Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009

‘Day in the life' Benchmark on HP Proliant Servers – Results Summary

Published by Microsoft, this document provides a Summary Overview from benchmark testing of Microsoft Dynamics AX on HP ProLiant Servers.

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Microsoft Dynamics AX for the Hosting and Managed Service Provider Industry

As the demand for managed hosting services continues to increase, the industry's requirements of the systems used to operate their businesses have become increasingly more complex. Managing and maintaining multiple systems while providing the level of integration and reporting functionality required by intercompany departments and customers burdens the IT staff with job functions that are not core to their organization's service offerings.

The purpose of this white paper is to examine the benefits of consolidating the disparate systems currently running a hosting business into one enterprise application that manages all core business functions, Microsoft Dynamics AX.

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Microsoft Dynamics AX for the Footwear Industry

This document summarizes the footwear industry practices on financials, sales, distribution, production, planning and purchasing areas and explains how Microsoft Dynamics AX enables these key business processes.

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Microsoft Dynamics AX for the Textile Industry

This document summarizes the textile industry practices on financials, sales, distribution, production, planning and purchasing areas and explains how Microsoft Dynamics AX enables these key business processes.

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Microsoft Dynamics AX for the Apparel Industry

This document summarizes the apparel industry practices on financials, sales distribution, production, planning and purchasing areas and explains how Microsoft Dynamics AX enables these key business processes.

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Microsoft Dynamics and Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance

How Microsoft is supporting Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance

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Demand Planning

Optimizing Operations Across the Supply Chain

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Consumer Driven Planning for Microsoft Dynamics AX

This paper identifies the challenges producers and retailers confront in managing demand-driven sales processes. It describes Consumer Driven Planning for Microsoft Dynamics AX, a unique solution that enables companies to optimize the relationship between supply and demand across the value chain while achieving high levels of customer service. Finally, it details how Consumer Driven Planning for Microsoft Dynamics AX provides a reliable platform for businesses that want the greatest return on investment for their technology solutions.

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Turning Toward Success for Automotive Suppliers-Published by the MPI Group

This is one of the 'darkest and brightest' moments in history for the automotive industry. The financial futures of some of the mightiest automotive OEMs in the United States, Asia, and Europe are in serious doubt, casting a pall over the entire sector. Yet, amid the talk of bankruptcy and bailouts, is the emergence of global auto markets as formerly third-world countries exchange animal-drawn carts for automobiles. The juxtaposition of long-term fortune and failure among auto makers and their suppliers is stark, and the stakes are clear:

Those firms that can survive today are likely to thrive in an even more profi table industry tomorrow.

Those two components 'surviving and thriving' require that auto makers and automotive parts suppliers bridge signifi cant performance gaps to keep them viable today and positioned for growth tomorrow. Turning Toward Success for Automotive Suppliers offers a roadmap to help to get the industry rolling, describing:

• Volatile yet promising markets, and market pressures, that exist today, with new consumers from China to Prague and corresponding new problems (for example, the credit crunch and rising material costs).
• Operational challenges that automotive suppliers must address (for example, rightsizing capacity, continued leaning of operations, andmanagement of changing workforces).
• Steps that the automotive industry can take to drive success (for example, enhanced R&D, broader application of improvement tools, supply-chain coordination, and collaboration).

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Connecting customer demand to the plant floor-Published by the MPI Group

How discrete manufacturers can leverage market information for improved performance and new product development

Discrete manufacturers produce and sell goods they can count — a reality that encourages many to forecast demand by looking in the rearview mirror at past performance. It’s understandable: using previously fi lled orders for discrete resource and production planning is far easier than using anticipated consumption quantities, which vary in real time — and require far more fl exibility to manage. Relying on the past may have worked in the old, batch-and-queue days of discrete operations. However, manufacturers navigating a competitive global marketplace can’t manage today by looking at yesterday’s results. Firms that focus on past performances miss huge opportunities to leverage insights, expertise, and market knowledge from their sales forces and customers — intelligence that can make customer demand more visible, forecasts more accurate, product development more nimble, and supply chains more efficient. And in the current economic climate, in which customer orders (and even customers) disappear overnight, it’s more important than ever to link true demand and actual production.

How does using yesterday’s information make manufacturers less competitive?

• Operations: Planning production based on what has been shipped to customers instead of anticipated consumption inevitably leads to overproduction (excess fi nished-goods inventory) or underproduction (low fi ll rates). Both damage profi tability by driving up unit costs or turning away potential revenue. This model also lengthens fulfi llment cycles, which slows velocity and cash fl ow (important given today’s tight credit markets), and camoufl ages valuable trends that could be used for long-term planning.
• Supply-chain management: Globalization and technology have increased the demand for, and value of, fl exible production that rapidly responds to changing customer needs and unique market requirements. Achieving this fl exibility requires extensive supplier involvement and accurate, real-time demand information to connect customer information to the plant fl oor. Otherwise, discrete manufacturers would have to stockpile all types of inventory (raw materials, work-in-process and fi nished goods) to respond quickly, incurring costs for excess and obsolete inventory.
• Product development: Demand-driven research and development increases product-development success. Lean companies such as Toyota Motor Manufacturing, for example, have much shorter product-development cycles than their competitors. Their products not only get to market sooner, they also anticipate changing preferences: for example, the Prius, which Toyota introduced in 1997 as the first mass-produced hybrid car, and which still dominates that market. Long-term relationships with customers are particularly important to product-development success.

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