{"id":12378,"date":"2020-12-04T07:00:28","date_gmt":"2020-12-04T15:00:28","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-06-11T07:56:35","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T14:56:35","slug":"electrolock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/power-platform\/blog\/power-apps\/electrolock\/","title":{"rendered":"Electrolock simplifies inventory management with Microsoft Power Platform"},"content":{"rendered":"

Electrolock<\/span><\/a> is a premiere provider of insulation products and solutions for various manufacturing and repair industries. Some of their products include high voltage insulation products for power generation and electric coil manufacturers, custom insulation solutions, and thermal insulation for extreme environments such as large motor generators. They create electrical, battery, and thermal insulation, and bespoke product offerings to service their customers’ most demanding requests.
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In this post we’ll look at how Electrolock partnered with a Microsoft Gold Partner, Confluent<\/a>,<\/span>\u00a0to build an inventory management solution using Microsoft Power Apps, Power Automate, and Microsoft Dataverse.
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Business scenario<\/h2>\n

Electrolock and their customers needed to perform several functions with easy and accuracy \u2013 track inventory used, create a purchase order, perform a simple reconciliation of inventory for invoicing, and finally, record revenue using Dynamics AX, their ERP system and single source of truth.
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Electrolock was in the process of trying to win a customer away from a competitor who had an electronic point of sale system for their clients to track inventory used in electric motor repair. They realized that to win the bid, they would require a similar, easy-to-use digital solution.
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Before Power Platform<\/h2>\n

Prior to the Power Platform solution, Electrolock and their customers were using Excel spreadsheets to communicate inventory levels and shipments back and forth over email. This was a cumbersome process, it was imperative for the business to find an online solution, and an opportunity for Electrolock to win bids against their competition.
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Power Platform Solution \u2013 Inventory Management<\/h2>\n

While Electrolock was researching different options for creating their own solution for managing inventory online, they decided to hire Confluent, a Microsoft Gold Partner. Together they successfully rolled out a Power Platform solution used by Electrolock and their customers for Inventory Management.
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Power Apps canvas app used for inventory management
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The Inventory App is a Power Apps canvas app<\/strong> with data stored in Microsoft Dataverse<\/strong>. The app is used by Electrolock’s customer, who requires parts to fix electric motors. The app is used on mobile tablets on the manufacturing floor. All parts are given on consignment to the customer and stay on Electrolock’s books until the customer creates a PO for a specific job or jobs. Electrolock invoices the customer based on the jobs attached to the PO. The customer uses the app to track all parts “picked” from inventory and used for a specific job, and to close jobs every two weeks so that Electrolock can invoice the customer. The size of parts varies from being as little as nuts and bolts to as big as a suitcase. The smaller parts are stored in vending machines and the bigger parts are stored in big bins on the manufacturing floor.
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\nFor a clearer idea of how the app works for a customer of Electrolock in the electric motor industry, consider the steps of a worker on the ground floor who starts a job and needs parts to fix an electric motor.
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\n\"Process
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\nThey use the app to:
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