The Edge - All Comments

re: New White Paper: Lean Operational Improvements That Last

Luke Shave — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 07:55:21 GMT

Stephen - thanks for your comment and detailed reaction to the post/white paper. For those of you interested in lean manufacturing I definitely recommend that you take a look at http://www.leancentreofexcellence.com as well as www.ebecs.com. Luke

re: New White Paper: Lean Operational Improvements That Last

Stephen Wilson — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:16:45 GMT

Pleas take a look at teh detialed review belwo and comments on this white paper at http://www.leancentreofexcellence.com/profiles/blogs/lean-discrete-manufacturers Microsoft and the MPI Group recently published an article entitled ‘Lean Operational Improvements That Last.’ Being an eBECS Lean ERP consultant, this immediately peaked my interest and as I read further had some lasting takeaways. The article began with some interesting statistics, showing that Lean companies relative to non-lean companies have higher figures for sales per employee, on time delivery and inventory turns. This did not surprise me at all as you all know these are the commonplace statistics that drive companies to Lean initiatives. What did surprise me was the next statistic: ‘median gross margins are 10 percentage points lower (median) among Lean discrete manufacturers than non-Lean discrete manufacturers.’ How can this be? If all of the KPIs above are increasing, why would gross margins be lower? They then proposed that the reason for this explaining that Lean companies often choose the simplest and easiest to use tactics, an example being extrapolating the 5S concept into ‘being Lean’, resulting in low-level results. Taking this a little further, the article reported that while 97% of Lean discrete manufacturers use Lean in production, only 23% use Lean in finance, 26% in customer management and 29% in administration. These statistics reaffirm what I’ve seen in real world ‘Lean’ companies. Whether it be joining the Kanban, 5S, or production Kaizen ‘bandwagons’, most companies have focused on a particular concept or tool in Lean and have failed to grasp the entire picture. Without fully embracing Lean concepts throughout an entire organization from the back office processes to strategy deployment, companies will continue to ‘silo’ themselves losing the synergies achieved through enterprise wide improvement. In my experience, this ‘silo’ concept becomes glaringly obvious as you look at how various functional departments of an organization operate utilizing IT ‘systems.’ The sales department needs this piece of software to better meet the customer’s needs, Planning needs this Excel spreadsheet, Finance uses a different but similar Excel spreadsheet than Planning. Each department is working as their own unit, trying to improve their unit albeit, but not with an organization wide view. They create informational and functional ‘silos’ that lead to independent goal and target setting, and ultimately wasted time, effort and money trying to apply ‘Lean’ tools. Without the backbone of Lean as an organization wide measure with corporate visions that drill-down to meaningful and measurable goals for the entire workforce, the most impactful benefits of Lean are lost. The article continues to examine this concept of a ‘Holistic Lean’ through the methods deployed by Toyota. Toyota have used both A3 reports and value stream mapping to build problem-solving into all areas of their business to promote a problem-seeking and solving culture throughout. As the article began describing these two concepts, my mind naturally moved to how Microsoft has so many great tools to holistically help Lean companies. While A3 reports and Value stream mapping software is not within Dynamics AX, Microsoft SharePoint helps breakdown organizational silos and broadcast to an organization wide audience. Further with Microsoft BI tools, KPIs at every functional level become a reality with drill down functionality to real time data to understand the measures and a user’s impact on organizational KPIs. What’s more obvious within Dynamics AX Lean Manufacturing is the outcome of the value stream itself where each person in the value stream has the visibility to see their impact on the value stream in real-time. With the customer service representative taking an order and immediately seeing the result hit the manufacturing floor with Lean Order Schedule functionality to production seeing the direct sales link to the order they are manufacturing, even with alerts on the floor to show where the customer ‘s delivery date was pushed out due to an issue. With one enterprise wide system, the dramatic increases in visibility through software drive an understanding of the impact that each user has on the entire value stream. While this can be a scary realization for users at first, it more importantly leads to collaborative efforts across functions to both eliminate waste and improve the entire value stream for the end goal of satisfying the customer. The article fittingly ends with this take away, “Today, modern and flexible and enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems work together with Lean to bring real-time visibility to planning, scheduling and tracking (checking) capabilities – across plants, companies and countries.” What have your experiences been with Lean companies that have done just this, departmentalized their Lean initiatives without regard for the holistic Lean Enterprise? www.ebecs.com

galactic dimming

galactic dimming — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:06:47 GMT

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re: Nucleus Research Note: The Value of Microsoft Dynamics AX for Manufacturers

Luke Shave — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 06:28:17 GMT

We hope that you find these materials useful Alex. Best Regards Luke

re: Nucleus Research Note: The Value of Microsoft Dynamics AX for Manufacturers

Alex Logan — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:19:13 GMT

I am sales rep focused on penetrating distribution and mfg. accounts with AX Dynamics.

re: In the News: Microsoft Dynamics ERP Partner Channel Goes from Strength to Strength

Luke Shave — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:58:52 GMT

Hi Cathy, You are welcome and congratulations on all the great things going on at Zap right now. Remember to let us know if you have new press releases coming up and our "Share Your Success" initiative if you have new customer wins. See here for more information -> https://community.dynamics.com/blogs/theedge/archive/2010/02/10/calling-all-microsoft-dynamics-erp-partners-share-your-success-33-33.aspx Best Regards Luke

re: In the News: Microsoft Dynamics ERP Partner Channel Goes from Strength to Strength

Cathy Goodwin — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:47:32 GMT

Hi Luke, thanks for mentioning Zap! Regards Cathy

re: Microsoft Dynamics SL featured in Constructech Article

edejager — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:11:15 GMT

Please note the correct link for Touchstone Homes is: http://www.touchstonehomes.com/

re: Microsoft Dynamics ERP at the World of Concrete

Luciano Cunha — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 20:32:12 GMT

I am very excited about WOC this year and the Microsoft Dynamics AX Civil Engineering and Construction solution for the construction vertical. There is a large construction market out there that has been un-served for many years and now with Microsoft Dynamics AX and the Civil Engineering and Construction solution from To-Increase we are able to help our customers become more successful with industry relevant functionality and tools. The civil engineering and construction business focuses on roadwork, waterworks, and building civil infrastructures. To run successful projects, costs, margins, and revenue need to be managed effectively from start to finish. Only then can your business operate profitably. Our solution for Civil Engineering & Construction will help you streamline your processes so you can: * Create and manage complex proposals. * Improve the uptime and reliability of your plant. * Gain clear insight into costs, margins, and revenue throughout the process―from proposal to delivery. * Execute subcontractor agreements with control and success. * Manage compliance while remaining lean and flexible. If I can be of any help please feel free to contact us through our site: http://www.to-increase.com/en/Solutions/Microsoft_Dynamics_AX/Industries/Construction/Civil_Engineering_and_Construction.aspx

re: Microsoft Dynamics ERP at the World of Concrete

Rohith Kudukuli — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:30:42 GMT

Locus Academy is an exclusive training centre for Microsoft Products. We have huge number of enquiries from Corporate and individuals on Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 (Technical/Functional),Microsoft Dynamics Axapta 2009 (Technical/Functional) & Microsoft Business Intelligence (MSBI). Our class room (100% practical) training will make you industry experts and can challenge any implementation @ any level. Courses are designed to give students the best combination of skills, experience and training to gain employment with IT giants. We are proud to deliver right-talents in IT industry Our Features: Hands-on training ♦ Real-time industry experts from MNCs ♦ Case studies and real-world examples ♦ Customizable ♦ Lab exercises ♦ Mock Projects ♦ Interview Preparation ♦ Experts advice Other Courses Training from Locus Academy *Asp.Net *C# *VB.Net *SQL Server 2005 *VBA *MSBI(Microsoft Business Intelligence) *Share Point and all other Microsoft products.

re: Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010—What's in a name...?

Jennifer — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:50:47 GMT

Am I the only one who thinks that the GP 2010 branding will be confusing to customers? Not much difference between GP10 and GP2010 in my opinion. They are just too close.

re: BIG Party at NRF 2010

Luke Shave — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 21:59:48 GMT

Robert - I failed to notice your comments until now (12/01). I hope that you made it to the reception and that you are having an enjoyable event. Please LMK if you need any information on Microsoft Dynamics ERP or other Microsoft products and I will look to connect you with the appropriate people. lshave@microsoft.com

re: BIG Party at NRF 2010

Robert Wilkinson — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:50:53 GMT

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re: BIG Party at NRF 2010

Robert Wilkinson — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:48:46 GMT

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re: Benefits of hosted ERP

Andrea Casaburi — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:05:30 GMT

I agree with the benefits that you outlined and I say this from experience. I work in Italy and two years ago I was responsible for the business unit proposing Dynamics AX like "hosted" and within months we had achieved good results. Unfortunately, experience has been concluded in advance and I tried to find companies who wished to continue the experience, but without success. I do not understand why in Italy which has an industrial fabric (small and medium business) is no offer investors