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Morton Buildings, A National Construction Leader, Modernizes Finance and Operations with Dynamics365
Discover how Morton Buildings, a leader in post-frame construction, transformed its finance and operations with Dynamics 365. Learn how this modernization delivered real-time insights, streamlined processes, and empowered growth.
Morton Buildings, Inc. is the industry leader in post-frame construction. In business for over a century, Morton has more than a quarter-million customers and a legacy of excellence. The company is known for cutting-edge innovation, high-quality craftsmanship and construction, and best-in-class warranty.
Challenges: An aging, unsupported system causing inefficient operations
Morton had been using Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009, a legacy on-premise ERP suite, since 2011. This was working reasonably well, but over time, the system began to show signs of technical obsolescence, leading to inefficiencies and growing frustrations as the company strived to meet evolving business needs that Dynamics AX 2009 could not handle. This included challenges such as:
Customizations that created complexity. The Dynamics AX system had over 200 customizations that had been built to meet specific business needs. This added complexity and made it difficult to upgrade or change workflows without significant effort and cost.
Risk of system failure. The system’s underlying hardware and servers were outdated, and many components were no longer supported, which put the business at risk.
Inefficiencies in finance. As Morton’s business evolved, the finance team struggled with inefficient processes and outdated system configurations. One of the major challenges was the financial structure, which no longer matched how Morton’s business was managed, creating complex and inefficient processes for handling transactions and reporting. Other necessary improvements centered around the inability to efficiently handle ACH payments, perform inventory valuations, and reporting, all of which were addressed with manual workarounds, inefficient accounting processes, heavy customizations, and third-party tools.
Multiple challenges in operations and project management. The difficulties with outdated software were not limited to the Finance department. In the Operations and Project Management areas, the company faced several challenges, creating bottlenecks impacting the efficiency of the broader business:
- Limited visibility and reporting - Employees needed greater visibility into their data and found it difficult to pull the necessary reports or easily access their data to make timely decisions. Project managers relied on IT, Finance, and third-party tools to generate reports, adding complexity and delays and impacting decision-making. For example, it was difficult for project managers to track budget-to-actual reports or drill down into transaction-level details, hampering their ability to effectively manage project costs or monitor the progress of projects on a day-to-day basis.
- Crew scheduling and customization limitations - Morton’s crew scheduling tool was critical because multiple crews needed to be scheduled for various building projects at any given time. Although it was deeply integrated with Dynamics AX, there were integration challenges with other systems, and the tool was difficult to update.
- Manual and disconnected processes - Operations were heavily reliant on manual processes and workarounds due to the lack of integration. Without efficient integration between project management tools and the broader business systems, for example, there were often delays and inefficiencies in completing internal processes.
- Outdated interface and workflow management - The user experience with their older Dynamics AX system were dated. The legacy interface was not intuitive, requiring considerable effort to navigate and retrieve data, and its complexity required many users to rely on IT to generate reports or retrieve information.
- Project setup inefficiencies – New project setup processes in Dynamics AX were cumbersome, with project creation, customer setup, and the transfer of project data from other systems not well integrated, leading to increased manual data entry.
- Inefficient integrations - The integration between Dynamics AX and other tools was insufficient, creating gaps in information and processes, and forcing manual workarounds.
- Dependence on manual inventory and production processes - Managing production schedules and tracking material usage required manual processes. Plants often relied on paper-based processes or Excel sheets to keep track of inventory and production process when outside of Dynamics AX support.
This was a turning point for the company - it became clear that Dynamics AX was no longer a viable solution. Continuing with it would not only place limitations across all operational areas of the business but also pose a risk, as the system’s underlying database technology was no longer supported and could fail at any time. Morton began looking for a more modern, scalable, cloud platform that could address these issues.
Solution: Dynamics 365 Finance, Projects, and Supply Chain Management for both immediate and long-term benefits
Morton selected Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management as their long-term platform and engaged HSO, who had been their long-term partner since the Dynamics AX implementation, to help manage their implementation. The transition addressed their issues and has been delivering significant benefits to the business, including:
Operations and Project Management
Real-time visibility into data and enhanced reporting: Project managers and operations leaders now have improved visibility into real-time project data, gaining detailed insights into project performance, inventory levels, and production schedules, as well as easy access to budget-to-actual reports, transaction histories, and project status. This transparency improves project management and cost tracking and keeps projects on schedule. The user-friendly interface and built-in reporting tools enable project managers to self-serve their data, reducing their reliance on IT or Finance to generate reports and helping them make faster decisions.
The more modern integration framework between Dynamics 365 and other Morton tools is significantly better. "Dynamics 365’s ability to integrate seamlessly with the other systems we use here in-house gives us the flexibility we need to adapt to changes in the business,” said Chris McLean, Senior Manager of IT.
One example of business improvements from better integration is with the company’s Configure, Price and Quote (CPQ) tool. When a project is sold, the CPQ tool automatically creates a project in Dynamics 365, complete with all relevant customer and project details. It sends a forecasted BOM and the expected ship date to the system, ensuring that manufacturing plants have visibility into demand from the start. This has streamlined the project setup process, eliminating many manual steps and reducing delays.
Enhanced crew scheduling: While the company ultimately built a new scheduling tool outside of Dynamics 365, a key improvement came from Dynamics 365’s enhanced integration capabilities with the newly built scheduling tool, enabling better data flow. The operations team can now see in real-time which of the hundreds of crews are scheduled for which jobs, significantly improving the efficiency and accuracy of crew assignments.
Automated inventory management: The operations team can now track batches of materials, using unique identifiers, which allows them to trace materials throughout the production process. This capability is especially important for warranty claims and quality control, as it enables fast identification of where specific materials have been used. By using handheld devices integrated with Dynamics 365, workflows have been optimized, increasing efficiency levels on the shop floor. These handheld scanners are used to update inventory and production data in real-time, reducing errors and providing more accurate, up-to-date information.
Efficient production and supply chain management: Supply chain visibility and production planning have also been improved. When a project is sold and the forecasted BOM is sent to the system, plants are immediately alerted to future demand. As the project’s ship date approaches, the BOM is reviewed and finalized by estimators, and a BOM release is triggered to signal the plant to begin production. This integration between project management and production ensures that the right materials are produced and ready to ship at the right time. The operations team also benefited from more detailed tracking of production workflows, with Dynamics 365 making it easier to monitor inventory levels and the status of production activities.
Finance
Improved financial reporting and access to data: "One of the unexpected benefits we found is that Dynamics 365 makes it easy to extract data—even large data sets like production orders and journal entries—into Excel, which is what we like to do for ad hoc analysis,” said Controller Brian Hays. “We can now easily and quickly extract data on our own using standard functionality in Dynamics 365.” This eliminates the need for third-party tools and manual workarounds and improves data accuracy. The finance team is now more self-sufficient, reducing their reliance on IT for routine data extraction and enabling quicker access to financial information for decision-making.
Consolidation of companies: In their legacy Dynamics AX system, the finance team had to manage various operating companies within the system, which required them to pull data and run reports multiple times. Switching to Dynamics 365 and consolidating all entities into a single company allowed the team to simplify this structure, streamlining GL processes as well as reporting, data retrieval, and cash collections.
Automated inventory valuation: In the previous Dynamics AX system, the finance team had to use an internally developed report from IT that manually calculated FIFO (First In, First Out) inventory valuation, as Dynamics AX used standard cost accounting. With Dynamics 365, they are now able to automate their inventory valuation directly in the system. This eliminated the need for internally developed IT reports that had manual calculations, providing timely inventory data.
ACH payment functionality: Dynamics 365 allows the finance team to handle ACH payments more efficiently. The system’s capability to process ACH payments gave them the opportunity to modernize their treasury and payment operations, which had been lacking in the old Dynamics AX system.
Adaptability and scalability with low-code: Some of the biggest benefits come from Microsoft’s low-code Power Platform, which opened new possibilities for the finance team to automate and enhance their processes further. With Power Platform, they were able to develop custom apps that allow them to pull in data from other databases and integrate it with Dynamics 365—without having to depend on IT and wait for long periods for customizations. This ability to customize workflows without heavy coding makes Dynamics 365 far more flexible and allows staff to quickly adapt to changing requirements.
"We were able to make significant changes in one day that would have taken much more administrative time otherwise"
Future Plans: Growth and continued innovation
Morton Buildings plans to continue leveraging Dynamics 365’s capabilities to further enhance their operations. They will focus on expanding the use of reporting features, integrating more automated processes for inventory and procurement, and further refining their project management tools. As the company becomes more proficient with Power Platform, they also aim to further reduce dependencies on third-party applications and customizations to better meet their unique business requirements.
This new platform and future roadmap position Morton Buildings to continue increasing agility and operational efficiency, enabling continued growth and a focus on innovation.