August 4, 2022 | By admin

Microsoft has announced several new features coming to Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management on the 1st of October 2022.

The 2022 release wave 2 for Dynamics 365 and industry clouds brings new innovations that provide organisations with significant capabilities to transform their business. The 2022 release wave 2 for Dynamics 365 includes many new features for Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management that will be released from October 2022 through to March 2023. Across Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management. release wave 2 will deliver enhancements to inventory and logistics, product information management, planning and manufacturing.

This article summarises the upcoming release wave for Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management and Telefónica Tech’s favourite features.

Inventory and logistics

Allocate and reserve WMS items in Inventory Visibility

Businesses using Warehouse Management Processes (WMS) can now make soft reservations and allocate inventory. Additionally, these are now supported for both WMS-enabled items and non-WMS items.

Soft reservations for WMS-enabled items allow organisations to track omnichannel sales demand in real-time, avoiding the risk of overselling and profit loss for the organisation. Achieved by a real-time temporary deduction of inventory, this information is derived from the quantity and product dimensions specified in a sales order. The reservation is made prior to the order being released to the warehouse, meaning that organisations using WMS will be able to make soft reservations regardless of whether warehouse hierarchies are specified in the order.

Alternatively, inventory allocation for WMS-enabled items allows organisations to reserve on-hand inventory for the organisation’s most important channels and corporate customers. Allocation is made prior to sales transactions and therefore physical warehouse operations, meaning that each item and quantity is equipped with top warehouse level information, regardless of WMS-enablement or hierarchy levels.

For more information on new inventory and logistics features, see Microsoft’s D365 Inventory Visibility summary.

Product information management

Display product information in the user’s language

It is critical for companies operating globally that each user can work with product information in their own language. With this new feature, each user can view product data in their preferred language. This may and can be different from the system language. The system allows the organisation to align languages to each legal entity, automatically showing that language on the system when a user signs in. This is particularly effective when a company has two different legal entities as communication remains fluid.

Planning

Planning Optimization

The Planning Optimization Add-in for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management enables master planning calculation to occur outside Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management and the related structured query language (SQL) database. The benefits that are associated with the Planning Optimization functionality include improved performance and minimal impact on SQL database during master planning runs. Quick planning runs can be done even during office hours so that planners can immediately react to demand or parameter change. Such benefits include:

  • Improved performance supplemented by in-memory processing
  • Minimised impact on the SQL database during master planning runs, as quick planning runs can be done even during office hours
  • Real-time insight to parameter or demand fluctuations, encouraging immediate reaction. This is achieved by running master planning several times daily during office hours.

Manufacturing

Monitor equipment with Sensor Data Intelligence

This is an improved version of the add-in for Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, previously named IoT Intelligence. It allows organisations to navigate business processes based on sensor data, derived from the machines and equipment on the production floor. This updated version allows organisations to:

  • Gather information from machines and equipment: updating maintenance asset counter values across supply chain management, which establishes predictive maintenance
  • Allocate components on your own subscription. This provides organisations with increased flexibility when managing Azure elements
  • Eradicate manual installation and configuration of components via Lifecycle Services. Instead, use a simple onboarding Wizard to set up the solution
  • Configure, scale and extend to meet unique organisational needs – as Azure components are managed on your own subscription.

 With this release wave, Microsoft recognises that Sensor Data Intelligence is now going beyond solely business scenarios. A wider range of use cases are now covered, such as predictive maintenance and asset downtime.

Key dates for the 2022 release wave 2

  • Early access: August 1, 2022: These new features will be available to test and validate before they are enabled automatically for users.
  • General availability: October 1, 2022: New features are available as production deployment when the 2022 release wave 2 commences.

If you would like to learn more about Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management please get in touch and we will be glad to help your organisation transition through and harness the power of these changes.