Key Takeaways
- Copilot in Business Central delivers real, measurable ROI for manufacturers, from major time savings to improved forecasting, scheduling, and documentation.
- The secret to successful AI adoption is a strong data foundation — unified, cloud-ready data allows Copilot to deliver accurate insights and automate workflows.
- Manufacturers adopting Copilot today gain a competitive edge in efficiency, agility, and decision-making while reducing waste, downtime, and manual work.
Many people say half the fun of a vacation is in the anticipation — talking about it, planning it, imagining the experience. But at some point, you want the real thing.
Manufacturers have been in that anticipation phase with AI for a while, and though there’s plenty of appeal in dreaming big, the time has come for action. Major players across the industry have developed powerful AI tools built specifically for manufacturing workflows, and Gartner predicts that manufacturers who adopt those tools now will gain a serious edge in efficiency, agility, and resilience.
Microsoft Copilot in Dynamics 365 Business Center is a clear example of that shift. Manufacturers are using it right now to improve planning, decision-making, and performance.
Why Manufacturers Are Investing in AI Right Now
Over the first half of the decade, manufacturers have dealt with pressure from every angle, including:
- Ongoing labor shortages and skills gaps
- Volatile supply chains that demand faster and more decisive problem-solving
The bad news is that that’s a lot of pressure. The good news is that all those things are ideal use cases for AI-powered tools. As Gartner observes, proper AI adoption is always geared towards operational outcomes; it’s about making processes more reliable, consistent, efficient, and data-driven. And right now, Copilot in Business Central is one of the very best options for doing exactly that.
What Makes Copilot in Business Central Different?
AI projects can be daunting, not only because a big swing and a miss would be difficult to recover from, but because there are a lot of moving parts that may or may not actually fit together. One major benefit of Copilot in Business Central is that it’s not an add-on and doesn’t require a separate deployment. Rather, it’s built into daily workflows and knows exactly what to do with your existing BC data. Since it’s designed for ERP-native work such as planning, production, procurement, and finance, there’s a much lower barrier to implementation and a much more immediate return on your investment than the typical built-from-scratch AI plugin.
The productivity and efficiency gains a manufacturer can achieve with Copilot aren’t theoretical – they’re tangible. For example:
- Honeywell employees report saving an average of 92 minutes per week.
- PGP Glass estimates 30-40 minutes of increased productivity per day.
- Toshiba is saving 5.6 hours per month, per employee.
- Volvo estimates that they’ve saved over 10,000 manual hours on document processing and data extraction tasks.
Copilot is already having a quantifiable impact on major manufacturing brands, and Microsoft has 996 more success stories where those came from.
Practical Use Cases for Copilot in Manufacturing Today
According to Microsoft, manufacturers are achieving 3.4 times ROI on their AI projects, and it’s because Copilot has so many useful applications, including:
- Production planning and scheduling. With Copilot, manufacturers can quickly gather data on capacity, material availability, and other constraints to generate the most efficient possible production schedule. This also makes it easier to respond when disruptions like machine downtime and supplier delays happen; Copilot can simply adjust schedules on the fly, minimizing negative impacts.
- Forecasting and demand planning. Copilotcan combine historical data with seasonal factors, customer trends, and known constraints to provide highly accurate predictive insights. What’s going to start selling quickly? What’s about to slow down? With Copilot on high alert, manufacturers can reduce both stockouts and waste from overproduction without the stress and guesswork.
- Inventory and materials management. Copilot can keep production on track with smart recommendations for material reorder points, safety stock, and optimal replenishment. Plus, improved material traceability supports ESG initiatives.
- Procurement optimization. Manufacturers can use Copilot to supplement their human expertise and instincts with data-driven insights on supplier risks and cost drivers. Who’s really reliable? Who’s offering a better deal when you dig into the details? Once the best option is identified, Copilot can also draft purchase orders, flag anomalies, and suggest alternative orders.
- Quality and compliance documentation. Quality assurance and compliance are key, but they generate a lot of paperwork, which can fill even the most capable employee with dread. Copilot cuts down on the tedium by automatically generating inspection summaries, compliance forms, and batch documentation. With less need for manual reporting, workers can move on to more productive and fulfilling tasks, and errors are much more likely to be caught by Copilot’s perpetually fresh eyes than by a human who’s been dotting i’s and crossing t’s for a couple of hours.
- Financial and operational reporting. Copilot’s ability to accurately respond to natural language queries means you no longer need to come up with the perfect search term or navigate through labyrinthine spreadsheets to find the right answer. You can simply type, for example, “Show me variances in last month’s production costs,” and Copilot will retrieve exactly what you’re looking for. And because Copilot can generate financial and operational reports in an instant, executives don’t need to wait around to make vital business decisions.
To Get the Most Out of AI, Manufacturers Need a Strong Data Foundation
If your company already has its data structured and connected in the Cloud with Business Central, you’re ahead of the game. You could implement Copilot and start taking advantage of all those capabilities today. But if your ERP setup isn’t fully modernized yet, you’ll have some work to do. Business Central brings all your production, inventory, finance, and supply chain data together so that Copilot can see the full picture, all at once. If you’ve got key data hidden in far-flung parts of your on-premises server, it doesn’t matter how powerful your AI tools are. They’ll essentially be flying blind.
To start getting benefits from Copilot, manufacturers need to:
- Modernize their data, taking them out of department-specific silos and unifying them in a well-structured repository.
- Implement Business Central or ensure their BC instance is Cloud-ready.
- Prioritize AI use cases that will have the highest impact on their business, whether it’s production planning, demand forecasting, supplier management, or something else.
- Train teams on how to leverage AI-assisted workflows. After all, using AI tools is a skill, just like anything else.
- Measure early wins to build excitement and momentum. When they see how much time they can save, as they did at Honeywell and Volvo, employees will get on board in a big way.
That’s a long to-do list, but you don’t have to tackle it on your own.
Maximizing AI with Enavate
At Enavate, we’ve helped countless clients clean up their data, migrate it to the Cloud, and implement Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central with industry-specific customizations. But our work doesn’t stop there: we also provide change management services to ensure successful, widespread adoption. We’ve already helped many manufacturers optimize Copilot in BC to achieve their efficiency, sustainability, and cost-reduction goals.
If you’re looking for a proactive technology partner who can set you up for AI success now and in the future, reach out to our expert team today.
