At a Glance
Business Central shop floor control gives manufacturers real-time visibility into production by connecting shop floor activity with planning, inventory and reporting. By tracking labour, machine time, material usage and production progress in one system, manufacturers can improve efficiency, reduce delays, strengthen traceability and make better-informed operational decisions.
Eager to know how Business Central shop floor control can help your operations? Book a consultation today.
The Role of Shop Floor in Manufacturing
In manufacturing, the shop floor is where raw materials turn into finished, saleable products. Simply put, it is where all the action takes place. But what happens when input data is delayed, inaccurate or still recorded on paper? In such cases, even the best production schedules can fall behind.
If you run a modern UK manufacturing firm, you need real-time access to what’s happening on the shop floor. And this is where Business Central manufacturing shop floor control comes in.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central gives manufacturers more control over production by connecting shop floor activity with planning, inventory, purchasing, warehousing and financial reporting.
In this guide, explore the features of Business Central manufacturing shop floor control and how it can help your business.
What Is Shop Floor Control in Manufacturing?
Shop floor control refers to the processes used to monitor, manage and record manufacturing activities as products move through production. It gives manufacturers a clear insight into what is happening on the factory floor and whether jobs are being completed and production targets are being met.
A typical shop floor in a manufacturing setup has multiple work centres, production lines, machines, operators and materials that all need to work together. A shop floor tracking system allows you to monitor these activities in real time and gain accurate information about production processes, labour, machine usage and completed output.
So instead of finding out at the end of the workday that the production order has fallen behind schedule, your managers can see delays as they happen and take action before they impact customer delivery schedules.
How Business Central Shop Floor Control Works
Business Central helps manufacturers manage day-to-day production by bringing together information across the factory into one interconnected system.
The key capabilities of Business Central shop floor manufacturing control include:
Work Centres and Machine Centres
Work centres and machine centres represent the physical resources used in production, including machines, groups of operators and production lines. These resources allow you to define capacity, track utilisation and monitor performance.
For example, identifying whether a specific machine is consistently running below capacity can help managers decide whether process changes or maintenance is required.
Routing
Routing defines the sequence of operations to manufacture a product. It outlines each step in the production process, including which work centres are in use and how long each operation should ideally take.
This data helps your production planners to create realistic production schedules and ensure consistent manufacturing runs. So if a product needs to be cut, assembled and finished, routing ensures each stage is completed in the correct order while also highlighting potential bottlenecks.
Production Journals or Time Sheets
Production journals and time sheets record actual activity on the shop floor. Operators can use this component to log completed quantities, labour time, machine time and material usage as work progresses.
It captures data in real time, which allows managers to view production progress as it happens. For instance, if a job takes longer than expected, managers can quickly see the variance and investigate whether it is due to labour efficiency, machine performance or material issues.
Real-Time Shop Floor Tracking and Production Reporting
Business Central allows manufacturers to capture information on:
- Production order progress
- Material consumption
- Completed quantities
- Scrap and waste
- Machine downtime
- Labour hours
- Work centre utilisation
- Production variances
All of this information can feed directly into reporting dashboards and analytics, allowing managers to compare planned production against actual performance.
Managing Labour, Machine Time & Production Output
Business Central allows manufacturers to record labour hours against production orders, monitor machine capacity and analyse production output across work centres.
This information can help your business answer the following questions:
- Have labour resources been allocated efficiently?
- Are production lines operating at expected capacity?
- Which production orders are taking longer than initially planned?
- How do actual production costs compare with estimates?
- Which work centres are creating bottlenecks?
You can improve scheduling, reduce machine and labour idle time and make better use of available resources by monitoring labour and machine time more closely.
Improving Traceability and Production Visibility
Business Central can also improve visibility into your production processes by linking materials, production orders, inventory movements and finished goods in a single system.
It can help you quickly trace:
- Materials used in production
- Batch and lot information
- Movement in inventory
- Production history
- Quality-related information
In case a quality issue crops up, businesses can identify affected batches much more quickly than if records are spread across multiple spreadsheets or paper records.
How Shop Floor Control Integrates With Production Planning and Inventory
Shop floor control becomes significantly more manageable and valuable when it works alongside production planning and inventory management.
As production progresses, Business Central updates inventory levels, WIP information, material consumption and completed goods statuses automatically. Integrating this information helps planners understand:
- The current production status
- Available inventory
- Material shortages
- Capacity availability
- Outstanding production orders
- Future scheduling requirements
For example, if raw materials are consumed faster than expected during production, purchasing teams can find out earlier and replenish stock before shortages occur and affect future production schedules.
Likewise, completed production orders immediately update inventory, allowing sales teams to provide more accurate delivery dates to customers.
With Business Central manufacturing shop floor control, you can gain access to a more connected manufacturing operation where planning, production, warehousing and purchasing all work from the same real-time data.
How Brookland Solutions Helps Manufacturers Get More From Business Central
You may install the best shop floor systems, but they only deliver real value when they truly reflect how your manufacturing business operates.
Brookland Solutions is a Microsoft Dynamics partner that works with UK manufacturers to help them make better use of their Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central ERP. We can help improve production processes, increase visibility into operations and ensure manufacturing teams have access to accurate information whenever they need it.
Our experienced and Microsoft-certified consultants understand the practical challenges your manufacturing business faces. Our in-depth industry knowledge helps us configure Business Central to support your real manufacturing processes and problems.
If required and appropriate, we can also help you with Empowered for Business Central Manufacturing, an industry-specific extension that improves the standard functionality of Business Central.
Contact us to get more from your Business Central manufacturing investment. Fill out the contact form to book a consultation today.
