Manufacturers live and die by schedule adherence, material availability, and margin control. ERP system Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central brings these moving parts into one solution—connecting production, purchasing, inventory, finance, and sales—so planners work from a single version of the truth. With industry add-ons from experienced partners, the platform goes beyond core ERP to address shop-floor realities such as constrained resources, real-time production registration, and advanced availability views. The result is faster decisions, fewer shortages, and a smoother path from quote to shipment.
Business Central as the manufacturing backbone
Out of the box, Business Central (former Dynamics NAV) supports discrete and process manufacturing with bills of materials (BOM), routings, production orders, cost capture, and analytics. It unifies planning and execution across finance, sales, purchasing, inventory, and service, giving leaders immediate visibility into what’s planned, what’s in progress, and what it’s costing. Because these capabilities sit in one system, teams avoid spreadsheet drift and can automate routine tasks—from demand consolidation to replenishment suggestions—while management keeps a real-time pulse on throughput and profitability.
Smarter material planning with MRP in Business Central
Effective manufacturing hinges on getting the right materials to the right work center at the right time. Business Central’s MRP engine analyzes demand from sales orders and forecasts against BOMs, routings, current stock, and safety levels to generate time-phased supply proposals—production, purchase, or transfer orders. Planners can tune replenishment methods (e.g., lot-for-lot or fixed order quantity), review projected availability, and act on system suggestions to reduce shortages and excess stock. In practice, manufacturers see tighter lead times, lower inventory carrying costs, and better resource utilization because the plan reflects current constraints and policies rather than static spreadsheets.
Visual scheduling with VAPS: from plan to feasible schedule
Planning answers “what” and “when,” but scheduling answers “can we actually do it?” The Visual Advanced Production Scheduler (VAPS) integrated with Business Central turns plans into realistic, constraint-aware schedules. Planners drag and drop operations on a visual board that respects machine and labor capacity, setup times, and delivery priorities. Sales benefits, too: with instant visibility into an updated schedule, they can promise reliable dates and proactively communicate changes when disruptions occur. This closes the loop between demand and execution, making delivery commitments both faster and more credible.
Extending Business Central for manufacturing specifics
Many manufacturers enhance core Business Central with partner solutions tailored to shop-floor needs. Examples include real-time production registration panels, WMS with mobile barcode scanning, and “advanced inventory availability” views that help planners spot conflicts early. Extensions such as N24 Core Manufacturing enrich the production module with practical functions derived from real implementations, helping teams expose bottlenecks quickly and standardize best practices. Combined with Power BI analytics, these add-ons translate operational data into actionable insights for continuous improvement.
Operational excellence is not a single project; it’s the daily discipline of aligning demand, materials, people, and machines. Business Central gives manufacturers the platform to do exactly that—unifying MRP, scheduling, execution, and financials while remaining flexible through proven industry extensions. With one source of truth and tools that reflect real-world constraints, production plans become feasible, inventories become right-sized, and delivery promises become dependable.
Why Nav24 as your Business Central partner
Nav24 is a seasoned Business Central implementation partner with deep experience in manufacturing projects – from engineer-to-order and make-to-stock to mixed-mode production. Our teams align business goals with system design, configure MRP and shop-floor processes, and deploy tools like visual scheduling (e.g., VAPS) and advanced inventory to turn plans into executable schedules. We handle integrations with MES, WMS, and ecommerce, provide data migration and testing frameworks that minimize downtime, and deliver role-based training so planners, buyers, and production leads adopt best practices quickly. With post-go-live support and continuous improvement services, Nav24 helps manufacturers standardize operations, increase on-time delivery, and realize measurable ROI from Business Central.
