Thursday 21 January 2010

Partner Certification Training - Lean Manufacturing for Microsoft Dynamics AX

Please make plans to join us in Chicago, March 8th-12th, 2010 for Lean Manufacturing for Microsoft Dynamics AX Training and Certification. The five-day Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 offering introduces Lean Principles and how Lean Manufacturing for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 may be positioned to demonstrate the benefits of Lean Manufacturing over traditional Production methods in a sales engagement.

This course is also designed to provide partners with the tools to demonstrate functionality within Lean Manufacturing for Microsoft Dynamics AX.

With Lean Manufacturing for Dynamics AX 2009, organizations have the tools needed to help remove waste by reducing their non-value adding business transactions and improving their ROI. This course offers an overview of the Microsoft Dynamics AX Lean Manufacturing functionality and how to leverage this functionality in a sales opportunity.

Upon completion of this course, attendees will understand the various components of Lean Manufacturing for Microsoft Dynamics AX and how to demonstrate these effectively to a potential customer.

The cost per participant for the 5 day course is now discounted to $1375.

To find out more please join The Lean Centre of Excellence and view the event details.


To register please visit the

Microsoft Partner Learning Centre

Microsoft requires partners to have at least 2 employees attend the certification program and pass their certification test to fulfil the requirements to sell Lean Manufacturing for Microsoft Dynamics AX.


Future Training and bespoke offering
The next training dates in the US currently planned to take place are June 14th-18th, 2010 in Atlanta. On site partner training is also available at a cost of $10,000 for the 5 day programme, to register your interest for the above training date or to enquire about training specific to your partner organisation please email partner@ebecs.com

Free Introductory training Video
Please visit the Lean Centre of Excellence to view an introductory training video featuring eBECS Solutions Director and Microsoft Dynamics AX Lean Manufacturing original solution architect, Andrew Rumney. Andrew will guide you with an explanation of the lean concepts using practical demonstrations (pull and flow). The master class also includes a step by step Kanban demonstration, establishing a finished goods buffer and customer pull scenario.

Follow up course available "Implementing a Lean Enterprise on Dynamics AX"
In addition to the certification course, a one week follow-up course is available for attendees who have already completed the certification course. This 5-day classroom based course "Implementing a Lean Enterprise on Dynamics AX" will build on the certification class and include an introduction to the additional capability that eBECS provides. The course will provide attendees the opportunity to practice their knowledge on more advanced case studies. This is not a certification requirement, but is strongly recommended for those consultants who will be expected to install and configure the Lean Manufacturing module following a successful sales engagement.

eBECS Sales and Implementation Support Service
It may take some time for partners to achieve certification and it maybe that some partners, whilst interested in including Lean in their marketing campaigns, will not want to undertake the certification program. To help partners either as an interim support mechanism or as a longer term relationship, eBECS provides a sales and implementation support service agreed uniquely with each partner. For more information on this please get in touch with us at partner@ebecs.com to understand how this can work for your partner organisation.

Monday 4 January 2010

Managing Lean Manufacturing using Microsoft Dynamics AX2009 by Scott Hamilton – a review!

This book contains exactly what the title suggests, if you have knowledge of lean principles and an interest in using Microsoft Dynamics AX in a manufacturing environment this book is essential reading.

The recently released Lean module for Microsoft Dynamics AX2009 gives manufacturing organisations a choice as to how they implement production within their ERP system. There is now an alternative to the traditional manufacturing approaches involving planned orders generated by master planning. Kanbans or lean orders can now be used instead; the new Lean module makes these visible within the ERP environment. There are a number of potentially confusing and conflicting choices to be made in this Lean software environment, and Scott Hamilton guides the reader as they set about commencing their lean journey.

Lean principles are generally based around the concept of a pull generated from sales demand. This creates the need to manufacture, purchase or move products and components to satisfy the demand. This is straight forward to comprehend in a make to order organisation, but what happens where organisations hold stocks of finished goods or semi-finished components? In most manufacturing organisations this will be the case. This book explains the alternatives available and how to mix the different possible approaches.

What about the traditional ERP tools such as Master Planning, Forecasts, Routings and Planned Orders? Are these all redundant in an AX2009 Lean implementation? My view is generally not. In his earlier book “Managing Your Supply chain Using Microsoft Dynamics AX2009” Scott Hamilton demonstrated a thorough understanding of all of these principles and this enables him to explain concisely how they all can have a place alongside the new Lean tools. It is to be expected that most organisations will want to use existing traditional approaches alongside Lean principles; the reader is guided in the way a company may do this.

There are two things which this book is not. It is not an introduction to Lean. There are many other titles which will introduce the reader to Lean. My personal recommendations would be “The Goal” by Eli Goldratt and “Lean Thinking” by Womack and Jones. You really need to read books similar to these before considering the detail of how to implement the Microsoft AX2009 Lean module. Nor does this book replace the software documentation that is available for the AX2009 Lean module. It is up to the reader whether they read Scott Hamilton’s book before or after they study the software documentation. I would recommend an iterative approach. Start by making yourself aware of the options available within the software documentation. Then I would read the book to work out what is relevant for your particular organisation. Identify the most relevant sections of the software and then undertake appropriate hands on training using the documentation. Finally I would revisit the book to confirm that a thorough understanding has been obtained.

This book concentrates on the aspects of Lean which users will probably be interested in first. This is specifically Kanbans which are covered in great detail. Other topics such as Lean Order Schedules and Lean Accounting are included but in less depth. Understandably the scope is limited to the current Microsoft release of the Lean module and does not extend to include the additional functionality available from eBECS in their lean add-on modules.

In summary this book is an invaluable resource in understanding the new AX2009 Lean module, we should be grateful that it is available so soon after the release of the software. The text is concise and factual and the many diagrams explain the scenarios and tools available. To read what other people think of this book I suggest you consider the reviews available on www.amazon.com.

Please let us all know what you think by adding to this blog.

The Lean Management Journal (LMJ)

In January 2010 the new journal dedicated to cross sector lean knowledge sharing, The Lean Management Journal (LMJ), will publish Andrew Rumneys article "Now is the time to lean IT!". The article takes a look at how lean ERP can play an important role in facilitating a company's lean journey and argues that it is time eBECS style solutions were regarded as part of the essential lean toolkit for improvement projects.To see the article sign up for a free trial issue of LMJ or subscribe: www.leanmj.com