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Microsoft Great Plains in Aerospace & Defense industries - implementation & customization highlights
By Andrew Karasev
Microsoft Great Plains
fits horizontal markets clientele and in case of Aerospace and Defense industry
we’ll talk about contractors – parts and subsystems for government contracts.
We do not necessarily talk about large corporation, however models described
could be implemented for large publicly traded company. As a rule – market is
represented by established companies with long history, including long history
of its ERP and Computer Business System. It is difficult to stake on the
computer operating systems future, however you may try to give high level of
trust to the ERP coming from Microsoft Business Solutions, especially
considering the fact of acquisition of such market leaders as Great Plains
Software and Navision Software.
Service Model.
Typically your product has service contract with hourly or annual payments and
you track repair and preventive maintenance cases, have a list of replacement
parts. Microsoft Great Plains has several options to automate these
services. You can use customized version of Inventory Control Module, where
you track serial/lot number, locations, item replacements, etc. In Great
Plains Dexterity you can write light customization, tracking service cycle.
Another way is to deploy Field Service suite, where you have Service Call
Management, Contract Administration, Preventive Maintenance, Return Management
as well as a set of eXXX modules such as eService Call, eReturn. You usually
have to tailor these modules to fit your unique requirements – do it via
Dexterity, VBA/Modifier, SQL Stored Procedures or Web Application, working
with Inventory and Field Service tables. Assuming your product has serial
number – then by looking up serial number you can see all the service history.
Bidding. Great Plains Sales Order Processing (SOP) module allows you to
have Quotes, Sales Orders, Invoices. You might need bidding and negotiation
documentation system. In the case of
Great Plains the best and future-oriented
approach is to implement Sales side in Microsoft CRM, integrated with Great
Plains via MS CRM-GP integration tool. All the calls and emails, plus
contracts will be logged and documented in MS CRM and quotes are moved to or
from Great Plains
Purchasing. Your company might use tenders procedure and you would need
requisition, proposals and quotes against the requisition, then purchase order
and receiving. Deploy Requisition Management and Purchase Order Processing/
Receiving modules
HR.
If you have unionized employees – you may need to take a look at HR module,
where you track employees certification, skills, training programs, hiring
process and promotions
ISO 9000. You can cover ISO compliance reporting, assuming that you have
either customized Inventory Control system or Field Service suite
implemented. The best and recommended reporting tool – Crystal Reports.
Usually you create SQL views and stored procedures and base your Crystal
Report on these views and procs.
Technology Advise.
When you implement your new
system and making modifications to the existing one - you should try to
predict which technology will stay for maximum number of years, plus you
should try to avoid dependence on one vendor/provider - if you need to change
Microsoft Business Solutions partner - how difficult to find new one with
technical skills and customization expertise to maintain and further advance
your custom system?
We encourage you to analyze your
alternatives. You can always appeal to our help, give us a call: 1-866-528-0577
or 1-630-961-5918,
help@albaspectrum.com About the Author Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer at
Alba Spectrum Technologies (
http://www.albaspectrum.com ), serving Microsoft Great Plains, CRM, Navision
to mid-size and large clients in California, Illinois, New York, Georgia,
Florida, Texas, Arizona, Washington, Minnesota, Ohio, Michigan
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