Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM)
The onset of the COVID pandemic in 2020 hit the Original Equipment Manufacturing industry very hard, with supply of global components and raw materials being seriously impacted. The volatility around both demand and supply was evident for many manufacturers.
For example, the global semiconductor shortage in 2020, where huge consumer demand for products as varied as cars to smartphones, led to a massive shortage in supplies. Businesses requiring these parts had production all but ground to a halt.
While the initial effects of the pandemic have faded away, its presence can still be felt in 2023. Some of the challenges we see relate directly to the inflexibility of existing processes to cope with changes in the operating environment and the lack of visibility of demand and supply networks.
DEMAND VOLATILITY WITH
MICROSOFT DYNAMICS 365
IMPROVING INVENTORY MANAGEMENT
Earlier identification of low levels of your finite supplies to reduce competition for components and decreasing the risk of reducing your manufacturing capacity.
MAKE MORE WITH LESS
While difficult with growing consumer demand, process redesign can result in product redesign with less material being required.
AUTOMATE PROCESSES
Automation can provide you with the data required to mitigate risks to your upstream and downstream supply chains and your factory operations.
ELECTRONICS
MANUFACTURER
This company sell, assemble and distribute a wide range of circuit breakers, relays and power management solutions across a wide range of markets including most sectors of mobility and transport, manufacturing, telecoms and medical devices.
CHALLENGE
This business were using Microsoft Dynamics AX which was soon to be unsupported and so wanted to upgrade to Dynamics 365 in the Cloud and adopt new more standard ways of working.
They needed a system that would enable them to manage their full product range and enable them to efficiently manage their operations across 61 countries.
They wanted to improve processes during this change to reduce their holding inventory and reduce wastage, improve their packing efficiency and reduce the lead times to their customers.
SOLUTION
The scope of the upgrade included: Finance, Supply Chain, Production, Inventory and Warehouse management.
The deployment of the standard finance features included:
— MTD (Making Tax Digital), providing a standard approach
— Improvements and transitioning trading document designs to Microsoft Dynamics 365.
— Interfaces and various modifications to enhance intercompany operations such as a link to a company used to store a large number of components.
— Migration of significant quantities of data to enable trading to continue seamlessly.
RESULTS
The company were confident all of their challenges were solved, and they could now deliver more product, for less cost and faster for their customers.
— Inventory was reduced by 33%.
— Delivery performance improved from 73% on time to 88% on time with further improvement expected.
— Order accuracy improved to 98.85.

WHY WORK WITH NEXER?
Nexer can offer over 30 years of heritage and knowledge. With over 2,500 experts globally, and having delivered projects to over 39 countries to 100s of organisations, we have the expertise to complete successful digital transformations.
We are specialists across the Microsoft technology stack – including Microsoft Dynamics 365, PowerPlatform, Large Data, BI, Cloud, IoT, AI, Mixed Reality, Machine Learning, Digital UX & Cyber Security. Our family-owned, friendly and customer-first culture, ensures we build long-term relationships with our customers.