Business Central Manufacturing Show Martin Karlowitsch

In episode 35 of his podcast, Martin welcomed Martin Blaha from the Czech Republic, who moved to the UK in 2016, where he still lives and works. While Martin worked in various consulting roles for various Business Central partners for 11 years, he embarked on an entrepreneurial journey last year. Hence, Martin now owns MB365 Consulting – a new generation Business Central partner. 

Being asked why he calls his new company a "new generation Business Central" partner and what distinguishes the "old" generation from the "new " one, Martin B. outlined that his way of working, compared to traditional partners, is characterized by flexibility, agility, and a focus on delivering quicker results at a lower cost, the lower cost resulting from working remote and thus having no corporate debts. He referred to his small but very efficient team, consisting of the best developers on the market. While many traditional partners still adhere to the so-called waterfall-project methodology, meaning that each project step runs over many months, he works in a hybrid agile environment as Microsoft recommends, allowing him to run a first iteration quickly and collect feedback very quickly.
Leading over to the, as Martin K. called them, "hard facts of Business Central", they started to talk about the topic of Martin B.'s latest blog post "Five things you didn't know about planning worksheets" and why he is so passionate about it. According to Martin B., his enthusiasm for production stems from his journey from working with manufacturing software to transitioning to Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Business Central. He emphasizes the value of understanding manufacturing processes and the desire to share knowledge to prevent common pitfalls in implementations. He has seen, as he puts it, "so many missed or failed implementations where people just did not know what they're doing". His passion for the planning worksheet is rooted in the fact that it brings significant value to the customer "by sorting out the daily work in logic sequence and manner". 
Talking about the "Frozen Period", a key concept of the planning worksheet, denoting a period where the schedule is fixed and shouldn't be altered, Martin B. stressed the importance of setting the start date in the future to analyze urgencies, such as unshipped sales orders or missed planning opportunities. Lead times and communication also play crucial roles. 
Another best practice recommended by Martin B. is to define the worksheet process plan and then run it in small steps to achieve specific goals and balance supply and demand for each area individually. Moreover, utilizing filtering options extensively allows for running planning worksheets for bespoke purposes. Categorizing items is another key aspect, helping streamline the planning process by organizing products based on their characteristics. However, these practices might require adjustments to fit each company's unique needs. Additionally, Martin B. places a lot of emphasis on the significance of personal relationships in successful ERP system implementations, stressing the value of on-site interaction over remote communication alone. While planning worksheets in Business Central play a crucial role in balancing supply and demand throughout the manufacturing process chain, reservation entries serve as the glue holding everything together by ensuring alignment between supply and demand, and orders being fulfilled in the correct sequence.
The conversation ended with discussing the importance of finding a balance between flexibility and strictness when using reservation entries in Business Central for manufacturing. 

In episode 34 of his podcast, Martin welcomed José Miguel Azevedo, a Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Senior Solution Architect with KPMG in the UK, one of the BIG4 consulting companies. José has more than 24 years of experience with different ERPs, ranging from SAP and Oracle to Dynamics 365 Business Central, his focus areas being Navision and Business Central, where he held various roles in consulting, like business consultant, functional consultant, project manager, program manager, etc. He has worked in companies of all sizes and with clients from the fashion, food, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, and services industries. Although Jose admitted that speaking foreign languages is not big fun for him, he dared to move to and work in London and join Martin for the podcast.
They kicked off their conversation by delving into José's personal journey, highlighting his move from Portugal to London. José's decision to leave his comfort zone and embrace new opportunities at KPMG underscores his passion for manufacturing. He emphasized that the industry resonates with him due to its dynamic challenges and the need for out-of-the-box thinking.
Martin and José explored the essential tools and strategies for successfully implementing Business Central in manufacturing, and José stressed the importance of identifying whether a company is make-to-order or make-to-stock and tailoring the approach accordingly. According to him, simplicity is critical for setting up Bill of Materials (BOM) structures and utilizing lead times to aid Material Requirements Planning (MRP) and Available to Promise (ATP) calculations.
When discussing Capable to Promise (CTP), José outlined that while it's a powerful tool, it should be introduced only after establishing a solid data foundation. He pointed out that most manufacturing companies already possess historical experience and can set lead times and workarounds at the item level to provide customers with realistic delivery dates.
The conversation wrapped up with a focus on the significance of relationships in the manufacturing sector. José recalled his challenging implementations, noting that successful projects were marked by solid professional relationships. Both Martin and José agreed that while technology is an enabler, the people behind it genuinely drive success.
Despite both admitting they're not particularly language-oriented, they exchanged friendly banter about Martin learning some basic Portuguese before meeting at Directions EMEA in Lyon. José ended the podcast by expressing gratitude for the conversation and the opportunity to share his insights.

In his latest podcast episode, Martin hosted Ivar Keskpaik, who, amongst a plethora of other roles and positions, works as a Business Consultant for Softera Baltic, Lithuania. 
He holds an MSc in Physics, is a chartered engineer, a certified Theory of Constraints (TOC) practitioner, and has been titled the “most famous Interim Manager of Estonia” by the Magazine “Director”. Ivar and Martin discussed how manufacturing companies working with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central can apply the Theory of Constraints.

Martin introduced the podcast's topic by asking Ivar to explain the Theory of Constraints (TOC) shortly. As Ivar outlined, this concept was developed by Eliyahu M. Goldratt in the late 70s of the last century and describes a management philosophy and methodology that allows one to focus only on the constraints in a process and to make good bottom-line results for a short period in any type of company. TOC is more complex than other management theories, such as Lean or Six Sigma, and Ivar admitted that it took him 20 years to grasp it fully.
As Ivar went on, the high complexity of TOC lies in its being based on a flow-based approach and not on a resource-based one. Flow-based thinking is about making sure things move smoothly and efficiently from start to finish, therefore trying to detect the constraints - or bottlenecks -  in a process and maximizing them to the maximum flow. Transferring this to the typical Business Central manufacturing customers, namely SMBs, their constraints are always on resources. However typically, the bottleneck isn't stable, but it keeps on shifting from one work or machine center to another.
Once the constraint has been detected - by scrutinizing the workload of the different capacities - the planning must only be done for this resource. The workload should not be distributed equally among all resources to remove the constraint.
Talking about best practices for implementing TOC at manufacturing companies using Business Central, Ivar related that it always starts with a visit to the customer and talking to the management board to understand the company's problems. Then, of course, there will be an inspection of the shopfloor to see and understand the technologies the customer is using. Based on these findings, the bottlenecks are then analyzed: where are they located? Are they floating or not? etc. After that, the planning and scheduling part will be dealt with. But, as Ivar stressed, the first step always will be to detect the bottleneck.
Often, customers mistakenly think that their most expensive resource is their bottleneck and hence are not happy when hearing that to remove the constraint, they will have to disbalance their resources and even take away workload from their most expensive machine. They fear that this will bring their production cost up or that the cost per unit of this machine will increase significantly. 
Ivar encountered these arguments, in which the conflict between the cost-based approach and the flow-based approach becomes evident, by pointing out that both approaches have the goal to make a profit but that the flow-based approach will bring results like better profits, a bigger turnover, and higher customer satisfaction in a comprehensively shorter time than the resource-based approach. The bigger flow through removing the bottlenecks will lead to delivering more work orders in time. Sometimes, Ivar even offers to set up a mini-project for the respective company so that the decision-makers can see the results and then discuss the main project. 

Martin's guest is Andrew Good, CEO of Liberty Grove Software from Canada. 
Andrew is an engineer, project manager, analyst, manufacturing expert, and Microsoft Certified Trainer. His extensive knowledge and background have been built from personal experiences with many companies, working in various operational and management roles. Projects have ranged from new implementations to streamlining business operations. 21 years of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and Dynamics NAV experience mean that he can fall back on many different perspectives when working with customers.  
He has helped clients get the most out of their Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central/NAV systems through integrations, upgrades, and extensions that allow them to deal with their changing business environments, regardless of whether financial operations, rentals, distribution, and manufacturing.  

Being asked whether providing the master data that are so essential for a functioning planning process also means fun to him, Andrew admitted that, overall, from an organization's perspective, it is a painful process. Nevertheless, as he pointed out, the dividends that are paid to the organizations are huge both in the short and long term because, in the end, they are rewarded by getting a single system that provides them with trustworthy financial, inventory, and manufacturing information. And according to Andrew, the process of providing and maintaining master data is an ongoing one. The system needs to remain trustworthy and stable also after go-live, and for this, the data must be kept in good shape continuously. Depending on the organizations' size, there are a variety of techniques at hand for this.
Martin then brought up the claim "Transform your business with human-friendly solutions to power progress" that he read on Andrew's website when preparing for the podcast and that he would like to investigate further. Starting with the "transform your business" part, Andrew outlined that when you look at the transformation necessity for the manufacturing companies, it is not primarily related to their "direct processes", meaning everything connected to manufacturing, but mainly concerns all their indirect processes, like engineering, purchase, finance, etc. where the day-to-day work can be significantly streamlined and improved to make people more efficient. Andrew sees a second area of transformation opportunity in leveraging the already massive data that are available in the organizations by using tools like Power BI to provide insights into how the factory is run. Of course, this also will impact production itself because Power BI can also be used to monitor real-time production data, thus finding out if production is running to its quote, finding fundamental issues with a certain part, etc.
Discussing the "human-friendly solution" part of the claim, Andrew stressed that he is no fan of productivity initiatives being introduced by top-down directives. Not including the experience and opinions of all staff members will generate a lot of resentment and resistance to those initiatives. Andrew advocates for a more collaborative approach where also the view and the voices of the "direct" people in the project count. According to Andrew, it is always key to get people on the shop floor involved.
Regarding the third part of the claim, "to power progress", Martin wanted to know whether and how Andrew measures and documents the progress his customers make. Andrew related that he encourages his customers to gather and analyze data and examine how it changes over time. They should also keep track of the activities having been executed during the same period to see the impact of these changes. He is a firm believer in constant measuring, monitoring, and then acting based on the monitoring. The typical metrics that get tracked in manufacturing companies, of course, depend on the companies' focus. 

In his latest podcast episode, Martin was super excited to have one of the North American Business Central manufacturing rockstars with him. Steve Chinsky is the Manager Dynamics Practice with Accelerynt. He has over 23 years of experience consulting, implementing, and managing Dynamics NAV and Business Central projects. His over 180 NAV and BC implementations were done in manufacturing, supply chain (aka WMS(, food and beverage, jewelry, retail, service, oil and gas, chemical, industrial equipment, and home goods industries. In addition, he worked over 16 years as an Accountant (CMA) in various positions (Director of Finance, Controller, and Director of Operations). 
Steve is, among others, a Microsoft Dynamics 365 Most Valued Professional (MVP), a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP), and a Certified Navision Manufacturing Specialist. He is a Board Member and Program Committee Chair of the NAVUG (the NAV user group), Summit Program Committee Co-Chair, and he is on the Program Committee for DynamicsCON Live and the Content Committee for Directions North America. 

With this impressive background, the question naturally arose what is so special about NAV and Business Central that it qualifies for such a level of commitment.
Steve related that having worked for 16 years in accounting, it finally became somewhat repetitive and rudimentary, and due to lots of recommendations, he started to look at ERP and a "company called Navision." He was really fascinated because it was so easy and simple, and over time, he knew that he wanted to get involved with the community that was building itself in the early days. Moreover, he has always loved helping people, so when he started to work with different partners, he supported anybody new and wanted to know how the software worked. From there, it was a small step to organizing conferences and being part of advisor boards or committees. And this is what he really loves doing.
Being asked what piqued his interest in manufacturing, Steve said that, originally, he mostly worked in the supply chain environment. But when he met a customer who produced the glue for the United States postal stamps, he was intrigued by being involved with manufacturing literally, as he put it, "from soup to nuts." He likes to mold different companies that are coming to NAV and Business Central into the software and to accompany every step, and that's what kept him there.
Steve was happy to share some of the best implementation practices and tips he has ready for manufacturers in the NAV and Business Central environment:
Include some of the people from the shop floor who do the actual work in the defining and design processes. Everybody should have a voice because this is your new ERP system.Don't ever second guess a process - have it explained loudly in the room.Don't stick to processes because you have always done them that way - people change, steps change, equipment changes.Evaluate every routing from its beginning to the end - consider the time elements associated with a routing, and don't forget the crap.Let the people on the shopfloor test the system throughout the whole implementation process. As Steve outlined, implementing an ERP is always also a business process reengineering task because, if you want to move from an old system to a new one, you can't do this without analyzing all your processes and, most likely, subsequently also changing some things. He illustrated his point by saying that you can't change your favorite ice cream flavor from a chocolate chip to another one but want to keep the chips, the color, and the flavor. As Steve said, "Everything is on the table with a new ERP system." 

Our podcast is back! After a half-year break, Martin felt it was time to "revive" the podcast again, last but not least because many Business Central manufacturing enthusiasts reached out and encouraged him to continue with it. So, in episode 30, he was happy to talk to Jeff Brickler, solution architect at an ISV called CADtalk in Cincinnati, USA.
Jeff's background is quite outstanding because he hasn't been an IT/manufacturing person for his entire career. He started as a Latin teacher in high school with a master's degree in Classics. He joined CADtalk eight years ago and has worked closely with manufacturing customers as a support specialist, consulting and services manager, and solution architect since then. 

Dwelling on the fact that Jeff has been working with manufacturing companies for quite some time, Martin wanted to know more about Jeff's experience with these companies: what makes them unique and what is the intellectual challenge of working with them. Jeff described that, although the customers he deals with are very different, they all have some things in common: they are all quite "down-to-earth," meaning that they work hard to make good products and are also very cost conscious. What is more, he also meets a lot of engineers who are very detail-oriented and ask a lot of questions, so the challenge here lies in offering or showing them products that are really going to work and provide value.
When asked what he thought was the most important skill needed for working in such an environment and whether his teaching experience helped him in his new job, Jeff said there's not much difference between a demonstration for a software product and teaching. As he put it, a lot of teaching is really about trying to give a good overview of what you're about to teach or what the subject matter is, and then frame it in a way that makes it interesting to the audience, and then listening to that audience to know what's interesting to them. So what you need in both jobs is patience, not getting frustrated, and an ability to explain in multiple ways. Because sometimes, the way he thinks of something may not be the same as the way the customer thinks of it, meaning that we might have a different vocabulary or how we structure it in our mind might be different.
The two then talked about the similarities between the users of Business Central and those of other ERP systems and came to the conclusion that independent of their size (the Business Central companies are usually a bit smaller than the others), they share the same challenges. They all design and produce complex products with a relatively small lot size that require engineering. In Business Central, they have also to manage the BOM.
Regarding whether CADtalk's Business Central customers use the manufacturing or the jobs module, Jeff stated that their customers mainly use the standard manufacturing module because that helps them keep a standard BOM. In his opinion, even when customers have lot sizes of one, it is always preferable to create a standard BOM instead of just creating a job for that one-off. A BOM makes updates more manageable in case of engineering changes which would be quite difficult with the Jobs module.
Talking about the impact of having so many ISV solutions for Business Central, Jeff outlined that this makes working with customers a little bit challenging in the sense that at CADtalk, they need to keep being aware and up-to-date about the products on the market. Customers would very much appreciate them knowing the ecosystem and preferably having some kind of relationship with the other vendors so that they are always aware of how all the different products or software interactions work together.
Jeff and Martin ended their talk by expressing their hope to meet at Directions EMEA in Lyon later that year and continue their discussion.