Assets are vital for any supply chain management space, whether it is fixed assets like buildings and machinery or moving assets like shipping vehicles and containers. This is because assets make up a major component of your enterprise’s circulatory system. A malfunction or failure of your assets can impact your supply chain in a way that results in decreased productivity or even a shutdown. Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Supply Chain Management makes it easier to manage a global enterprise with hundreds or even thousands of assets. D365’s maintenance management module, Asset Management, allows companies to gain real-time access to their maintenance costs without having to collect data, analyze it, and then make decisions based on outdated data. Asset Management enables you to efficiently manage and carry out tasks related to managing and servicing many types of equipment in your company, for example, machines, production equipment, and vehicles. It integrates seamlessly with several modules with other Finance and Supply Chain Management apps and is a robust, highly capable tool for maximizing your assets, organizing your supply chain, and managing your enterprise.
Functional Locations and Assets
Functional locations are used to manage assets on locations. This management includes tracking asset costs on functional locations. Functional locations are structured hierarchically, and locations can have sub-locations. The structure of functional locations is static. In other words, locations can’t change place. Assets can be installed on functional locations and, as required, can be installed on other functional locations later. Asset costs always follow the location of the asset. In other words, if you install an asset on a new functional location, the asset automatically uses the financial dimensions that are related to the new functional location. Therefore, asset costs are always related to the functional location that the asset is currently installed on. This automatic handling of financial dimensions helps guarantee complete tracking of costs when your company does project controlling and reporting on functional locations. The way that you build your hierarchy of functional locations depends on your company’s requirements for maintaining internal equipment or servicing customer equipment.
Assets and Work Orders
Assets and work orders are the central parts of Asset Management. An asset is a machine or machine part that requires continuous maintenance and service. Assets can be created in a hierarchical structure, and they can be related to functional locations. Maintenance jobs can be planned at all levels in the asset structure. Various data, such as product information and asset specification, and required maintenance plans are set up on each asset. The following illustration shows an overview of asset data and the affiliation of assets to job types. Red text is used for examples that show inheritance and dependencies. Every work order has a work order type, such as preventive maintenance, corrective maintenance, or inspection. The work order contains one or more work order jobs. Every work order job defines a job that must be performed on an asset and a related job type. Examples of related job types include 10,000 km, 50,000 km, 1-year overhaul, and safety inspection. One work order can be related to multiple assets. A work order can be related to another work order, and job types can contain succeeding jobs that create a work order. In general, there are no dependencies between work orders. Therefore, they can change their work order lifecycle state and can be scheduled independently of each other.
Integration with ERP
The integration of Asset Management with Dynamics 365 for Finance and Supply Chain Management applications provides endless opportunities to drill down into your maintenance data and understand exactly what is driving your costs, allowing you to maximize your assets. Here are the key areas where Asset Management integrates to provide value:
- Project management and accounting – allows a holistic view into the costs associated with work on specific objects, by area, by a worker, etc.
- Human resources – provides the capability to assign workers to specific work requests and allows for a clearer vision of the true cost of maintaining your assets.
- Fixed assets – allows greater visibility into the cost of maintaining an asset.
- Inventory management – maintains spare parts inventory.
- Master planning – provides planned purchase orders based on criteria set up in the system, ensuring that the maintenance department never runs out of parts.
- Procurement and sourcing – allows maintenance departments to have clear visibility into their orders and expenditures.
- Accounts payable – allows vendors to be paid on time and allows the accounting department greater visibility into maintenance expenses.
- General ledger – grants visibility into the maintenance process from an accounting perspective.
Next Steps
If you are interested in learning more about how to maximize your assets with D365 as well as maximizing the use of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Supply Chain Management contact us here to find out how we can help you grow your business. You can also email us at info@loganconsulting.com or call (312) 345-8817.