Specialty products and formulations company aligns finance, operations, and supply chain management globally with Dynamics 365

For more than 60 years, Horsham, Pennsylvania–based CRC Industries has produced specialty products and formulations for the automotive, industrial, marine, aviation, and other markets. It operates 26 facilities and seven manufacturing sites worldwide and sells its products in more than 120 countries. CRC had been using many different business solutions for finance, operations, and supply chain management in its regions around the globe. None of its older, diverse solutions were in the cloud.

The company’s growth goals led CRC to start standardizing its systems. “We made it our goal to standardize our business systems globally. We wanted to put the company on one enterprise resource planning solution throughout the world and have one way of doing business going forward,” says Brent Laurin, Vice President of Global Operations at CRC Industries. “We considered another system but chose Microsoft Dynamics 365 because it gives us the capability and flexibility to make decisions that let us grow not only by acquisition but also organically.” The company uses Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management.

One source of truth

CRC initially deployed Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management in its Americas locations so that it could optimize efficiency, especially in its operations and finance processes, and then roll it out to its other regions. Currently, CRC is live with Microsoft Dynamics 365 in the Americas and Asia-Pacific, with the remaining global footprint of Europe, the Middle East, India, and South Africa expected to be on Dynamics 365 by mid-2022.

The company’s IT staff got assistance from Microsoft FastTrack for Dynamics 365 experts, who help customers deploy Microsoft cloud solutions, and the product engineering team. “Working with the FastTrack and other Microsoft engineers greatly improved our ability to get security and a lot of standard features up and moving,” says William McLendon, Global Manager Business Applications at CRC Industries. “The Australia and New Zealand implementations ran more smoothly with their help.”

Previously, CRC’s global facilities all ran on independent financials. Each region had to create and build reporting for month-end, quarter-end, and year-end, and then roll that data up via Oracle’s Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) app. Says McLendon, “We use Dynamics 365 to streamline our financial reporting into a single source of financial information. It’s what we constantly refer to in business as one source of truth.”

Easier to manufacture and sell products in different countries

CRC also uses Dynamics 365 to simplify operations throughout its products’ life cycles. With its quality control, cost control, and material requirements planning fully integrated within Dynamics 365, the company can now better control inputs into manufacturing and manage each of its products from infancy until CRC no longer sells or uses it.

The company frequently manufactures a product in one region and sells it in another, and adopting Dynamics 365 widely helps CRC manage relationships across regions. If a product is manufactured in the United States that customers in one of the company’s other regions needs, CRC can support that demand with its US product more easily now. That’s because employees in different regions all use Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management to coordinate planning and logistics, get real-time information about production and supply, and handle other aspects of international manufacturing and distribution—all in the one system.

CRC supports its sales and operational reporting using Microsoft Power BI analytics. CRC has also started working with Microsoft Power Apps and Microsoft Power Automate, which the company can use to quickly create apps and streamline processes to solve problems and boost efficiency.

Better planning and management of resources and inventory

CRC has seen significant improvements from using Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management. “Over the last three years, our on-hand carrying costs of raw materials at Dynamics 365–implemented locations have lowered each year because we’re able to bring them in closer to when we need them and more accurately determine the quantity we need,” says Laurin.

The advanced warehouse management module, part of Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, provides real-time data on CRC’s storage, movement, and inventory availability. CRC uses the module for accounting, cycle counting, adjustments, and balances of stock levels. Previously, employees used disparate on-premises systems that did not integrate.

Not keeping extra inventory in stock for longer than necessary frees up both inventory and available working capital for the company to use in more strategic ways. It also streamlines both the process of ordering from vendors and pricing agreements. “We can make our pricing negotiations more accurate because we have a better view through Supply Chain Management of what we need and what the demand is,” says Laurin.

CRC uses the application’s materials resource planning capability to manufacture products with shorter lead times and optimal safety margins. Continues McLendon, “We plan on a daily basis and determine the needs of the business with less overstock and a greater increase in terms of inventory moving through the warehouse.”

Capabilities to reduce environmental impact and make compliance easier

When CRC went live with Dynamics 365, it had to continue to use a third-party vendor to manage documentation for hazardous materials shipping. Desiring an intergraded solution, CRC began working with Microsoft to create a module that supports this need directly in Dynamics 365.

“The success story is that Microsoft is working with us to develop hazardous materials documentation capabilities for Dynamics 365,” says McLendon. “We’re in the testing phase now, and as soon as testing of the module is finished, we will begin using it, as this module is critical for a company shipping hazardous goods.”

“Microsoft really listens to us as a customer and works to meet our needs, and we look forward to the solution becoming standard Dynamics 365 functionality,” continues McLendon. “The new module makes it straightforward to ship hazardous materials with Dynamics 365 out of the box.”

Reduced complexity, increased flexibility  

With the Dynamics 365 mobile and cloud-based capabilities, CRC warehouse employees process items faster, sales reps access data from anywhere, and financial and IT staff check information at a moment’s notice. According to Brian Murtaugh, Chief Financial Officer at CRC Industries, the company’s data is standardized, easier to retrieve, and easier to maintain now. “There’s a reduced complexity in our financials, and we appreciate the potential to grow and flex that we get with Dynamics 365,” he says.

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