🛡️ Welcome to the
AxmedJay Journey
Managing physical assets isn't just about acquisition — it's
about optimizing their usage, minimizing downtime, and integrating maintenance
activities with financial and production planning.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 SCM Asset Management module extends far
beyond simple work orders. It connects with Fixed Assets for cost visibility,
automates maintenance forecasts, and even impacts production scheduling through
smart capacity reservation.
In this blog, we’ll dive into how Asset Management works across acquisition, maintenance cost control, fault prediction, spare parts forecasting, and production resource planning. Let’s connect the full lifecycle of assets, from purchase to retirement.
Why Asset Management Integration Matters
Imagine a manufacturing company with:
- Hundreds
of machines (assets) needing regular maintenance
- Production
schedules that depend on those machines' availability
- Strict
cost tracking requirements for asset maintenance and depreciation
Without an integrated system:
- Maintenance
could interrupt production unexpectedly.
- Maintenance
costs would be hidden and not linked to asset value.
- Spare
parts planning would be manual, slow, and error-prone.
With D365 Asset Management + Fixed Assets + Project
Integration:
- Maintenance
costs are tied directly to asset value and tracked financially.
- Downtime
is scheduled, visible in production planning (GANTT chart).
- Parts
and resources are automatically forecasted and reserved.
Typical Questions
1.
Acquisition
a.
How are they related to fixed assets
and then the acquisition of the asset?
·
We can acquire directly into fixed
asset and then we can link an Asset to a Fixed asset.
·
The Assets can be linked with Fixed
assets, but the acquisition of assets have no link with Asset Management.
·
Fixed assets users can create a
maintenance asset from a new or existing fixed asset, and Asset management
users can associate a maintenance asset with an existing fixed asset.
·
This feature also makes it easy for Fixed
assets users to view the costs that were posted from work orders for related
maintenance assets.
·
There is a functionality known as
Asset Items in Asset management, we can set up the items to be used for
creating assets from a purchase order in Asset items. After
creating a purchase order line, we can create the assets in Pending
assets.
Asset
items
Pending
assets
Fault
knowledge base
b. Is it possible to create a knowledge base that will tell the engineer
the problem based on a fault code etc?
·
Yes, it can be based on job type,
specific to an Asset or in general.
·
Asset documents can be created based
on different combinations i.e. Asset type, Model, Asset, Job type, and Trade.
Asset documents
·
Whenever the workorder which such
job is created the asset document is attached as default.
2.
Work orders
a.
How can we see the total maintenance
cost per asset?
i.
This
was potentially having one project per asset.
·
Costs
per assets can be seen through cost inquiries, in the period how much cost was
made on the assets.
·
It
can be checked in detailed level as part each category, asset type and job type
etc.
Asset Cost Control
·
Moreover,
there is a setup which shows different combinations on the basis of which a
work order can be linked with a project.
·
A
project can be associated with a workorder based on Asset type, work order
type, functional location, and on an Asset separately as well.
Project Setup for Assets
b. Can we see a list of expected parts that will be consumed based on a
service?
·
Yes, we can see the list for that we
need to setup default based on JOB type.
·
Options can be made defaults based
on job type, including items. That must be setup through Job type defaults.
Job
Type Defaults
Default
Forecasts
·
Once we setup the inventory
forecast, the items can be copied to maintenance forecast on the work order.
c.
Linking the downtime into the
production planner’s view
i.
This
was the idea of when a resource is linked to an asset it may show as a capacity
reservation on the resource itself so that production is aware that the
resource is not available for scheduling. It would be good to see an example of
booking a maintenance request, then running scheduling on a production order
and seeing that it doesn’t choose the day the maintenance request is scheduled
for, then run again without the maintenance request and show that it does
choose that date.
·
Resource
capacity reservations can be handled through the Asset management, on the
project that is built and forecast scheduling, we can schedule a resource and
the maintenance activities can be part of resources capacity reservations.
Capacity
Reservations for Resource
·
Once
the capacity for the work order have been reserved through project or Work
order the reservations can be shown through the resource GANT chart.
Resource
view Gant Chart
Key Takeaways:
- Assets
can be acquired and linked to maintenance activities without disrupting
financial tracking.
- Fault
knowledge bases guide engineers toward faster, smarter fixes.
- Total
maintenance cost per asset is easily visible through cost control and
project association.
- Default
spare parts forecasts speed up work order creation and resource planning.
- Capacity
reservations ensure maintenance activities are factored into production
scheduling.
- A
well-managed asset strategy directly protects production output and
financial performance.
Thanks for Walking the Path with AxmedJay
Smart asset management isn't just about fixing what's broken
— it's about predicting, protecting, and optimizing across finance and
operations.
By mastering these D365 capabilities, you’re not just
maintaining machines—you’re safeguarding production, controlling costs, and
strengthening the heartbeat of your business.
Stay tuned for more deep dives where technology meets
real-world impact. Until next time — stay sharp, stay curious, and maintain
the mission.
