Industrial Pumps Manufacturer — BC Premium Discrete Manufacturing
Customer Background
The client is an industrial pumps manufacturer specializing in standard and engineer-to-order fluid handling equipment. Operating across Manufacturing, Finance, Procurement, Inventory, Warehouse, and Sales & Distribution, they implemented a comprehensive solution over 7 months with a 5-member team, including a manufacturing SME, to streamline and integrate operations.
Industry
The Challenge
The client designed and manufactured industrial pumps, valves, and fluid handling equipment for water treatment, chemical processing, oil and gas, and municipal infrastructure—both standard catalogue products and engineer-to-order custom configurations.
The legacy ERP lacked manufacturing capabilities—BOMs were maintained in spreadsheets, production scheduling was manual, and there was no visibility into work-in-progress costs or capacity constraints. Material planning was reactive—stockouts of critical castings caused production delays while slow-moving inventory tied up working capital.
Sales had no visibility into production capacity or lead times, leading to unreliable delivery commitments. Margin analysis by product line was not possible due to inaccurate costing.
Our Approach
- We began with a deep-dive into manufacturing processes covering product engineering, BOM structures, routing operations, shop floor workflows, and quality inspection requirements.
- A fit-gap analysis mapped every process against BC Premium’s manufacturing capabilities.
- Special attention was paid to engineer-to-order workflows where custom pump configurations required dynamic BOM generation and non-standard routing sequences.
- We designed a solution allowing sales engineers to configure products using standard sub-assemblies while accommodating custom specifications.
- Data migration focused on accurate BOM and routing setup, item costing (standard cost with periodic revaluation), and open order migration.
Solution Delivered
- Manufacturing (BC Premium): Multi-level Production BOMs with version management for standard pump models and sub-assemblies (impellers, casings, seals, motors, drive assemblies). Routings with work centre and machine centre definitions covering CNC machining, casting, assembly, testing, and painting operations. Production Orders (Planned, Firm Planned, Released) with automatic BOM and routing explosion, material availability checks, and capacity scheduling. MRP configured with reorder policies, safety stock levels, lead times, and lot-for-lot planning for high-value castings. Capacity planning across work centres with finite loading to prevent over-scheduling of bottleneck operations (CNC and test bench). Engineer-to-Order support using Production BOM copy-and-modify workflows with non-standard item creation.
- Quality Control: Custom QC module integrated with purchasing (incoming inspection of castings, seals, raw materials) and production (in-process and final assembly inspection). QC hold functionality preventing uninspected goods from being consumed or shipped. Test parameter definitions covering dimensional accuracy, pressure testing, flow rate verification, and material certification. Certificate of Conformance generation for compliance documentation.
- Supply Chain & Finance: Procurement with blanket orders for high-volume casting suppliers, automated requisition generation from MRP, and 3-way matching. Inventory with lot tracking for castings and serialization for finished pump assemblies. Standard costing with periodic revaluation, WIP tracking, and variance analysis (material, capacity, subcontracting). Multi-dimensional reporting by product line, customer segment, and project. Sales Order processing with Available-to-Promise (ATP) checks against production schedule and inventory.
Key Outcomes
- Production planning moved from reactive to MRP-driven proactive planning, reducing material stockouts by approximately 70%.
- Real-time WIP cost tracking across all production stages achieved for the first time.
- On-time delivery improved from approximately 72% to over 92% within 3 months of go-live.
- Accurate product-level margin analysis enabled data-driven pricing decisions.
- Inventory turns improved by approximately 25% through MRP-driven procurement and safety stock optimization.
- End-to-end quality traceability from raw material lot to finished serial number, supporting customer audit requirements.
Technology Stack
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Premium (SaaS), Custom AL Extensions (QC Module), BC Manufacturing Module (BOMs, Routings, Production Orders, MRP, Capacity), Power BI for production dashboards and margin analysis.
Use when
Prospect is a manufacturer (discrete or process) struggling with production planning, BOM management, capacity constraints, or costing accuracy.
Client Testimonial
