By Scott Hamilton, Consultant and Author
Editor's Note: The following article is drawn from Scott's new book covering process industry capabilities within Dynamics AX 2012, and represents an extension of his previous column about "what's different in AX 2012".
Many AX solution architects may not be familiar with the process industry capabilities within Microsoft Dynamics AX, especially the newest updates in AX 2012. Two of the basic questions facing AX solution architects are "What's different about the process industry capabilities?" and "How can I learn it as quickly as possible?" I have tried to answer these questions across the past year of prior research for my new book about Dynamics AX 2012.
One of my goals was to help knowledgeable AX professionals quantify, plan, and streamline their incremental learning about the process industry capabilities of AX 2012 by building on what they already know. In particular, I wanted to provide a rough measure of the nature and magnitude of supply chain management functionality for process manufacturing and distribution firms, as well as a detailed list of these changes so you can selectively review the extended explanations.
This article focuses on the specific feature areas where you will most benefit from incremental learning if you are not yet familiar with the process industry capabilities of Dynamics AX. However, for readers already familiar with these capabilities in AX 2009, the capabilities are largely the same in AX 2012. The slight changes reflect much tighter integration and build on the AX 2012 functionality for enterprise- versus company-level information for an item. As one example, you designate a catch weight item as part of the enterprise-level information, and the related policies (such as a nominal weight and an allowable weight range) as company-level information. There are also a number of smaller changes, including the designation of an item's production type (such as a formula item or planning item) and a new approach to the cost calculations for co-products.
But for anyone new to AX 2012, a helpful starting point for building up your knowledge involves a rough measure about the magnitude of functionality within standard AX versus the process industry capabilities. One rough measure can be based on a page count analysis of my new book to indicate the proportionate amount of functionality, which reflects an extension of my previous analysis about what's different in AX 2012.
The heat map displayed in Figure B.2 summarizes the book topics, and a bar chart portrayal of standard functionality (shown in light grey), the incremental functionality for process industries (shown in dark grey), and the new AX 2012 functionality applicable to both (shown in white). The entire length of a bar represents a complete walkthrough of the topic using AX 2012, so you get a proportionate sense of magnitude.
Figure B.2 Heat Map for Incremental Learning of Process Industry Capabilities
As you can see by the yardsticks within Figure B.2, the magnitude of standard versus process industry functionality varies by topic.[1] For example, the largest proportional differences involve formula information, catch weight items, batch tracking considerations, sales order processing and batch/production orders. As illustrative detail, the unique aspects of formula information include a formula size, multiple and yield percentage as part of an item's formula version policies, substitute ingredients, co-products, by-products, planning items, different approaches for defining an ingredient's requirements, and support for bulk/pack production and catch weight items.
Several caveats apply to this heat map. First, the topics reflect supply chain management and do not include accounting/human resources and software development/system administration. This caveat reflects the scope of book topics described at the beginning of the book. Second, the topics reflect the process industry context of food products. The heat map for another context such as chemical products would be slightly different. However, the topics do reflect a reasonably complete summary of the process industry capabilities. With these limitations in mind, the analysis can still provide rough yardsticks of incremental learning
In summary, the rough yardsticks of incremental change suggest that the process industry capabilities represent an approximate 17% change to the embedded conceptual models within standard AX, so that you can build on what you already know.
A comprehensive list of the process industry capabilities within AX 2012, and the extended explanations to assist your incremental learning, are provided in the new book.
[1] A similar heat map in a previous article covered the incremental learning of process industry capabilities within AX 2009, and provided similar results.