The shop floor, the stockroom and finance, finally on the same page.
How a reputed North American manufacturer replaced an aging ERP and paper travellers with Business Central, live production visibility and planning that trusts its own numbers.
About the client
A reputed North American manufacturer running discrete production across finance, inventory and the shop floor. Growth had outpaced an aging ERP that ended at the office door, leaving production to run on paper travellers and tribal knowledge while planners worked from spreadsheets that were always a week behind.
An ERP that ended at the office door
The legacy ERP handled the ledger and little else. Production ran on paper travellers and tribal knowledge, inventory counts drifted from reality, and planners built next week’s schedule from last week’s spreadsheet. Purchasing over-ordered to be safe, stock-outs happened anyway, and month-end was an archaeology exercise.
Business Central from the ledger to the last work centre
Alphavima implemented Business Central across finance, inventory, purchasing and production, with routings and BOMs modelled to how the plant actually runs. Power Apps put capture at the work centre: operators book labour, materials and completions on tablets, retiring paper travellers entirely.
With transactions captured at source, MRP finally plans from live inventory and real demand, and purchasing buys to need rather than to fear. Power BI dashboards give production, purchasing and finance the same live view of orders, WIP and costs, the arguments about whose number is right simply stopped.
From paper travellers to a planned plant
Discovery & modelling
Processes, BOMs and routings mapped to the Business Central model.
Finance & inventory live
Ledger, items and warehouse cut over with validated balances.
Production & capture
Work orders live with Power Apps capture at every work centre.
MRP & analytics
Planning switched on, Power BI dashboards across the business.
What changed
- Aging ERP covering finance only
- Paper travellers and manual tracking
- Inventory drifted from reality
- Planning from stale spreadsheets
- One platform from ledger to work centre
- Digital capture at the point of work
- Inventory accuracy people trust
- MRP planning from live demand and stock
“We used to plan around the system. Now we plan with it, and the floor and finance finally tell the same story.”
Questions about projects like this
Does Business Central really handle manufacturing?
Yes. BOMs, routings, work centres, MRP and capacity are native, and the Premium tier covers discrete manufacturing well for small and mid-market plants.
How disruptive is the cutover for a running plant?
We phase it: finance and inventory first, then production capture, then planning. The plant never stops for the system.
What about our machine and quality data?
Power Apps and connectors extend capture to quality checks and machine events without customising the core, keeping upgrades painless.
What does a project like this cost?
It depends on entity count, sites and process complexity. We scope it in a short discovery and fix the phase-one price before you commit.