Dynamics F/SCM Customer Experience (CRM) Dynamics GP Dynamics Business Central (NAV) Dynamics SL Power Platform Fabric Copilot

[Clara Anderson]

I work for a wholesale seed company where we buy and sell raw and finished goods. We would like to start forecasting these products based on sales and usage. The raw goods are also used in manufacturing finished goods and we would like to forecast down to the bottom level of raw goods which could be up to 3 or more levels. We would like to include in the forecast any open sales orders, remaining quantity on blanket sales orders, open purchase orders and remaining quantity on blanket purchase orders, inventory on hand and last 3 years’ sales. Since we have several locations, we would also like to see the forecast by location. The projected sales forecast can change frequently and we would like to forecast by the month up to 12 months and in some cases, up to 3 years. If possible, we would also like to create PO’s, Transfer Orders and Assembly Orders based on the sales forecast.  We were using Lanham’s AFP but we were unable to forecast down to the BOM level. Would the MRP in NAV be sufficient for what we need or are there ISV’s available that would work better for us? We just recently upgraded to NAV 2016. 

——————————
Clara Anderson
Sales Support Manager
La Crosse Forage & Turf Seed LLC
La Crosse WI
——————————

[David Wiser]

Everything you described is available in the standard NAV package.  The only thing not available is the actual creation of the forecast.  Once the forecast is developed, it can be loaded into NAV and, along with sales orders, creates demand in NAV.  NAV uses “demand” to forecast production orders, suggest purchase order for raw material to be sold or used in those production orders.  The MRP and MPS engines work very well for what you need.

Let me know if you want to talk more about the capabilities.

——————————
Dave Wiser
Controller
Beckwith & Kuffel
Seattle WA
——————————
——————————————-

[Guy McKenzie]

David is correct in that NAV does this pretty well out of the box.
I would add that you do need to have a good handle on the replenishment side of things. Using forecasts pushes you down the lot-for-lot path which can be quite demanding. The planning engine always seeks a perfect match between supply and demand, even with dampeners etc, this can generate a LOT of information, especially with long lead times.
Great if you have a skilled stock manager, flexible supply chain and a manageable SKU breadth, if not it can lead to an overload of largely confusing data to the less skilled user.
Your planner will need to be familiar with planning flexibility etc.
I actually use the forecast generated outside of NAV to recalculate fixed reorder points. It effectively means I do some basic MRP outside of NAV using Jet to recalculate these. Once fixed reorder points are in NAV, the purchasing process is considerably more simple but still considers all of the supply signals and orders in NAV, just not the forecast as I’ve already taken this into account.
Happy to expand if of interest.

——————————
814Guy McKenzie
SPS (Eu) Ltd
Blackpool
——————————
——————————————-

[Peter Lomman]

GDay Clara
It is a little unfortunate that NAV does not provide any tools to create or load usage and consumption data to the Production Forecast table. However, the good news is that there are quite a few Partners and ISVs who have done this before. It is a relatively straightforward task for the development of a function that aggregates the sales and consumption ledger entries into buckets (daily, weekly or monthly), and loads or copies this to the standard NAV Forecast tables. Once the historical usage is loaded as a forecast, then the standard NAV Planning Worksheet (MRP engine) will takeover the calculations and consider all the open sales order lines, back orders etc and suggest replenishment and expedite actions, and create orders if required.
Some Partners have a full blown Forecasting application that will calculate projected demand (forecasts) based on historical usage patterns, seasonality, and trends.
NAV is great with the planning calculations once you have a baseline forecast to start from…

——————————
Peter Lomman
NAV Project manager
Lienert Australia Pty Ltd
Roseworthy
——————————
——————————————-

[Kate Pinyan]

?Hello Clara,

There are multiple ways to setup and use AFP, based on your company’s specific needs. I would be happy to setup a call with a consultant to discuss your current needs and explore how you might be able to address them using AFP.

Please let me know if there are specific dates/times you are available to discuss.

——————————
Kate Pinyan
Marketing and Business Development
Lanham Associates/Lanham Services
——————————
——————————————-

[Xabier Lizartzategi]

The steps you described are available in the standard NAV package. Then Smart add-on for Dynamics https://smartcorp.com/dynamics-ax-and-nav/
expands  NAV’s functionalities by creating Forecasts that boost productivity & efficiency.

——————————
Xabier Lizartzategi
Marketing Director
Smart Software, Inc
Belmont MA
——————————
——————————————-