Wholesaler BUVA well supported with Dynamics 365 including WMS

BUVA is the go-to supplier for everything around ventilation, toughened glass, and building hardware. Each solution contains a wide range of products and services and thus requires a variety of processes and required functionalities within their ERP system. Add customization for customers and a complex application landscape, and it became clear that Dynamics AX 2009 was no longer adequate to support the company. Interim ICT manager Jan Kees Hage and Head of Logistics and Production Rafaela Salis tell more about the migration to Dynamics 365 and the implementation of the WMS module.

The need for a new WHS and ERP system

A large proportion of the items supplied by BUVA are custom-made. As many as 5,000 production lines per day need to be processed. Rafaela: "A sales order that arrives at production is split into several production orders. The trick is to bring them back together at the end, so that the customer gets everything in one delivery. And then preferably without too much manual administration in between."

"Our version of AX 2009 contained a lot of customization and processes connected with reports," Rafaela continues, "but it worked well on its own. Only the ERP system was severely outdated and no longer supported. Moreover, we wanted to digitize further and link other applications to it, such as our webshop, but this was difficult. So it became necessary to migrate to a newer version."

"It even went so well that users started optimizing processes themselves," says Jan Kees. "Such as automating the stock count with the WMS. Replenishing items remains manual work, but the system now indicates what needs to be replenished where."

Rafaela: "For this we did rearrange the warehouse. First, several products were in one location; now each item gets a unique location. There are currently about 14,000 of them and that will become even more. But now the system can make correct suggestions for additions. This used to be done manually, so you can imagine how much time this saves. I myself had this optimization on the roadmap in a year, but we are already working on it now."

Partly due to the impact of the WMS on the process operations, the project did take longer than expected. "We were supposed to go live six months earlier," says Jan Kees. "But we still had to implement some customization. But we managed to limit the amount of customization and we also stayed within budget."

Rafaela: "Next time, though, I would opt for a more collaborative approach when it comes to our departments. Now all the departments, such as procurement, finance, logistics and sales worked separately from each other, but then you miss the interconnection and dependencies. If we put the key users of the various departments together, then everyone understands from each other what is needed to make the entire process from sales, production, logistics to invoicing run smoothly. Most importantly, our customers were not affected by this migration and hardly noticed any changes."