IBCS Poland

IBCS Poland is a provider of solutions to optimize coordination processes in the supply chain area with almost 20 years of experience. More information regarding the company can be found on: ibcs.pl

IBCS Poland IBCS Poland is a provider of solutions to optimize coordination processes in the supply chain area with almost 20 years of experience. More information regarding the company can be found on: ibcs.pl

Implementation scope

IBCS Poland was using the Dynamics Navision 2016 version. The purpose of the implementation was the move to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, along with transferring of data and users. The decision to change was related to the end of support for Dynamics Navision and the planned changes in the requirements for the generation of SAFT files.

Users highly rated the functionality, reliability and fast performance of the previous system, so the option to completely change the software was rejected. The system upgrade, in addition to resolving support issues, also made it possible to use the current web version of the system, which proved to be important in changing standards of work organization. The final objective was to change the technology used while maintaining the lines of the legacy system.

Challenges and dedicated options

The nature of the provided services required preparation of dedicated templates for warehouse documents, printing layouts and reports adapted to the company’s internal standards. It was also necessary to organize a heavily expanded database while maintaining access to those necessary to maintain continuity of business processes.

In the standard functionality of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, an inventory journal is available in which any inventory operation can be recorded. However, for each line recorded in the journal, the parameters of the operations and posting must be set individually. Dedicated feature of definable inventory documents eliminates this inconvenience, providing the support for warehouse documents even in the basic version of the system. Based on the mentioned above inventory log and on document templates, in which it is necessary to define the rules for managing these documents in the system. Also, one must specify the names of the documents in the system, their types and the types of entries that result from their posting. In the templates certain default values can be set, which will fill in automatically when the document is created. In these definitions, also the numbering series and report identifiers are definable, which are responsible for the printing of the documents.

The functionality provides definitions of basic warehouse documents such as: Warehouse Receipt, Warehouse Release, Warehouse Movement, Internal Inflow, Internal Outflow.

As a part of the implementation, the possibility of defining other types of inventory documents has been made available to authorised users of the ERP system, using the possibilities offered by the dedicated solution.

“A number of modifications had been previously prepared in IBCS, which were then, in subsequent upgrades, conducted. For this reason, we had to prepare accordingly and adapt the latest version of Business Central, transfer those modifications that had been used at this point into it. This also involved proper preparation, which is why we held several meetings where we decided to use the opening balance sheet, which made it possible to tidy up the database a little on this occasion. The consultants also identified the modifications that would need to be adapted on the recent version, so they were prepared in such way that, once transferred from NAV 2016 to Business Central, they could be implemented, launched and evaluated in this new version.”

 Mariusz Żyga, Senior ERP Consultant, has been working with ERP systems since 1995

Additional tools launched during implementation

The move to a modern version of the system provided the opportunity to use off-the-shelf tools to support business analytics. Therefore, during the implementation, the previously used report design and generation toll was changed to PowerBI flexible business reports.

Implementation time

The analysis of needs and functionality adjustments, implementation preparation and launch took 6 months.
Timeline with work steps:

Benefits of the changes

Since the 1 of January 2021, 26 users have been using the system in the new version. Working with the latest version has been proved to be easy, as the user interface has not changed much. Post-implementation training also accelerated the adaptation process and allowed the new functionalities to be actively used.