Business value

Standard Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations comes with an embedded Power BI “Warehouse performance”. This displays limited data about shipping performance, inbound performance and location inventory accuracy.

Advanced Warehouse Management adds an advanced analytical workspace Warehouse Management :

• For monitoring and comparing the most frequently used KPIs in warehouse management,
• For decision support information
• Insight in current and future warehouse pallet space utilization
• Insight in historical logistical costs per released product, per customer, per vendor, per worker, per equipment
• Logistical cost per customer in Assemble To Order and Make To Order scenarios:
  • insight in production raw material picking cost per customer and
  • insight in finished goods put away cost per customer
• Order picking accuracy
• Lines picked and shipped per hour
• % of supplier orders received damage free
• Average warehouse capacity used
• Peak warehouse capacity used
• Lines received and put away per hour
• % of supplier received with correct documentation

The main data sources for the work space are the work lines, work exceptions, ABC classification data and net requirements (MRP transactions).

In most cases, static MRP Master planning runs every night, or twice a day. For analysis and forecast purposes online data is often not required. Advice is to prepare the other data through batch jobs that run every night or in the weekend. 

Procedure

Master planning > Run > Master planning

Select the plan that was specified in the parameter for pallet space calculation.

Product information management > Released products > Fast tab Warehouse

For each released product, make sure that the quantity per pallet space is filled.

Warehouse management > Periodic > Warehouse ABC classification

Run the ABC classification.

System administration > Setup > Entity store

Prepare the data for several work spaces in socalled aggregate measurements. 

 Select aggregate measurement "DYSDWAAnalytics" and press Refresh. 

System administration > Inquiries > Batch jobs

The measurements are refreshed through a batch job. Depending on the amount of data, this takes several minutes or more. When the batch job is ended successfully, the work spaces can be explored.

Also, make sure that the Full reset batch job BIMeasurementProcessorFull is running.

General overview

This tab displays most important forecast information at a glance:

• Total number of units in the warehouse(s)
• Total volume in the warehouse(s)
• Total number of pallets in the warehouse(s), calculated based on the number items per pallet, and the inventory per item
• Total transactions in the warehouse(s)
• Average transaction quantity
• Weekly pallet cost in the defined period
• The projected inventory in the selected warehouse in the selected time frame. If the start is later than today, the quantities on top represent the change in values between the start and the end of the selected period.
• The projected future transactions per week (inbound and outbound).
• The projected future pallet space forecast per week.

Open the filter on the right pane to drill down in the data.

Warehouse activity forecast

This tab displays the number of transactions (separated inbound and outbound) and estimated man hours required per week.

This information can be used for planning and hiring warehouse workers for the coming weeks.

Location activity forecast

This tab displays the projected warehouse activity per aisle and rack in a schematic top view. Note that this is based on the newest fixed locations of the items for which future transactions and/or demand forecast exist.

Based on this information, the warehouse manager can predict congestion in parts of the warehouse, and decide to change the location of certain items. Red colored racks will be visited very often.

Appropriate actions could be:

• Change the fixed locations of some products in heavily visited areas
• Add action locations where seasonal items can be picked from pallet instead of from shelf

Worker productivity

When labor standards are used, this tab displays:

• the historical performance of workers (actual vs estimated)
• the weekly work line costs (actual vs estimated)
• the number of work lines, and the average number of lines per work
• the logistical cost per work class, worker, account, etc.

Work exceptions

This tab displays the work exceptions that are logged through the mobile device. Purpose is to identify the problematic items, training demand, and vendor compliance issues.

Three main types of exceptions are the general work exceptions, short pick reasons and receiving exceptions. These exceptions are related to items and customers/vendors and workers.

Inventory days

This tab displays per released product, the number of days demand that can be covered by the current inventory.

Prerequisites and assumptions:

• ABC period length in warehouse management parameters must be larger than zero, e.g. 30 days.
• ABC calculation must be active on the applicable warehouse(s).
• ABC calculation and master planning must run before the aggregated measurements are exported.
• The column picks per period applies to the pick frequency.

Example to detect problematic overstock:

on the right pane, filter on ABC frequency code A, and short lead time, sort on descending number of inventory days. Consider the reason behind this high stock level: if it is not strategic, the min max stock levels quantities for this item should be reviewed.

Warehouse location space forecast

This tab displays the items with the number of pallets, pallet space cost and aisle and rack of the fixed location. Purpose is to analyze the pallet space claimed by various items in the warehouse.

In the scatter chart, released products are plotted with the number of inventory days on the X-axis and cubic velocity on the Y-axis. The items that cause the biggest challenge in terms of warehouse pallet space are in the upper right quadrant.

Appropriate actions for these items might be:

• purchase in smaller quantities
• if demand is lumpy, consider setting up a purchase agreement with call offs with the vendor
• initiate a sales action
• sell out and use direct delivery in the future
• assemble to order in stead of make to stock