Case study · Manufacturing
D365 F&O implementation across 7 plants for a global manufacturer.
A global manufacturer running AX 2012 and a competing legacy ERP needed to consolidate onto a single platform that could scale across seven plants in four countries. The constraint that mattered: the business couldn't tolerate unplanned downtime on financial close or production-order processing.
- Client
- Global manufacturer(anon.)
- Industry
- Manufacturing
- Duration
- 14 months
- Team
- 9 senior engineers + ATLAS & CITADEL co-pilots
The challenge
What stood in the way.
The manufacturer ran AX 2012 in North America and a competing legacy ERP in Europe: both customized heavily, both falling out of vendor support, both increasingly expensive to operate. Consolidation onto Dynamics 365 F&O was the strategic decision; the execution had to land without disrupting production.
- AX 2012 (NA) and competitor ERP (EU): different data models, different process variants
- SOX-grade financial close and segregation-of-duties requirements
- Multi-currency consolidation across USD, EUR, GBP, CAD
- Integrated EAM (asset management) tied to plant-floor PLCs and MES
- No tolerance for production downtime during cutover
Our approach
How we framed it.
We designed the rollout as a phased program with explicit per-plant cutover windows. Each plant ran a dual-write window of 6–10 weeks where transactions wrote to both legacy and D365, with daily reconciliation reports validating data parity. Plants moved to D365-as-source-of-truth only after three consecutive weeks of reconciliation passes.
Architecture before configuration
We documented the to-be data model, integration topology, and customization boundaries before any system configuration started. Customizations stayed in extension models with explicit upgrade impact documented; no global-scope changes that would block continuous-upgrade discipline.
SOX evidence collection from day one
Segregation of duties enforced through Microsoft Entra ID and D365 security roles. Every change went through Azure DevOps with documented approval gates. Audit evidence pipeline produced what external auditors expected as a side-effect of operating the system.
The solution
What we built.
The deployed estate: D365 F&O for finance, supply chain, and EAM across all seven plants; D365 CE for sales and customer service; Power BI on a governed semantic layer for executive reporting; integration through Azure Logic Apps and Service Bus to MES, plant-floor SCADA, and the customer's data warehouse.
- D365 F&O across 7 plants, 4 currencies, 3 legal entity hierarchies
- Power BI semantic layer for SOX-defensible executive reporting
- Azure Logic Apps + Service Bus integration to MES (Aspen, Wonderware) and SCADA
- Phased rollout: NA pilot plant → 3 NA plants wave 1 → EU wave 2 → final consolidation wave
- Continuous-upgrade discipline: scoped extensions only, ATF tests on every release
Results
What changed.
Fourteen months after kickoff, all seven plants ran on D365 F&O with no unplanned production downtime through the cutover. Month-end close time fell 38% on the consolidated entity vs the prior dual-stack baseline. The customer's external auditors completed the post-implementation SOX review in two weeks vs the six they'd budgeted.
- −38% month-end close time on the consolidated reporting hierarchy
- All 7 plants on D365 F&O within 14 months
- Zero unplanned production downtime through the cutover sequence
- External auditor SOX review completed in 2 weeks (6 budgeted)
- License consolidation produced $1.8M annualized savings vs prior dual-stack
Stack
Tools used in production.
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&O
- D365 CE
- Power BI
- Power Platform
- Azure Logic Apps
- Azure Service Bus
- Microsoft Entra ID
- Azure DevOps
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