What is Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management?
Microsoft's enterprise supply chain app — manufacturing, warehouse, transportation, planning, and asset management at scale.
Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management (SCM) is Microsoft's enterprise-grade application for procurement, manufacturing, inventory, warehousing, transportation, and master planning. Like Dynamics 365 Finance, it descends from Dynamics AX, and is built for organisations whose operational complexity has outgrown Business Central — multi-site manufacturers, large distributors, retailers, and process industries.
Inventory and warehouse. Item master with sophisticated dimensions (size, colour, configuration, batch, serial, owner), multi-site warehousing, and full Warehouse Management with handheld scanning, wave management, configurable workflows, license plate tracking, and slotting. Supports inventory ownership scenarios including consignment.
Procurement. Vendor catalogues, sourcing, requisitions with approvals, RFQ, purchase agreements, vendor collaboration portal, and three-way matching. Integration to Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability for emissions tracking is available.
Manufacturing. Discrete, process, and lean modes can coexist. Production BOMs, formulas (for process), routings, work and resource groups, finite scheduling, subcontracting, co-products and by-products, batch attributes, catch weight, and shop floor control are all in the box. Engineering change management and product lifecycle services support engineer-to-order.
Master planning. A high-performance, in-memory Planning Optimization service replaces the older MRP engine, running net change or full regenerative plans at scale across hundreds of sites. Demand forecasting and demand planning modules layer on top.
Transportation. Inbound and outbound transportation with rate calculation, route planning, load building, freight reconciliation, and shipping-carrier integration.
Asset management. Maintenance work orders, preventive maintenance, condition-based monitoring, and IoT integration for industrial assets — increasingly important for asset-heavy operations.
Planning across the supply chain. Intelligent Order Management (sold separately) sits in front of SCM to orchestrate orders across channels and fulfilment locations.
Architecture. SCM and Finance share a single application core and database (the Finance and Operations apps), so deploying both gives a unified back office without integration. They share Dataverse via Dual-write for cross-app integration with the CRM-side modules.
Licensing. Per user, typically alongside Finance. Implementations are large multi-month projects led by global SIs.
Related guides
- Data entities and the Data Management FrameworkHow bulk data import, export, and integration work in Dynamics 365 Finance and SCM — entities, projects, and the recurring integration pattern.
- Dual-write integration between F&O and DataverseHow Microsoft's Dual-write framework synchronises Finance/SCM data with Dataverse — table maps, initial sync, and operational realities.
- Finance and Operations and the Power PlatformHow Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain extend through the Power Platform — virtual entities, Power Automate, Power Apps, and AI Builder.
- Lifecycle Services (LCS) explainedWhat LCS does for Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain projects — workspaces, environments, deployable packages, BPM, and support.
- Master Data Services vs Dual-Write for Dynamics 365How Master Data Services and Dual-Write differ as integration patterns between F&O and Dataverse — strengths, weaknesses, and the architectural choices.