Cut-to-shape Environments Features and Functions

• Concurrently handle and track several inventory item attributes or specifications such as heat, dimension (width, length, gauge), form, diameter, shape, grade, grain direction or texture, density, and more


• Consideration of the information on chemical, metallurgical, and physical properties


• Tracking of inventory up and down the supply chain, including the lot, heat, tag and certifications. The system must deliver up-to-the-minute information about on-hand available inventory, in-transit inventory, replenishment orders, manufacturing schedules and lead times, all while taking the attributes into consideration.


• Trace the ancestry or genealogy of an inventory tag from PO receipt to customer delivery ticket


• Detailed search of history information by a master tag number or heat number


• Provision of information that shows not only what each customer purchased, but also how much profit (or loss) was generated from that order, part, or tag


• Quickly configure quotes or sales orders based upon exacting customer specifications, while recognizing that inventory is multi-dimensional and multi-faceted.


• Convenient cost-plus pricing capabilities that allow users to associate profit margins with materials, labor, or overhead for configured and validated items


• Conversion of several UOMs based on the material’s characteristics, such as specific weight or density


• Automatic reflection of changing commodity prices as end product prices


• Handle specific labeling requirements, packaging requirements, and materials handling capabilities, such as detailed certification or MTR


• Identification of the ideal raw materials needed to fulfill any given customer order, via a parsed item lookup feature and advanced sorting and filtering capabilities


• Quickly view material on order and see when it will arrive, and what the specification and attributes are, when the stock on hand cannot satisfy the requirements for the order


• Handle buyouts or intra-company material transfers, as required


• Specification of the material reservations or allocations by any of a number of attributes, including lot number, roll weight, roll width, and roll length


• User-definable attributes that can be associated and validated for each item and each piece of stock within that item’s inventory


• User-definable product attributes and characteristics that can be used for functions such as inventory look-up, order entry, sequencing and scheduling of jobs, etc.


• Handle both standard products and non-standard sub-assemblies (products)


• Variable "policies" for things such as receiving, manufacturing, and shipment, for example in terms of +/- quantity or dimensional tolerances, quality or grade measurements, surcharge application, etc.


• Automatic consideration of shipments as complete when they are within a certain +/- quantity tolerance


• Accommodation of customer specifications without requiring a new BOM or routing for each new customer configuration during the quoting and order entry process, whereby historical cost and pricing data is available for instant retrieval


• Flexibility in terms of the user determining what constitutes a separate item number (e.g., a mild steel grade, a mild steel grade standard size sheet, or a mild steel grade standard size sheet that is an inch thick), whereby the end item variants can be handled under the same item number, but with a multiplicity of variations via attributes


• Optimization of cutting operations, such as dimensional slitting, to minimize waste


• Allow for blade widths (and accompanying waste)


• Current orders that can be nested with other open orders (even if for other customers) that can be produced from the same inventory set, whereby an optimal cutting layout to minimize yield is produced which identifies expected remnants, drops, and offcuts


• Distinguish scrap and waste from expected remnants that can be further utilized


• Foresee when a remnant/offcut will be created and determine the size of the remnant


• Automatic creation of new part numbers and pricing for the scraps returned to stock, if necessary


• Recognition by the specialized MRP (or other planning) module of when current demand cannot be satisfied by the in stock inventory due to dimensional issues and the inclusion of that unsatisfied demand in its reorder messages


• Provision of the exact location, heat, size, and quantity of material to pull from inventory


• Display of the finished product, scrap, and remnants the company is expected to produce


• Employees may record actual products produced and record the time expended to produce them


• Production reporting capabilities that are attuned to operations such as mill rolls, coating, laminating, wide roll slitting, and tape slitting


• User definition of carriers, shipment methods, freight rates, and customer routes for shipping and receiving


• Interface with common third-party shipping and manifest software (e.g., Kewill's Clippership)


• RF or barcode functionality that provides the following transactions to help ease data collection: inventory move within a facility, print location labels, shipping, physical inventory, and cycle counting


• Configurable e-mail alerts that automatically notify the right people when an exception condition occurs


• UOM conversion by attribute can be linked to inventory movements


• Production planning handles attributes available for scheduling and calculation of material quantities by attribute


• Sales ordering by attribute affects pricing, lead times and promising, transport requirements, etc.


• User-defined attribute linking


• Attribute Types