Microsoft’s 2025 Wave 2 release for Dynamics 365 Business Central brings a range of powerful new enhancements to its ERP platform.
Geared towards improving efficiency, compliance, and data-driven decision-making, these changes represent a strategic opportunity to elevate operational performance, improve production agility, and embrace more intelligent, sustainable processes. And many align perfectly with the manufacturing industry.
We explore the standout features from this latest release and how they align with manufacturing needs.
Copilot Agents for Manufacturing Sales: Smarter Order Handling
Wave 2 expands Business Central’s use of AI with new Copilot agents, specifically enhancing the sales order creation process.
Manufacturers often deal with high volumes of sales orders originating from emails, spreadsheets or EDI systems. With the new Copilot Sales Order Agent, Business Central can now interpret unstructured input—like a PDF or Excel file—and convert it into an accurate sales order.
By October 2025, the AI agent will be capable of processing even more complex instructions, filling in missing details automatically, and learning from previous entries. This is particularly beneficial for ‘make-to-order’ manufacturers dealing with frequently changing specifications.
Beyond orders, Copilot also extends to summarising record data, identifying trends, and automating insights - freeing up operations and sales teams to focus on more strategic tasks.
Improved Production Traceability
A cornerstone of manufacturing ERP systems is the ability to track components from supplier to finished product. And with ever-lengthening supply chains, its important to keep track of suppliers and batches.
2025 Wave 2 introduces end-to-end serial and batch number tracking tightly integrated with the production process. This capability allows for robust traceability of materials used in manufacturing, essential for sectors like food production, pharmaceuticals, electronics and aerospace, where compliance is critical.
The improved tracking also integrates with barcoding systems and can be applied to pick lists and BOMs, ensuring accuracy from warehouse to work centre. For manufacturers needing full backward and forward traceability—whether for customer audits or internal quality checks—this marks a significant upgrade.
Greater Flexibility In Production Picking
Manufacturing rarely runs perfectly to plan, and without preparation, material shortages or substitutions can be common.
Wave 2 will introduce over-picking of materials, giving shop floor teams the flexibility to pick more than what was originally allocated to a production order.
This new feature helps avoids unnecessary delays when small variances occur and supports more agile decision-making during production runs.
This is especially useful in scenarios involving custom builds, where engineers or floor managers may need to deviate from standard quantities without triggering a cascade of manual adjustments or workarounds.
Enhanced Manufacturing Analytics
There is increasing focus across the industry on delivering advanced reporting for manufacturing operations.
With this release, Microsoft expands the embedded Power BI capabilities within Business Central by introducing new standard reports tailored to production environments. These include:
- Work centre and machine productivity metrics
- Scrap rate and efficiency analytics
- Cost variance reporting on production orders
- Material usage and wastage analysis
These out-of-the-box dashboards offer actionable intelligence that helps manufacturers optimise production schedules, identify underperforming assets, and align operational data with strategic planning.
For organisations with more complex requirements, these reports also serve as a strong foundation from which to create custom dashboards, allowing deeper insights into production, procurement, and inventory.
Built-In Quality and Sustainability Tools
ESG requirements are big on the manufacturing agenda. As regulatory pressures grow and customer expectations evolve, manufacturers are under increasing scrutiny to ensure their operations are both high-quality and environmentally sustainable. Wave 2 introduces dedicated features to support both objectives.
Quality Management
Business Central now provides improved tools for managing quality control as part of the production workflow. This includes the ability to define quality checkpoints, track inspection outcomes, and associate quality data with specific production orders or batches.
This allows manufacturers to formalise quality assurance processes without resorting to bolt-on solutions or spreadsheet workarounds.
Sustainability Journals
Manufacturers can now track environmental impact more systematically through sustainability journals. These enable users to log emissions, energy use, water consumption, and waste at a transactional level, with Copilot offering intelligent recommendations based on past entries and consumption patterns.
For organisations needing to report on Scope 3 emissions or ESG metrics, these tools lay the groundwork for accurate and auditable data capture.
Support for E-Documents in Procurement & Production
The Wave 2 update expands electronic document capabilities, making it easier for manufacturers to automate and digitise procurement and production documentation. This includes automated handling of order confirmations, shipping notices, and invoices—facilitating faster and more accurate communication with suppliers and customers.
This feature supports compliance with international standards and improves supply chain transparency—especially important for manufacturers operating in regulated or export-driven industries.
2025 Wave 2 For Business Central: Delivering The Goods For Manufacturing
Microsoft’s 2025 Wave 2 release of Business Central shows a clear focus on helping manufacturers modernise their operations through AI-driven automation, intelligent insights, and built-in compliance tools. From order intake to traceability and sustainability, the platform continues to evolve into a comprehensive solution for the needs of today’s production environments.
Whether you're a discrete manufacturer, process operation, or a make-to-order producer, these new capabilities offer tangible improvements in efficiency, agility, and reporting accuracy.
Looking to discover more about the potential of Business Central for your manufacturing operations? Get in touch to arrange a demo:
