Simplistic Usage of Advanced WMS in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3

Editor's Note: The following article is drawn from Dr. Hamilton's recent book about Warehouse Management using Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3. The book covers the major approaches to warehouse management and their integration with the broader contexts of supply chain management, quality management and transportation management.

The full utilization of Advanced WMS capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 typically involves considerable time and costs for correctly defining and verifying the setup information for each warehouse. Dynamics AX can support different levels of sophistication in business processes and the related use of mobile devices. In some cases, modeling a complex warehouse operation may require 8 to 20 weeks of consulting time by an experienced consultant. However, many firms want the simplest possible capabilities and a corresponding reduction in implementation time/costs -- while still enabling them to evolve to more sophisticated capabilities. Unfortunately, almost all of the existing blogs and news focus on the most sophisticated capabilities.

Fortunately, the simplistic utilization of Advanced WMS capabilities represents one of the strategic options for using Dynamics AX. This article includes two case studies to illustrate simplistic utilization. The first case study illustrates the use of mobile devices for just inventory move transactions, while the second illustrates the use of basic business processes and related mobile device transactions.

Case 1: Only use Mobile Devices for Inventory Move Transactions 

The implementation project team at a manufacturing company wanted to start with just the mobile device transaction for inventory moves, and then evolve ...