Microsoft's SCM Innovations for the Process Manufacturing Industry and Dynamics AX

Editor's Note:  This article provides a historical perspective about Microsoft's SCM innovations for process manufacturing, and reflects Dr. Hamilton's prior research and 10+ books about Dynamics AX across the past 13 years. The books provide comprehensive explanations about supply chain management (SCM) functionality within AX, and they include the 2016 edition of SCM for Process Manufacturing.

The manufacturing industry represents one of Microsoft's key markets, and Dynamics AX has emerged as their flagship ERP product. Microsoft has steadily introduced significant innovations to Dynamics AX since acquiring the product in 2002, especially for supply chain management (SCM) in the process manufacturing industries. Each release of Dynamics AX has expanded the footprint of SCM capabilities, thereby solving many requirements with out-of-the-box functionality and reducing the need for customizations or add-ons. In addition, the pace of these changes has increased in recent history and is likely to accelerate even more with the technology foundation underlying the new Dynamics AX and the Azure-centric delivery model.

To really appreciate the progress Microsoft has made in meeting the demands of the process manufacturing industries, it is worth exploring past accomplishments related to Dynamics AX.

The potential innovations include enhancements and acquisitions as well as new capabilities fueled by technology considerations. Previous articles provided a similar analysis about Microsoft's SCM innovations for the discrete manufacturing industry.

SCM Innovations for Process Manufacturing 

Many different SCM innovations for process manufacturing have been introduced since Microsoft's acquisition of Dynamics AX. Each major software version typically introduced a step-function increase in the footprint of SCM functionality, ...