Manufacturing

From bill of materials to finished goods — planned, costed and on time.

Our Perspective

On the factory floor, the plan and the reality drift apart by the hour. A late material, a machine running behind, a rush order pushed to the front — and the schedule on the wall stops meaning much, while the back office reconciles costs weeks after the goods have already shipped. That lag is expensive: it shows up as missed delivery dates and prices set on costs you only half understand. Business Central plans production against your real capacity and materials, and captures actual cost as you build, so you commit to dates you can genuinely hit and price from numbers you can defend.

Manufacturing, part of the Business Central Premium edition, plans and executes production from simple assembly through to complex, multi-stage builds. It gives production and operations teams real control over materials, capacity and cost, with every production order tied to live stock and the general ledger. It benefits any maker — from small assemblers to multi-line manufacturers — who needs to hit delivery dates without overspending on inventory or labour.

What you can do

• Build to plan: Define bills of materials and routings, then drive production orders through every operation and work centre on the floor.
• Plan capacity and materials: Schedule work-centre and machine capacity, and run material requirements planning to line up supply with demand before shortages bite.
• Manage subcontracting: Send operations out to subcontractors and track them as part of the same production order, with full cost and timing visibility.
• Cost what you make: Capture actual material, labour, machine time and scrap against each order for precise, real product costing — not estimates.

Inside Business Central

Manufacturing is built on the Production BOM and Routing, run across Work Centres and Machine Centres with defined capacities, calendars and shop costs. The Planning Worksheet (MPS and MRP) nets demand against supply and suggests production and purchase orders; Released Production Orders drive Consumption and Output Journals, with finite or infinite loading and forward or backward scheduling. Subcontracting Worksheets push routing operations to outside vendors as purchase orders. Standard or actual costing with the Standard Cost Worksheet, plus capacity ledger entries and the Production Journal, give you precise WIP and finished-goods cost. Versions of BOMs and routings, plus Assembly for simpler kitting, cover everything from make-to-stock to make-to-order.

The business impact

• Hit delivery dates more consistently with realistic, capacity-aware scheduling instead of optimistic guesswork.
• Reduce material shortages and excess work-in-progress with planning tied to live inventory, sales orders and lead times.
• Know your true cost to produce each item, so you price with confidence and defend your margin.
• Cut the manual reconciliation between the shop floor and the back office — production posts straight to inventory and finance.

Works with

Manufacturing builds on Inventory, Purchasing and Warehouse Management for materials and movement, and posts costs straight into Financial Management. Add shop-floor data capture, barcode, IoT or machine-integration extensions from AppSource for real-time production feedback, and surface throughput, yield and on-time-delivery in Power BI dashboards your team can act on.

DIY-ERP Implementation

BOMs, routings, work centres and planning are configured inside Business Central with the DIY-ERP toolkit, and your Super User learns the production setup while it's built. Even with Premium-level complexity, your scope is self-prescribed, the price fixed, and the go-live date guaranteed — with mentor-on-demand support on hand throughout the build so nothing stalls.