Benefits at a glance
- Unified production visibility — Real-time data flowing from shop floor to finance and operations
- Streamlined manufacturing systems — Legacy databases and homegrown tools replaced with one connected platform
- Higher reliability on the floor — Seamless Wonderware integration ensures uptime even during network outages
Company Intro
South Coast Lumber Co., headquartered in Brookings, Oregon, is a vertically integrated forest products manufacturer producing lumber, plywood, and engineered wood products. With operations spanning multiple mills and decades of family ownership, the company turned to Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management to modernize its manufacturing systems and gain real-time visibility across its Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL) operations.
The pain points
South Coast Lumber’s Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL) plant relied on a mix of legacy and homegrown systems that couldn’t keep up with its evolving operations. Critical production data lived in disconnected Access databases and stand-alone applications, forcing teams to manually reconcile information for costing, scheduling, and reporting.
Leaders lacked real-time visibility into production, and decision-making depended on delayed or incomplete data. To scale effectively, South Coast needed a modern manufacturing system that connected its floor operations directly to financials—without disrupting production or retraining its workforce.
Solution
Strategic Solutions NW implemented Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management to modernize South Coast Lumber’s manufacturing environment, starting with the LVL plant. Working closely with plant leadership, SSNW eliminated dozens of siloed databases and built direct integration between Wonderware and the D365 manufacturing module. This design allowed shop-floor workers to keep their familiar Wonderware interface while feeding real-time data into D365—bridging operations, costing, and financial reporting without downtime.
The project followed Microsoft’s SureStep gated implementation approach, using a structured, stage-based rollout. This ensured every milestone—configuration, testing, conference room pilots, and go-live—was executed cleanly and transparently.
Results
- Real-time production visibility: Plant managers now have a continuous flow of live data to track output, resources, and performance.
- Integrated costing and estimating: Production data automatically feeds into financial models, improving cost accuracy and profitability analysis.
- Reduced system complexity: Legacy tools were retired, simplifying data entry, reporting, and system maintenance.
- Increased reliability and uptime: Wonderware integration allows operations to continue even if internet connectivity is interrupted.
- Knowledge captured in the system: Years of specialized plant know-how are now institutionalized within D365, ensuring consistency across shifts and future operations.
With the LVL plant running on D365, South Coast Lumber is positioned to expand the same approach to its plywood and lumber mills—continuing to unify its manufacturing data under one modern platform.
If your manufacturing operations rely on a patchwork of legacy systems or custom databases, Strategic Solutions NW can help you modernize without losing the processes that work. Reach out to our team to see how Dynamics 365 can bring real-time visibility and control to your production floor.