management includes things like:

  • Scheduling: Planning and scheduling of activities and personnel on the production floor.
  • Staffing: Hiring, assigning, and managing personnel on the production floor.
  • Monitoring & Control: Ensuring that operations run smoothly and according to plan.
  • Quality Assurance: Assessing the quality of the products being produced.
  • Inventory Management: Keeping track of the inventory on the production floor.
  • Reporting & Analytics: Analyzing data from the production process to identify areas for improvement.

Production floor management involves communication between departments and being able to monitor and update existing workflows to ensure production is running smoothly and efficiently, and that tasks are completed on time. Production managers spend a lot of valuable time ensuring compliance with industry standards and government regulations, all of which can have a positive impact on a company’s bottom line.

These power users need a production floor management system that provides transparency into the entire production process that lets them monitor progress and make necessary adjustments when needed. The right solution can help to improve customer service, as well as reduce overhead costs associated with production.

Production floor management tools make it easier for businesses to manage their production processes more effectively and efficiently. This system needs to provide real-time information about the status of each job or resource being managed. This helps organizations stay informed about their operations and make informed decisions about how best to move forward.

Managing Production in Microsoft Dynamics 365

Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 products include comprehensive enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions that offer businesses a straightforward way to manage their production floor operations, resources, and more. Microsoft has spent years developing these products to help streamline and automate processes to improve efficiency.

Production floor management in Microsoft Dynamics 365 is easy to learn, simple to use and much more efficient than older, manual systems. Microsoft’s investments include millions of dollars to ensure their products are perfect for optimizing the flow of resources, reducing errors, and improving the overall efficiency of production processes.

The Production Floor Management module within Microsoft Dynamics 365 allows you to schedule and track jobs, manage resources, and gain insight into current and future production activities with a full range of tools and features to help you better manage your operations.

The Production Floor Management module allows you to easily create and monitor job tickets that list all the resources required for each production activity so you can assign tasks to specific resources, schedule jobs and check progress in real time.

This module also provides valuable insights on resource utilization, production efficiency, and capacity utilization. This helps you to optimize your production line, reduce wastage, and maximize profits.

On top of that, the Production Floor Management module gives you the ability to create custom workspaces for different types of users. These custom workspaces let you streamline complex production processes and provide an improved view of data.

Overall, Microsoft Dynamics 365 offers a comprehensive solution for managing your production floor operations. With its advanced features and tools, it helps streamline your operations and ensure efficient production.

Production floor management and Microsoft Dynamics 365

One of the most important benefits of production floor management in Microsoft Dynamics 365 is the ability to improve efficiency. With a single source of information, organizations have access to accurate data from any location, helping to make decisions faster. Organizations can also access data in real-time to stay ahead of changes in the market.

By centralizing information and automating manual tasks, production floor management in D365 helps organizations increase productivity, reduce operational costs, and free up resources for more strategic projects. With better insights into operations, companies can make more informed decisions that often lead to significant cost savings.

Managing upcoming jobs

Production floors can be hectic, with countless tasks and jobs to juggle. Microsoft Dynamics 365 is designed to help production managers stay on top of their workload by providing a comprehensive view of upcoming jobs and the resources required to complete them.

D365 allows users to quickly create job tickets for each new task. These tickets provide detailed information about the job, including resources needed, estimated duration, and other relevant details. This information is used to create a timeline of upcoming jobs, giving managers an immediate view of how their resources is being utilized and when projects need to be completed.

Users can assign tasks and resources to workers, allowing for greater control over who is responsible for completing each job. This ensures that production floor operations are more efficient and reduces the chances of costly errors due to miscommunication. Additionally, job tickets can be customized with additional fields like priority and special instructions, allowing managers to adjust workflow on the fly based on current needs.

With an intuitive user interface and powerful job tracking capabilities, D365 makes it easy for production managers to keep track of their upcoming jobs and ensure that they have the right people and resources in place to get the job done.

Managing resources

The ability to manage resources efficiently is key to successful production floor management. Microsoft Dynamics 365 offers a wide range of features and capabilities to help manage your resources.

D365 provides advanced tools for forecasting resource requirements that let you plan the number of resources needed for upcoming jobs and adjust staffing levels accordingly. This helps maximize resource utilization by scheduling jobs to make sure that resources are being used as efficiently as possible.

You can monitor resource performance in real-time using dashboards and analytics to quickly identify any areas where performance needs to be improved or resources need to be redistributed. D365’s resource management tools make it easy to ensure that your production floor is running smoothly and efficiently.

D365 allows you to track resource availability, check inventory levels, and schedule preventative maintenance to ensure that all necessary resources are in place when they’re needed and eliminates potential downtime due to maintenance issues. You also get the ability to control access rights, allowing you to control who has access to which resources and ensuring that only authorized personnel can access sensitive data.

Custom Workspaces

With custom workspaces, production managers can streamline their operations and stay organized. Custom workspaces in D365 can be set up in a variety of ways to suit the production manager’s unique needs. For example, custom workspaces can include a dashboard that provides an overview of current jobs, upcoming tasks, and other essential information. Additionally, they can display detailed data on different resources like employees, materials, and machines.

By creating workspaces tailored to their individual needs, production managers can easily keep track of their resources and jobs, enabling them to produce better results and increase efficiency. Furthermore, custom workspaces also provide a way to generate reports quickly and accurately so that production teams can make better decisions with greater confidence.

Custom workspaces in Microsoft Dynamics 365 allow users to monitor performance in real-time and adjust as needed. This allows production managers to quickly identify any problems or issues that arise and take corrective action before they become too serious. As a result, overall production performance is improved significantly.

Final Thoughts

Production floor management can be a difficult and complex process, especially for large-scale operations. Microsoft Dynamics 365 offers an effective solution to streamline this process and make it easier to manage jobs and resources.

With its intuitive user interface and powerful customization capabilities, it’s well suited for managing production floors of all sizes and complexities. Production floor managers can easily keep track of upcoming jobs and resources, quickly adjust plans in response to changes in demand or capacity with a complete overview of the operations.

Features like custom workspaces provide the flexibility to customize the system according to the specific needs of the business. Ultimately, Microsoft Dynamics 365 helps production floor managers stay organized, maximize efficiency, and achieve better results. Contact us for more information.

About XcelPros

XcelPros is a Chicago-based company and delivers transformation through technology. We offer business and technology solutions with deep industry experience in Chemical, Pharma, Life Sciences (including Medical Devices, Bio-Medical & Biotech), Insurance, Discrete Manufacturing, Process Manufacturing, Distribution and Food & Beverage.

XcelPros is a Microsoft Gold Partner, Direct Cloud Solutions Provider (CSP) and a Systems Integrator (SI) offering software licensing, implementation and consulting services for Microsoft Dynamics 365, CRM, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Business Intelligence & Analytics (Power BI), SharePoint, Office 365 and Azure (Cloud, IOT, Microsoft Flow amongst many others).

Our mission is to provide integrated technology solutions that amplify impact and empower our customer’s businesses. We believe technology is the key enabler of exponential growth for us and our customers.

Contact XcelPros today to transform your business.

Call us toll-free – 1.855.411.0585 (or) visit https://xcelpros.com/

Implement Your ERP The Right Way to Boost your Company’s Efficiency
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Implement Your ERP The Right Way to Boost your Company’s Efficiency
Implement Your ERP The Right Way to Boost your Company’s Efficiency 700 500 shahid.anis

Running a business isn’t always easy, especially when there’s a lack of communication and no system in place to monitor data from your operations – problems all too common with legacy systems. The sooner businesses address these issues the better, and that means making sure whatever Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution you choose can support your business now, and in the future. Having the right solution in place will be the best way to ensure you’re able to keep meeting your goals.

Across industries, modern Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementations have become increasingly common. According to Deloitte, nearly 53% of IT executives say that effective Cloud ERP implementation is their top priority. A recent report from Allied Market Research expects the global ERP market to reach $117.09 billion by the end of 2030.

In this post, we touch on the importance of implementing a modern ERP – like Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 products – the right way, and what they bring to the table.

Properly Implementing a Modern ERP

It’s true that modern ERP solutions like Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management open businesses to more possibilities. Microsoft’s ERP solutions offer Direct integration to Office products, enhanced collaboration, advanced analytics designed to generate actionable insights and boost efficiency, and more.

Often forgotten though is making sure you’re able to properly implement a chosen solution – and this means collaborating with a Partner that understands the needs of your industry.

Figure 1:Benefits of Working with an ERP Implementation Partner

Benefits of Working with an ERP Implementation Partner

Important benefits of working with an ERP implementation partner include:

Fully streamlined and automated processes

With older systems, manual task allocation, tracking, and monitoring are becoming tougher and tougher as the system generates more data for every transaction. As workflows become more complex, organizations are finding themselves having to make significant investments to keep them up to date.

Microsoft’s D365 can automate and standardize even the most complicated workflows in the name of efficiency.

Reduced cost

According to Deloitte, as much as 22% of operational cost savings happens with Microsoft ERP implementations. This has both a direct and indirect impact on overheads.

With powerful automation features you can streamline the way you schedule your resources. Microsoft’s D365 can easily automate critical jobs like task allocation, traceability, report creation. This automation results in fewer errors and a reduced need for human intervention. This results in a reduced need for organizations to invest in third-party monitoring and optimization solutions.

Centralized data

Older, legacy solutions with siloed applications are a huge hindrance to modern performance. This leads to excessive back and forth just to access the right data. This can be tough for any team, with the lack of instantly accessible data hampering performance and the ability to make quick decisions.

Advanced ERPs like Microsoft Dynamics 365 give users immediate access to critical data without additional effort or wasted time. All critical data is available from one single platform where your teams have access to whatever they need.

Performance monitoring and Real-time collaboration

Being able to continuously find and resolve issues is a crucial part of organizational growth. Microsoft’s D365 provides an extensive 360-degree view of tasks and workflows that allows organizations to easily generate reports with actionable insights.

Teams that stay connected remain result driven. A proper ERP implementation means everyone in your organization will have access to performance data in interactive reports that users can share with other stakeholders. Your users can share data, discuss goals, plan strategies, and work more efficiently with other departments.

Improved flexibility

D365 gives businesses the flexibility to quickly adapt to any changes in market demand. This includes the ability to update workflows as needed, allowing them to scale as your business grows.

This is highly dependent on your partner’s understanding of your industry and how your software is set up.

Best practices, reducing failures

A report from Deloitte revealed that nearly 55-75% of all ERP implementation efforts result in failure, citing poor system selection, incompetent data migration, and lack of implementation best practices – all related to your implementation partner.

To reduce the chance of failure and increase the possibility for success in any ERP implementation means following best practices:

Identify your ERP implementation objectives

Before starting any ERP implementation project, it’s important to have a good understand of the following:

  • Why do you need a new ERP? What is your proposed timeline?
  • Will your new ERP need additional customizations?
  • What functionality is critical to your business?
  • What kind of downtime can you afford?
  • What is the budget for your ERP implementation?

Selecting an ERP that aligns best with your goals

You wouldn’t wear dress shoes to a construction job, would you? The growing ERP market has different solutions available, each with its own specific features. Make the wrong choice and you could be stuck with that solution for years and years – this is where an experienced partner would be able to guide you in the right direction.

For example, you may be leaning towards a lower-cost option, but is that solution scalable? Does it include access to everything you need, or will it require a significant investment to customize?

Microsoft has gone to lengths to ensure their Dynamics 365 ERP is a perfect fit for different enterprise types, combining CRM (Customer Relations Management), accounting, finances, marketing, planning, supply chain management, and more, unlike lesser ERPs.

Migrate data with utmost diligence

Lost, misplaced, or duplicated data is another major cause of failed ERP implementations. Even a single piece of critical data can lead to expensive fines, damage to a business’s reputation, or worse. This is exactly why following best practices for migrating customer data is so important.

Data integrity should be at the top of the list in any ERP implementation.

Prioritize training

You may have worked with a certain ERP in the past giving you a clear understanding of how it works – but not everyone has had the same experiences. This is precisely where Change Management comes in. Even if your chosen solution seems easy to use, your team needs to be comfortable with its capabilities, and this means making sure sufficient, ongoing training are part of the plan for any implementation.

If your users don’t receive the training necessary to complete their work in the new ERP system, you’ll never be able to achieve the results you’re after.

Final Thoughts

Obviously, there’s a lot that goes into making sure your ERP implementation goes according to plan. Make the wrong choice and your business is stuck with inefficient or sub-par functionality that requires heavy customization or the added cost of third-party addons – an expensive decision.

The best way to ensure you make the best choice the first time around is teaming with a partner that’s been there before.

Experienced ERP partners will understand best practices for your industry and which solutions make the most sense. They’ll work with you to optimize your ERP implementation according to your needs, giving you the best chance for success and long-term enjoyment of a scalable solution.

contact us today to see how we can help.

About XcelPros

XcelPros is a Chicago-based company and delivers transformation through technology. We offer business and technology solutions with deep industry experience in Chemical, Pharma, Life Sciences (including Medical Devices, Bio-Medical & Biotech), Insurance, Discrete Manufacturing, Process Manufacturing, Distribution and Food & Beverage.

XcelPros is a Microsoft Gold Partner, Direct Cloud Solutions Provider (CSP) and a Systems Integrator (SI) offering software licensing, implementation and consulting services for Microsoft Dynamics 365, CRM, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Business Intelligence & Analytics (Power BI), SharePoint, Office 365 and Azure (Cloud, IOT, Microsoft Flow amongst many others).

Our mission is to provide integrated technology solutions that amplify impact and empower our customer’s businesses. We believe technology is the key enabler of exponential growth for us and our customers.

Contact XcelPros today to transform your business.

Call us toll-free – 1.855.411.0585 (or) visit https://xcelpros.com/

Building a More Resilient Supply Chain in Uncertain Times
  • Xcelpros Team
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Building a More Resilient Supply Chain in Uncertain Times
Building a More Resilient Supply Chain in Uncertain Times 700 500 Xcelpros Team

In today’s rapidly changing economy, having a resilient supply chain has become more important than ever. The COVID-19 pandemic and the threat of a major recession has led to uncertainty and the disruption of supply chains around the world, leaving businesses struggling to stay afloat.

Companies need to make sure they have strategies in place to respond to any unpredictable events to protect their bottom line. In this blog, we will discuss the importance of having a resilient supply chain with a focus on remaining agile and competitive.

Defining supply chain resilience

When it comes to supply chain resilience, a lot of it comes down to a business’s ability to manage changes in the market and keep up with customer demands, while still providing goods and services on time and efficiently – especially important critical periods of economic downturn when businesses from every industry are being forced to make tough decisions about their operations and cost-saving measures.

For most businesses, a stronger supply chain means having systems in place that let them detect and react quickly to changes in the environment.

  • Products like Microsoft Dynamics and Power BI offer integrated inventory management and analytics capabilities businesses can use to identify supply chain risks and provide alerts in real-time.
  • Investments to continuous training to ensure their teams have the skills and knowledge needed to react and adjust quickly to shifting customer demands.
  • Having contingency plans in place to mitigate risks from unexpected events can help businesses remain resilient in tough times.

Working to create a stronger supply chain means businesses can reduce the risk of being affected by market volatility and be better equipped to cope with any disruptions that could affect customer satisfaction, productivity, profitability, and more.

Assessing your current situation

The first step to preparing your supply chain for tough times is assessing your current operations. Taking a close look at your supply chain lets you identify any weaknesses and gives you a clear view of where you need to make changes or investments.

Figure 1:Steps to Assess Your Current Supply Chain

Steps to Assess Your Current Supply Chain

Full visibility makes it easy to track evolving customer needs, behavior, and trends. This information makes it possible to optimize warehouse operations according to what the end customer is seeking. While not always easy, it’s quickly becoming non-negotiable.

The main reason D365 is used by so many businesses for supply chain and warehouse management is the wide range of modern features it offers in one solution, including –

1.Evaluate Your Risk Management Strategy: Your risk management strategy should be tailored to the specific challenges and risks in your supply chain. A good risk management plan should include potential risks and strategies for addressing them.

2.Consider Potential Supply Chain Disruptions:Analyzing potential disruptions helps you better prepare for them. Think about potential challenges or risks that could affect your supply chain. It’s important to know how these disruptions could affect your operations and what steps you need to take to prepare for them.

3.Review Your Processes:Look at your current processes and assess if they are efficient and effective. Are the right systems in place to manage inventory, track shipments, and handle customer inquiries? Are there any areas that can be improved? Making changes to existing processes can help streamline operations and create a more efficient supply chain.

4.Assess Your Resources:Assessing your resources helps you determine if you have the capacity to meet customer demands. Consider if you have enough staff, resources, and technology to handle any potential increase in volume. You should also consider using alternate suppliers if one of your main vendors is unable to fill your order.

Assessing your current supply chain gives you a better understanding of its strengths and weaknesses, and lets you identify areas that need improvement to prepare for whatever may come.

Identifying areas of improvement

When it comes to improving your supply chain, it’s important to get a complete view of your systems along with any areas you may have identified as needing improvement. Your assessment should cover the entire value chain, including suppliers, manufacturing processes, inventory management, planning, customer service, and more.

Once you identify areas that need improvement, it’s time to develop a plan of action. This plan might focus on reducing risk, increasing efficiency, or improving customer satisfaction. There are several strategies you can use to achieve these goals, like more robust supplier contracts, streamlining your operations with automation, or improving communication with your stakeholders, all of which are available in a solution like Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform.

The goal is to create a more resilient supply chain that can withstand economic downturns and other unexpected events. With the right plan in place, you can ensure that your business is prepared for whatever challenges lie ahead.

Strategies to enhance your supply chain

As the entire world faces challenging economic times, a resilient supply chain can mean the difference between success and failure, and how quickly you can adapt to changes in the market. A businesses success in trying times often comes down to the technology and strategies they use to support its supply chain:

Figure 2:Increasing Supply Chain Resilience

Increasing Supply Chain Resilience

  1. 1.Diversify your suppliers : Being able to manage multiple suppliers for key products or services protects you if any single supplier fails to deliver or goes out of business.
  2. 2.Improve data-sharing between departments : Effective collaboration across departments helps create better visibility throughout the supply chain to make everyone aware of potential issues ahead of time.
  3. 3.Develop contingency plans : Having backup plans for different circumstances before they happen helps ensure day-to-day operations continue without interruption.
  4. 4.Automated workflows : Automating things like inventory management, order fulfillment, and shipping reduces manual labor costs and increases efficiency and accuracy in production.
  5. 5.Invest in risk assessment and management : Risk assessment allows companies to proactively understand where they are most vulnerable. Risk management includes developing strategies to minimize and recover from any unexpected risks that can occur.

With the right technology and proactive steps to improve the resiliency of the supply chain, companies can weather economic downturns with greater success. It’s important to remember that strengthening your supply chain requires an ongoing effort, not just a one-time response to market changes. With consistent monitoring and strategic action, businesses can strengthen their supply chains and better prepare themselves for future challenges.

Evaluate and adjust as needed

Building a more resilient supply chain is critical for things like reducing costs and increasing the efficiency of operations. Once you have strategies to enhance your supply chain in place it’s important to evaluate the results and make any necessary adjustments.

  • The first step in evaluating the results of your efforts is analyzing the data from your supply chain operations. This means looking at cost savings, customer service levels, delivery times, and quality assurance. These metrics let you know if your supply chain is performing as expected and if any changes need to be made.
  • After you assess your current performance, you can make necessary adjustments. This might be altering existing processes or adding new components to your supply chain. Keeping up with changing needs in the market is key to staying competitive and being prepared for any unexpected events that may arise.
  • It’s important to periodically re-evaluate your supply chain strategies. Analyzing the data from your operations helps identify the latest trends and reduce costs. Especially helpful in uncertain times.

contact us today for more information and to discover how we can help.

About XcelPros

XcelPros is a Chicago-based company and delivers transformation through technology. We offer business and technology solutions with deep industry experience in Chemical, Pharma, Life Sciences (including Medical Devices, Bio-Medical & Biotech), Insurance, Discrete Manufacturing, Process Manufacturing, Distribution and Food & Beverage.

XcelPros is a Microsoft Gold Partner, Direct Cloud Solutions Provider (CSP) and a Systems Integrator (SI) offering software licensing, implementation and consulting services for Microsoft Dynamics 365, CRM, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Business Intelligence & Analytics (Power BI), SharePoint, Office 365 and Azure (Cloud, IOT, Microsoft Flow amongst many others).

Our mission is to provide integrated technology solutions that amplify impact and empower our customer’s businesses. We believe technology is the key enabler of exponential growth for us and our customers.

Contact XcelPros today to transform your business.

Call us toll-free – 1.855.411.0585 (or) visit https://xcelpros.com/

Predictive Pricing and Dynamics 365 in the Chemical Industry
  • shahid.anis
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Predictive Pricing and Dynamics 365 in the Chemical Industry
Predictive Pricing and Dynamics 365 in the Chemical Industry 700 500 shahid.anis

One of the biggest challenges facing the chemical industry today is implementing dynamic pricing — also known as predictive or strategic pricing. Which allows you to adjust prices based on market demands and information.

With strategic pricing, companies can enjoy more consistency in sales, higher profits and faster inventory turnover (and therefore less risk associated with carrying excess inventory). Thanks to cloud computing and the power of Microsoft Dynamics 365. Implementing strategic pricing isn’t as complex or expensive as it may seem at first glance. Here’s how predictive pricing can work for you in the chemical industry.

The Basics of Dynamic Pricing

The chemical industry is one of the most competitive industries in the world. To remain competitive and maximize profits, chemical companies must use data-driven dynamic pricing strategies. To ensure, their prices are aligned with the market and their products are priced competitively. Dynamic pricing involves using data-driven strategies such as predictive pricing and price optimization to determine optimal prices for each product, market, and customer.

Commonly used in retail, dynamic pricing has become an effective way for chemical companies to optimize their pricing strategy. By leveraging data-driven analysis and predictive analytics, companies can accurately forecast customer demand, spot market trends and identify opportunities for setting the right prices for each product and market. With this information, chemical companies can adjust their pricing on a regular basis to reflect changing market conditions and customer needs.

For chemical companies that are looking to gain a competitive edge, implementing a dynamic pricing strategy with Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a good way to get started. Dynamics 365 provides data-driven insights, intelligent insights, automated pricing recommendations and predictive price optimization capabilities that enable companies to make strategic pricing decisions quickly and effectively.

By leveraging Dynamics 365’s dynamic pricing tools, chemical companies can optimize their pricing strategy. To ensure, they stay ahead of the competition and maximize their profits. By accurately forecasting customer demand and optimizing pricing. Companies can set the right prices for each product and market and ultimately increase their bottom line.

Predictive Pricing

Chemical companies can also benefit from predictive pricing that allows them to optimize their prices in response to changing market conditions. By understanding the customer’s demand, the chemical company can set its prices according to the optimal price point for each individual customer. This helps the company remain competitive in the marketplace. As well as maintain a healthy profit margin. To be successful, predictive pricing requires three things:

  1. 1.Key price drivers
  2. 2.Full control of storage and capacity
  3. 3.Integrated insights

Figure 1:Predictive Pricing with Microsoft Dynamics 365

Predictive Pricing with Microsoft Dynamics 365

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a great resource for chemical companies looking to implement a predictive pricing strategy. It enables users to access data quickly and easily, allowing them to identify key price drivers, and make informed decisions about pricing and other business matters. Microsoft Dynamics 365 also provides customers with an intuitive platform to manage their accounts and business processes and enabling them to develop a comprehensive pricing strategy that meets their needs.

By leveraging predictive pricing with Microsoft Dynamics 365, chemical companies can better understand their customer base, anticipate changes in demand, and adjust their prices accordingly. This helps them stay ahead of their competition while optimizing profits and margins. The ability to quickly adjust prices based on real-time data helps chemical companies stay competitive in the market and increase their sales.

Dynamic Price Optimization

It’s essential for companies to have the right pricing strategy in order to stay ahead. One of the most effective strategies that can be used is dynamic pricing. Which allows companies to adjust their prices in real time according to changes in supply and demand. By leveraging data-driven dynamic pricing strategies, chemical companies can optimize their prices to maximize their profit margins and stay competitive.

Dynamic pricing relies on predictive analytics to inform pricing decisions based on customer behavior, market trends, and other factors. With Microsoft Dynamics 365, chemical companies can gain access to powerful data insights that allow them to understand market dynamics, and react quickly to changing conditions. This real-time analysis helps companies to set pricing strategies that will maximize profits while still meeting customer demands.

By leveraging predictive analytics and dynamic price optimization, chemical companies can take a more strategic approach to pricing that allows them to react quickly and effectively to changes in the market. This data-driven approach allows them to adjust their prices in real-time based on current market trends and customer behavior. Ensuring they remain competitive in a highly competitive industry.

Using dynamic pricing, chemical companies can optimize their pricing strategies with an increased level of accuracy, providing customers with competitive prices while still maximizing profits. By leveraging Microsoft Dynamics 365, chemical companies can take advantage of powerful data insights to drive their pricing decisions and stay ahead of the competition.

Trade agreements and pricing

When it comes to pricing in the chemical industry, it is essential to have a well-defined strategy in place. Trade agreements and pricing structures are constantly changing, making it difficult for companies to accurately forecast their financial performance. Fortunately, data-driven dynamic pricing and predictive pricing in chemicals can help to address this challenge.

Trade agreements are the main way discounts and pricing is configured in D365 Finance and operations, defining the logic used by the system to set different prices. You can set up and enable trade agreements that control pricing (sales pricing, purchase pricing) and discounts (Line, Multiline, and Total discounts) for items, customers, and vendors. Once these agreements are configured, pricing and discounts can be applied to orders, invoices, and quotes.

Agreements are usually configured to apply to a specific Item Code by preference:

  • Table – The first agreement the system looks for, targeting a single customer, vendor, or item.
  • Group – If there are no agreements coded: Table, the system checks for agreements that can apply to a group of customers, vendors, or items.
  • All – If agreements aren’t found coded for either Group or Table the system checks agreements that can apply to all customers, all vendors, or all items.

In total there are four types of agreements that can be activated:

  • Price agreements – Sale and purchase pricing for items that can be different for a customer or Vendor.
  • Line discounts – Line discounts for items that can be different for a customer or Vendor.
  • Multiline discounts – Just like Line Discounts, only usable with the item code set to Group or All.
  • Total discounts – Discounts for entire orders, these cannot be used with Group or Table item codes.

With the added power of Microsoft Dynamics 365, chemical companies can gain real-time insights into trade agreements, enabling them to adjust prices accordingly and remain competitive in the market. In addition, utilizing predictive pricing in chemicals can provide companies with insight into consumer demand and help them anticipate customer needs.

With data-driven dynamic pricing tools, companies can create an optimal price point that will maximize revenue and profits while also increasing customer satisfaction. In the volatile chemical industry, predictive pricing is a key element in crafting a successful pricing strategy.

Overall, dynamic pricing and predictive pricing in chemicals offer an opportunity for companies to gain a competitive edge by staying ahead of the curve. By using Microsoft Dynamics 365 to monitor trade agreements and adjust prices accordingly, chemical companies can remain competitive while optimizing their profitability.

Next Steps

The chemical industry is constantly changing and with the advent of data driven dynamic pricing. It’s critical for companies to stay on top of the game. Leveraging a pricing strategy that is built on data insights can help chemical companies increase profitability and stay ahead of their competition. To implement such a strategy, chemical companies should partner with industry experts who are familiar with predictive pricing models and Microsoft Dynamics 365.

Experts in the field understand how to use data-driven dynamic pricing to improve profits through optimizing prices. They can help chemical companies set up a pricing model that takes into account market conditions, competitors’ strategies, and customer demand. This allows chemical companies to accurately set prices that will maximize their profits. Additionally, experts can assist with implementing price optimization tools using Microsoft Dynamics 365. To provide a comprehensive platform for the chemical industry to manage their pricing and sales.

Another advantage of utilizing industry experts is that they can provide valuable guidance on how to create a strategic pricing plan tailored to the company’s objectives and goals. With the help of experienced professionals, chemical companies can learn how to set prices that capture maximum value for their products and services. Moreover, these experts can offer real advice on how to maintain dynamic pricing and other pricing models over time.

Implementing dynamic pricing and predictive models within the chemical industry requires expertise and insight. Industry experts have the knowledge and experience needed to help chemical companies create an effective pricing strategy that will maximize profits and drive success.

Working with the right partner can help chemical companies leverage data-driven dynamic pricing, optimize prices and Microsoft Dynamics 365 to make informed decisions about their pricing strategy. Contact us today to see how we can help.

About XcelPros

XcelPros is a Chicago-based company and delivers transformation through technology. We offer business and technology solutions with deep industry experience in Chemical, Pharma, Life Sciences (including Medical Devices, Bio-Medical & Biotech), Insurance, Discrete Manufacturing, Process Manufacturing, Distribution and Food & Beverage.

XcelPros is a Microsoft Gold Partner, Direct Cloud Solutions Provider (CSP) and a Systems Integrator (SI) offering software licensing, implementation and consulting services for Microsoft Dynamics 365, CRM, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Business Intelligence & Analytics (Power BI), SharePoint, Office 365 and Azure (Cloud, IOT, Microsoft Flow amongst many others).

Our mission is to provide integrated technology solutions that amplify impact and empower our customer’s businesses. We believe technology is the key enabler of exponential growth for us and our customers.

Contact XcelPros today to transform your business.

Call us toll-free – 1.855.411.0585 (or) visit https://xcelpros.com/

Streamline Your Supply Chain with Advanced Warehouse Management and MD365
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Streamline Your Supply Chain with Advanced Warehouse Management and MD365
Streamline Your Supply Chain with Advanced Warehouse Management and MD365 700 500 Xcelpros Team

Warehouse management is a key aspect of modern supply chain management that demands the full
attention of a business to be efficient. In this post, we look at warehouse management in Microsoft Dynamics 365
Finance & Operations.

Overview of Advanced Warehouse
Management in D365 F&O

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is one of the most well-known ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)
solutions offering innovative, AI-driven assistance for Finance, Operations, and Supply Chain Management. The Warehouse Management module of D365 offers a wide
range of optimized capabilities to manage even the most complicated supply chains.

The world over, manufacturing and distribution companies of all sizes rely on D365 warehouse
inventory management to support their supply chain operations at a core level. When a system like D365 is
implemented the right way, it’s easy to gain efficiency and flexibility at every level. Furthermore, D365
enables warehouse owners to set up multiple priority-based storage areas within a warehouse making it easy to
gain visibility into their supply chain. According to research from World Economic Forum, challenges like high overheads, growing
competition, and evolving customer expectations continue to cause severe impediments.

When it comes to supply chain efficiency, gaining full visibility has become extremely
important, permitting businesses to build a direct link with consumers and partners. Supply chain visibility is
critical to building a strategy to reduce risks, drive innovation, and build customer trust.

Key Warehouse Management Processes

Figure 1:Key Warehouse Management Processes

Key Warehouse Management Processes

 

Full visibility makes it easy to track evolving customer needs, behavior, and trends. This
information makes it possible to optimize warehouse operations according to what the end customer is seeking.
While not always easy, it’s quickly becoming non-negotiable.

The main reason D365 is used by so many businesses for supply chain and warehouse management is
the wide range of modern features it offers in one solution, including –

  • Placement and Storage D365 lets you define the stock based on query-defined rules that make tracking products easy.
    Users can define location and storage policies right down to item and warehouse level to ensure that RFID (radio
    frequency identification) capabilities are accurate and kept up to date. You can streamline the storage facility
    greatly as you can divide the warehouses into different zones, define the storage needs, and even specify an
    item’s location with the aisle, rack, and shelf details.
  • Inventory Dimensions D365 gives you visibility into specific inventory details like warehouse and location, as well
    as basic characteristics like size, color and more.

     

    Users have full control over how the products are stored, how warehouse storage costing is
    decided, and how inventory tracking is happening by defining the inventory dimensions according
    to any operational requirements.

  • Serial and Batch Number ControlD365 makes it easy to add and manage batch and serial numbers to things like finished goods and
    raw materials, streamlining the ability for your team to track their location as they move through production.

     

    As you gain full control of serial and batch numbers, it becomes easier to trace the quality
    assurance and warranty of your finished goods. As a bonus, properly assigning serial and batch numbers to your
    goods and products lets you know exactly where they are in your system, and whether the order has been shipped
    or not.

  • Wave TemplateWave templates in Dynamics 365 gives users the ability to create and manage multiple Shipping,
    Production, and Kanban Wave Templates that can be processed either manually or automatically. As these Waves are
    processed, specific work is assigned to a warehouse operations team(s) to be completed for different locations
    or scenarios.

     

    Setting up a wave template includes defining the location or warehouse that the template will
    create the work for, the order the system will follow if there are multiple waves, and actions to be taken when
    the wave is processed.

    Examples of Wave Template types include shipping or transferring orders, or special care and
    handling instructions for moving items in production. Wave templates create work from Work Templates and
    Location Directives (pick and put locations) for a specific warehouse.

  • Work Templates and Location DirectivesD365 also includes Work Templates and Location Directives to help define and standardize the
    operations crucial to a business’s warehouse management.

     

    Work templates define “work” and lay out specific pick and put process steps for users to
    follow in warehouse transactions. Work templates are not location specific by default, and only describe the
    actions to take.

    • PICK an item from a rack or shelf location
    • PUT an item into a packaging area
    • PICK an item from a packaging area
    • PUT an item into a shipment

    Location Directives describe the same steps for different sites and locations. Location
    Directives are specific directions for managing or moving inventory in a specific warehouse or location for
    different scenarios like handling of larger quantities, or specific storage location types like cold storage,
    freezers, etc.

  • Replenishment TemplatesReplenishment templates in D365 let you define the replenishment process for multiple
    locations. D365 includes the ability to set different replenishment strategies for different warehouses:

     

    • Wave demand – the default strategy designed to find locations that can be replenished until
      demand Is covered
    • Maximum location capacity – like Wave demand, but locations are replenished to maximum
      capacity.
  • Pick and Put-away ordersD365 makes it easy to ‘pick’ and ‘put’ items for outbound loads with handheld or mobile
    devices. You can define the order picking and dropping locations while streamlining the entire logistic chain.

     

    D365 enables warehouse managers to ‘pick’ any load from the warehouse and ‘put’ it directly to
    staging making outbound loading and delivery quick and smooth.

Role of Advanced Warehouse Management In D365
F&O In Cost Reduction

Current trends indicate that supply chain management solutions focus mostly on controlling
overhead. D365 can accomplish this by offering businesses full control and monitoring of not only their
workforce but their warehouses as well.

‘D365 further helps reduce costs by offering full visibility of your operations, as well as the
ability to manage your bills and invoices and optimize new or existing routes.

Other Benefits

  • Office IntegrationBeing able to streamline your supply chain is only possible when all related workflows are
    optimized, integrated, and capable of capturing and sharing key data without issue.

     

    D365’s native integration to Microsoft’s Office 365 products like Outlook, OneDrive, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote,
    SharePoint, Teams, and more to make all possible to share and access information anywhere in the world.

  • Better Customer ExperienceWhen your systems are all fully integrated at a workflow level, you’re able to stay on top of
    your operations and the things that matter most to your customers, including things like timely support options,
    accurate forecasting, dynamic pricing and more.
  • Insight-driven ReportingD365 provides a wide range of detailed reporting options like Labor by job, Labor by users,
    Sales by product, equipment failures, warehouse transactions, and more. These insight-driven reports work in
    real-time to give businesses the ability to respond to problems and demands quickly and efficiently based on
    real data.
  • Warehouse PerformanceDynamics 365 offers multiple ways to monitor the overall performance of your supply chain
    quickly and easily by breaking down your entire warehouse into products, vendors, and sites.

     

    Inbound performance monitoring ensures vendor performance, tracks delivery, and identifies
    potential loopholes.

    Shipping performance monitoring ensures finished goods and products are shipped to the right
    customers at the right time.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, it’s important to understand that the ability to streamline a supply
chain depends on effective warehouse management – not an easy job.

This is where a scalable solution like D365 can be used to address a wide range of potential
challenges related to ‘pick and put away’ orders, cycle counting, barcode and label support, and keep overheads
to a minimum while still being able to meet continuously evolving customer demands.

Making sure it’s done right the first time means working with a partner that understands your
industry and knows how to streamline the process and maximize your ROI (Return on Investment).

For more information and to find out how we can help optimize your supply chain contact us today.

About XcelPros

XcelPros is a Chicago-based company and delivers transformation through technology. We offer business and
technology solutions with deep industry experience in Chemical, Pharma, Life Sciences (including Medical
Devices, Bio-Medical & Biotech), Insurance, Discrete Manufacturing, Process Manufacturing, Distribution
and Food & Beverage.

XcelPros is a Microsoft Gold Partner, Direct Cloud Solutions Provider (CSP) and a Systems Integrator (SI)
offering software licensing, implementation and consulting services for Microsoft Dynamics 365, CRM,
Microsoft Dynamics AX, Business Intelligence & Analytics (Power BI), SharePoint, Office 365 and Azure
(Cloud, IOT, Microsoft Flow amongst many others).

Our mission is to provide integrated technology solutions that amplify impact and empower our customer’s
businesses. We believe technology is the key enabler of exponential growth for us and our customers.

Contact XcelPros today to transform your business.

Call us toll-free – 1.855.411.0585 (or) visit https://xcelpros.com/

 

Improve your inventory visibility with Microsoft Dynamics 365
  • Xcelpros Team
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Improve your Inventory Visibility with Microsoft Dynamics 365
Improve your Inventory Visibility with Microsoft Dynamics 365 700 500 Xcelpros Team

Inventory can be your best friend or your worst enemy, depending on how well it’s managed. If your business is experiencing issues managing its inventory, then it’s time to take charge of your inventory management process. And prevent it from becoming an ongoing headache.

In this post, we look at the importance and benefits of inventory visibility and how to make inventory more accessible.

The importance of inventory visibility

Inventory visibility – One of the most frustrating aspects of running any type of business is tracking inventory levels so you know when it’s time to restock. Or, when products need to be sold off before they go bad.

This applies to things like finished goods and the raw materials used to make them, work-in-progress items (WIP). And anything used in maintenance, and repairs or operations (MRO).

Good inventory visibility means your inventory can be managed with as little hassle as possible. When you can monitor what products are available and what quantity of each is in stock, you’re better equipped to make decisions that will help you manage your finances effectively.

It also goes a long way to reducing costs and offering a better customer experience. Proper visibility of your inventory makes it easy to track products and raw materials anywhere in the supply chain. Better visibility of your inventory leads to better visibility of your orders. From production to shipping and delivery.

Achieving Inventory Visibility

For most companies, inventory management is best left to dedicated solutions, like Microsoft Dynamics 365. Inventory systems like D365 help manage critical things like item location, availability, status, cost, and stock levels.

Common practices to increase inventory visibility can include things like:

  • Increasing the accuracy of data captured for all products in your system.
  • Taking advantage of mobile devices and handheld scanners in fulfillment areas to track products in the supply chain.
  • Conducting regular audits and cycle counts against current inventory levels.
  • Investing in a modern inventory management solution that offers visibility of all raw materials and finished goods for multiple locations or channels.

Benefits of good inventory visibility

With enhanced inventory visibility, businesses can pinpoint the root cause of any issues faster than ever before. Full visibility of your inventory means you’re in a perfect position to solve any problems that arise. Without proper inventory visibility, it can be exceedingly difficult to generate accurate reports about your stock levels and costs or be able to manage orders. Or track items across different sites.

Some additional benefits of good inventory visibility include:

Figure 1:Benefits of Good Inventory Visibility

Benefits of Good Inventory Visibility

  • More efficient operations – Inventory visibility means you’ll reduce the amount of time you spend managing delays, complaints, or missing items.
  • More control of inventory and stock levels – Inventory visibility lets you reduce overstock as well as ensure you don’t run out of any must-have products.
  • Better security – Especially for highly regulated industries, inventory visibility is critical for tracking the movement of finished goods, raw materials, and specific batches.
  • Better response to customer demands – Improved inventory visibility means you’re always better equipped to meet changes in demand – This is one of the best ways to create a better customer experience.
  • Better resource allocation – Inventory visibility help you understand how much stock needs to go to different locations like warehouses, retail outlets, and more.
  • Increased forecasting accuracy – The data captured from good inventory visibility gives a better view of products you need to keep on hand. And improving distribution and purchasing at the same time.
  • Better responsiveness – Real-time inventory data lets you quickly respond to any changes in demand based on trends or other disruptions.
  • Better ROI – Better visibility means you can reduce your stock levels across the board, without disrupting the needs of your customers.

Inventory visibility challenges

It’s true that inventory visibility can be challenging, especially without a dedicated system. Today, omnichannel marketplaces offering a growing list of new fulfillment options like Buy online pickup-in-store (BOPIS), drop shipments. And more means there is an increasing list of issues that can arise.

Some common challenges with achieving inventory visibility include:

  • Manual processes – Manual processes are notoriously inefficient, especially when we have access to barcoding solutions and automation.
  • Poor visibility – Not having the ability to track your finished goods or raw materials means you can create several unplanned delays, resulting in a less-than-stellar customer experience.
  • Unknown demand – Lack of visibility makes it easy to not understand the demand for your products, this quickly leads to overstock or understock conditions.
  • Re-stock issues, loss of business – Lack of visibility can lead to several missed restocking opportunities and more business for your competition.

These are all issues that can be harmful to a business. And leading to things like loss of revenue, damage to your reputation, a poor customer experience, or worse.

Improving inventory visibility with Microsoft Dynamics 365

Many retailers struggle with visibility into their inventory – not only can it be time-consuming and costly. But, it can also lead to out-of-stock items or delayed shipments.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 offers many features that can help you improve visibility into your inventory, including the ability to create multiple levels of item locations and reconcile inventory automatically and manually.

Some of the ways D365 helps improve the visibility of your inventory can include:

Figure 2:Improve Inventory Visibility with Microsoft Dynamics 365

Improve Inventory Visibility with Microsoft Dynamics 365

  • Support for mobile and handheld devices – Microsoft Dynamics offers full support for shop-floor devices designed to minimize redundant manual processes.
  • Process and route optimization – Microsoft Dynamics lets you customize and streamline your processes, resulting in highly optimized routing throughout your supply chain.
  • Process automation – Microsoft Dynamics gives you more control of the automation of your processes, which not only increases compliance. But also significantly reduces time spent on repetitive tasks.
  • Actionable insights – Microsoft Dynamics allows businesses to extract much more data from everything they do. Forecasting, scheduling, routing, and more all become much more efficient.
  • Electronic signatures and approvals – Electronic signatures in D365 are quicker, more compliant, and much easier to track.

Final thoughts

While challenging, inventory visibility has become more important than ever before, continuing to prove itself as one of the best ways to streamline your company’s operations.

Improving inventory management doesn’t have to be difficult though, especially in today’s rapidly changing marketplace. Once you understand your specific requirements, the best way to start on the right path is to work with a partner that understands the ins and outs of your industry. And can help implement a solution that’s perfect for you.

Contact us today to discover how we can help optimize your inventory visibility.

About XcelPros

XcelPros is a Chicago-based company and delivers transformation through technology. We offer business and technology solutions with deep industry experience in Chemical, Pharma, Life Sciences (including Medical Devices, Bio-Medical & Biotech), Insurance, Discrete Manufacturing, Process Manufacturing, Distribution and Food & Beverage.

XcelPros is a Microsoft Gold Partner, Direct Cloud Solutions Provider (CSP) and a Systems Integrator (SI) offering software licensing, implementation and consulting services for Microsoft Dynamics 365, CRM, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Business Intelligence & Analytics (Power BI), SharePoint, Office 365 and Azure (Cloud, IOT, Microsoft Flow amongst many others).

Our mission is to provide integrated technology solutions that amplify impact and empower our customer’s businesses. We believe technology is the key enabler of exponential growth for us and our customers.

Contact XcelPros today to transform your business.

Call us toll-free – 1.855.411.0585 (or) visit https://xcelpros.com/

Batch traceability in pharmaceutical manufacturing
  • Xcelpros Team
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Batch Traceability in Pharmaceutical Manufacturing
Batch Traceability in Pharmaceutical Manufacturing 700 500 Xcelpros Team

One of the oldest in the world, the pharmaceutical industry has had to face many challenges over the years. One of the biggest challenges that still presents itself today is how to address batch traceability when it comes to pharmaceutical manufacturing.

The importance of Pharma batch traceability

For a multitude of reasons, pharmaceutical manufacturers need the ability to maintain traceability throughout their entire batch process. This means being able to identify every single ingredient and process step that was involved in creating a production batch. When an issue arises, this information can help determine which action caused the problem and where it may have originated.

Batch traceability will help identify what went wrong and provide critical data for addressing any resulting challenges. A manufacturer should be able to provide an audit trail for every batch manufactured and retrieve this information quickly when needed.

When combined with other quality systems, such as an SOP manual or cGMP guidelines, batch traceability becomes more potent.

DSCSA (Drug Supply Chain Security Act)

Brought to life by the FDA and Congress in 2013, the DSCSA was designed to change how pharmaceutical products and raw materials are treated throughout the supply chain, including prescribing ways to trace the movement of products when packaged and distributed. The goal of the DSCSA was to increase the security of pharmaceutical products and patient safety using pharmaceutical finished goods. This then new law offered:

  • 1 Single federally supported solution to replace requirements that might have been different for every state
  • A simplified, consolidated view of supply chain regulations that focus on enhanced patient safety and security
  • Higher standards for distributors in the U.S.
  • Streamlined processes for identifying the suspect or counterfeit goods in the supply chain

As we approach the 10-year deadline set by the DSCSA, where partners in the supply chain will need to provide item-level traceability when products move from one party to another, stakeholders must make sure they’re in full compliance.

The longer you need to implement a track-and-trace solution, the more at risk you face things like heavy fines, loss of licensure, and even imprisonment.

For more information about the act – see https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-supply-chain-integrity/drug-supply-chain-security-act-dscsa

GS1 traceability standards

With so much more data getting captured every second, GS1 standards are a way to focus on what’s important – with a set way to manage your supply chain data to make sure important data is always available, understandable and 100% accurate.

GS1 traceability standards are part of a larger global framework used in over 100 countries to ensure the systems they use for traceability are designed for interoperable collaboration and sharing information for the entire supply chain using the following.

  • Critical Tracking Events (CTEs) Actual events that occur throughout the lifecycle of a traceable product or raw material. This includes things like packing, shipping, and receiving.
  • Key Data Elements (KDEs) Important information and data regarding the specific pieces of Critical Tracking Events.
  • Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs) and Global Location Numbers (GLNs) Unique identifiers for finished goods and raw materials as they move through the supply chain.

According to GS1, four key events should be given the most attention as finished goods, and raw materials move through the supply chain:

  1. 1.What product(s) were impacted?
  2. 2.When did the event occur?
  3. 3.Where did the product(s) come from? Where are they now?
  4. 4.Why was this process observed?

For more information about GS1 traceability standards – see https://www.gs1us.org/industries-and-insights/by-industry/healthcare/standards-in-use/pharmaceutical

Pillars of batch traceability

Figure 1:Pillars of Batch Traceability

Pillars of Batch Traceability

With the law already written, it’s up to partners to figure out how they’ll meet the requirements. To ensure this compliance can be met, four underlying pillars of batch traceability should be implemented one way or another.

  1. 1.Serialization – The ability to create unique identifiers for a product with multiple packaging options. This typically includes serial numbers, lot numbers, and expiration dates.
  2. 2.Track and trace – Like Serialization, track and trace is all about where a product has been and where it is now. This helps highlight any ownership changes, determine the original manufacturer, or track all movement throughout the supply chain, even if it hasn’t changed ownership.
  3. 3.Verification – The ability to verify where a product is or has been in the supply chain. This includes requirements to confirm specifics like serial and lot number, movement and transaction history, and more.
  4. 4.Reporting – The ability to report accurate information about serialization, track and trace, and verification to regulatory bodies as needed and required.

The ability to report accurate information about serialization, track and trace, and verification to regulatory bodies as needed and required.

These pillars are designed to work together to give you a more detailed view of the products in your supply chain, and lets you share that data with your partners, customers and more.

Final thoughts

Batch and item traceability doesn’t just help protect consumers from harm and keeps your company in compliance with regulatory bodies like the FDA. Batch traceability software lets manufacturers and distributors easily track every batch of product manufactured during a specific timeframe.

All said and done, a properly implemented track and-trace solution will allow you to fully trace finished goods and raw materials as they move through your supply chain from start to finish. Being able to track your products helps to prevent theft and counterfeit copies and makes sure your products remain safe for use. Tracing your products lets you closely follow and monitor every product in your supply chain, leading to fast, efficient returns and recalls, confidence in your products, protection of your brand, and more. A solution like Microsoft Dynamics 365 makes this all possible by providing a customizable system tailored to your specific business needs.

After 2023, track and trace won’t be an option – this will be a requirement if you want to keep doing business in the pharmaceutical industry. The sooner you have a system in place, the better.

Not sure where to begin? Contact us today to see how we can help.

About XcelPros

XcelPros is a Chicago-based company and delivers transformation through technology. We offer business and technology solutions with deep industry experience in Chemical, Pharma, Life Sciences (including Medical Devices, Bio-Medical & Biotech), Insurance, Discrete Manufacturing, Process Manufacturing, Distribution and Food & Beverage.

XcelPros is a Microsoft Gold Partner, Direct Cloud Solutions Provider (CSP) and a Systems Integrator (SI) offering software licensing, implementation and consulting services for Microsoft Dynamics 365, CRM, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Business Intelligence & Analytics (Power BI), SharePoint, Office 365 and Azure (Cloud, IOT, Microsoft Flow amongst many others).

Our mission is to provide integrated technology solutions that amplify impact and empower our customer’s businesses. We believe technology is the key enabler of exponential growth for us and our customers.

Contact XcelPros today to transform your business.

Call us toll-free – 1.855.411.0585 (or) visit https://xcelpros.com/

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