New feature alert #ECM #SupplyChain #PLM #MicrosoftDynamics #D365SCM

One of the new features I have been excited about for awhile came out in Preview late last year and now is just about ready for release, as many of you may see in 10.0.15 and later. Known as Project Oaktree, Microsoft has released the Engineering Change Management Add-In to D365 Supply Chain Management:

Engineering Change Management – Dynamics 365 Release Plan | Microsoft Docs

Dynamics has long lacked a strong backbone for centralized doc and data control management and product lifecycle management and this is a huge step in the right direction. While formal integration to a PLM tool with functionality like CAD drawings and such may not be included, there is a ton of great new stuff to unpack here. In this blog, I’d like to talk about a few of the new tools available to provide a more controlled and effective product introduction and obsolescence process.

First, the Product lifecycle state has been further enhance. I wrote about this feature back in version 7.0. something and it’s gotten quite the facelift. There has never been a great way to introduce new products or obsolete older or unusable products with flexibility. You could use the “Stopped” flags on sales orders, but it would stop all transactions. Now you have the ability to choose the module and process area you would like to control.

You have the ability to choose Warnings or Hard stops, for example, if you want to allow the purchase of an item, but not issuing to a production order picking list or sales order. Having combinations of transactions and statuses give companies the ability to control engineering items, new finished goods introduction, and product supersession and obsolescence in a more total capacity.

Next, we have Product readiness policies. Workflow is often the best method for sign off on key decisions, such as finalizing item introduction. Yet, there has never been sufficient functionality to control this in the system. This new feature allows several system and manual checks to be in place before an item is ready to be released. For example, if cost prices, default order settings, barcodes, or trade agreements are not yet configured. These can apply to Released products, product versions, and engineering versions:

In addition, questionnaires can be added to extend the solution and allow your company to have key stakeholders confirm all required sign off is done before moving forward. Owners of workflow can be specific people or a team of users. And these can apply to both Items and Service items!

These are just two small pieces of a much bigger rollout and I, for one, am excited to start using the new tools.