Normet Group drills down on digital excellence with Dynamics 365

“The safest place underground.” That’s the mission Normet Group (Normet) focuses on ensuring every day through its designing, manufacturing, and servicing of equipment and solutions for mining and tunneling operations. Operating in more than 30 countries, Normet’s equipment is purpose-built for customers across the globe. With its products delivered to six continents, Normet is a global industry leader known for its innovation and engineering excellence.

As an industrial manufacturing company, its operations are complex and require robust solutions to ensure efficiency and reliability. But multiple entities operating independently and within a variety of aging, disconnected systems led to mounting fragmentation, impacting internal transparency, and limiting clear, real-time visibility into operations across the group.

The need for a unified, modern enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that would bring consistency, improve visibility, and enable efficient, integrated operations across all global sites was imperative. Normet drilled down to find the best solution and hit on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance, Supply Chain Management, Sales, and Field Service—not just as a replacement for aging infrastructure, but as a strategic platform to harmonize business processes, enhance transparency, and support scalable growth.

Unearthing value with streamlined procurement

Harmonizing processes was a critical objective for Normet, especially in areas like purchasing where disparate systems led to inconsistent procurement practices. As a result, each location generated different types of reports and measured performance using different key performance indicators making it nearly impossible to assess which areas were performing well and which were not—and crucially, to identify what actions were needed to drive improvement.

By standardizing these processes with Dynamics 365, Normet is creating consistent data, reporting, and performance metrics across all regions to get a clear, group-wide view of procurement performance. This enables better decision making, greater transparency, and more effective management globally, as well as global supply chain coordination—all essential for a company dealing with complex, high-value equipment.

Each machine is produced to meet the specific requirements of the customer and the region in which it will operate. Quotes are created using a configurator embedded in Dynamics 365 Sales. The configurator integrates with Sovelia, Normet’s engineering application. The configurator can turn quotes into structured bill of materials (BOM), which reside in Sovelia and eventually flow to Dynamics 365, where they convert to production and purchase orders.

The innate scalability of Dynamics 365 enables Normet to facilitate coordination between manufacturing facilities in different countries. Real-time data and reporting improve visibility into supply chain and procurement performance, tracking supplier performance and costs, and ensuring materials are available for production across global plants.

Monthly sales and operations planning forecasts production volumes and anticipates material demand. These forecasts are fed back into Dynamics 365 to inform purchasing decisions and balance supply chain readiness with upcoming project demand.

Incoming invoices are processed through ExFlow, Normet's Accounts Payable (AP) automation tool. Invoices flow through Dynamics 365, which performs three-way matching, automatically comparing the invoice against the corresponding purchase order and goods receipt. If everything matches, the invoice is approved and processed automatically. If discrepancies are found, the system flags the invoice for manual review by the purchaser.

Reflecting on the project, Markku Verkama, Normet’s VP of Strategic Sourcing and Purchasing, sees a range of benefits, even at this early stage. When implementation began in late 2023, “we were concerned about the possibility of disruption but when we rolled out the new solution in 2024, our production schedule didn’t skip a beat,” he said.

Drilling down to the best price

At Normet, managing the sourcing of new components is a carefully structured process designed for transparency and agility. When purchasing an item for the first time, a Request for Quotation (RFQ) is initiated directly within Dynamics 365. These RFQs are then communicated to suppliers through Jakamo, Normet’s supplier portal.

Once supplier responses are received, they are returned to Dynamics 365, and the procurement team evaluates the quotations and records the supplier prices as trade agreements within the system.

When it’s time to purchase again, Dynamics 365 automatically suggests the lowest-cost supplier based on the existing trade agreements. But the system also gives buyers the flexibility to override the suggested supplier when needed, for example, choosing a local supplier with shorter lead times to meet urgent delivery needs.

“Dynamics 365 gives us the best of both worlds: a data-driven solution that helps optimize cost, but with enough flexibility to support real-world operational decisions,” explains Verkama. With all pricing and supplier data stored in the system, the company maintains full transparency in how decisions are made and can act quickly when priorities shift.

The integration with Jakamo goes beyond RFQs. It conveys purchase orders, supplier forecasts, claims, and advanced shipping notices. This level of integration reduces manual tasks, ensures data consistency, and enhances overall supply chain visibility, helping maintain strong, responsive relationships with suppliers across the globe.

Rock-solid planning

Behind the scenes of Normet’s procurement operations lies a carefully structured foundation built within the Planning Optimization engine in Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management. A critical part of this foundation is vendor master data—a comprehensive setup of all Normet’s suppliers including essential information such as supplier relationships, pricing agreements, lead times, and transportation timelines.

One of the defining challenges in Normet’s manufacturing environment is the complexity and scale of the bills of material (BOMs). A single machine can involve 2,000 to 3,000 components. These aren't just flat lists of parts; the BOMs are structured across anywhere from five to ten levels, with sub-assemblies, sub-components, and purchased items nested within one another.

Handling such large and intricate BOMs requires not only robust data and system setup, but a high-performing planning engine. This is part of the reason why Normet’s transition to Planning Optimization has been so critical. It enables Normet to run faster, more frequent planning cycles, improving responsiveness and agility in an industry without compromising system performance.

Warehouse management—working smarter, not harder

Continuous monitoring of supplier confirmations is done directly in Dynamics 365, tracking that purchase orders are acknowledged, and delivery dates are confirmed accurately. The solution provides visibility into which items are confirmed, which are pending, and whether any potential delays could impact manufacturing operations. This proactive oversight helps ensure corrective actions are taken before issues affect the production floor.

Once goods are received, the process transitions to warehouse reception teams who handle physical intake and system updates using the Dynamics 365 Warehouse Management mobile application.

Using mobile devices with scanning capabilities, warehouse staff can quickly and efficiently register incoming goods, verify quantities, and confirm deliveries against purchase orders. This mobile approach also helps maintain real-time inventory visibility across operations. Together, this monitoring and reception flow ensures that every component—thousands per machine—is tracked from supplier confirmation all the way to physical receipt.

Groundbreaking customer engagement

Normet is also using Dynamics 365 to create a more integrated, data-driven service and sales ecosystem. Before Dynamics 365 Sales, Normet didn’t have a global, unified sales tool. Moving from a fragmented to a centralized application facilitated the standardization of sales processes, and created a single hub where opportunities, quotes, and orders are managed.

That’s because Dynamics 365 Sales offers seamless integration with Normet’s other business solutions to significantly streamline its sales process. Product management, pricing, and configuration solutions integrate with Dynamics 365 Sales where it is also linked to the ERP, enabling real-time stock visibility. With all this information available in one place, salespeople can work more efficiently, respond to customer inquiries faster, and generate accurate quotes without switching between multiple platforms.

Normet leverages Dynamics 365 Field Service to manage and optimize service visits performed by technicians across various customer locations. When customers require technical support for their machines, a work order is created in the system. Each work order contains essential details like the machine's serial number, customer information, service location, machine age, and other relevant technical insights. All Normet-manufactured machines are registered as customer assets, enabling a comprehensive service history.

The solution supports technicians in the field by providing full visibility into prior service visits and work performed on each machine, ensuring continuity and efficiency in service delivery. Work orders, created by planners and service managers, can include detailed instructions, attached documents, and notes, enabling technicians to carry out their tasks effectively using the Dynamics 365 Field Service mobile app.

Through the app, technicians log hours, capture signatures, and record all necessary information. Once completed, the work order is reviewed and approved by the service manager, and a comprehensive service report can be generated for the customer.

Technicians in the field can also create sales opportunities at service visits if they identify a need for spare parts or equipment upgrades. These opportunities are then processed by the sales team as quotes in Dynamics 365, helping bridge the gap between service and sales and capturing potential revenue. The shared platform enables full visibility across customer interactions. Sales teams can see what service visits have occurred, what work orders exist, and what assets the customer owns, enhancing customer engagement and internal collaboration.

“Dynamics 365 aligns sales, engineering, and manufacturing in a unified process—making us a more agile, responsive, and data-driven business,” says Lotta Ahlholm, Sales Planning Manager, Normet Group. That alignment creates a more secure environment, and an easier user experience. Previously, user access was inconsistent and lacked structure. Now, Normet has “clearly defined global processes that are easy to understand and follow, regardless of region or role,” said Sourcing Business Analyst Silja Rouru. Focusing on aligning access rights with responsibilities enhances system security and data integrity. This means not only better control over who can do what in the system, but also more secure handling of the data generated by the system.

Digging into tomorrow

Looking ahead, Normet is closely following advancements from Microsoft—especially around the introduction of AI-powered agents that promise to further enhance procurement automation and supplier collaboration. “These innovations will offer new opportunities to optimize processes even further,” says Nils Ohenoja, Field Service Development Manager at Normet. The company is poised to continue mining value from its core—Dynamics 365—well into the future, ensuring the safest place underground for its customers worldwide.