Material Management Features and Functions

• Order weight and cubic footage allocated for shipping


• Uses weights and volume of individual units to calculate the volume of a package


• Multiple quantities of measures of items including catch weight, pallets, bricks, bales, totes, tank cars, and stubs


• Product attributes searching and matching at order entry


• Tracks variations in chemical and physical properties of a product without changing numbers


• Available-to-promise (ATP) reflects the realities of inventory coming out of inspection and shelf life expiration


• Ability to pack multiple items into a single package for sale


• Hard and soft allocation


• Quality specification matching for order fullfilment


• Tolls and exchanges (the chemical industry co-opetition practice)


• Issues containerized receipts for the use and return of specialized containers


• Pre-assigned lot/serial numbers to items during order creation


• Actual cost and receiving date maintenance for lot and serial controlled items


• Upward and downward lot/serial traceability (cradle-to-grave)


• System handles equivalent products, locations, and packages


• Sub-lots with their own unique attributes


• Potency units of measure


• Converts items from volume, weight, and units, automatically


• Lots can be combined or split


• Creates status codes used to monitor quality, or potency/grade deterioration in lots


• Product attribute (for example, pH level) tracking from batch to batch


• Converts unit values of a containers, such as barrel, bag, or box to unit volume weight, of mass


• The system caters for proactive, forward, and backward heat traceability


• Ability to plan and schedule predictive maintenance


• Concurrent materials and capacity, non-iterative finite planning and scheduling


• Modelling of multiple sources/sites of supply (supply sourcing tables)


• Ability to plan using bulk and repack options


• Recognizing shelf life and priorities in planning


• CPFR


• Trade exchanges (marketplaces) like "ecFood.com" access provision


• Private trade exchange (PTX) participation capability


• Kit processing for menus, meals, and gift packages


• Provision for tanks' (vessels) clean-out, before use, after use, or both


• Plan and prioritize materials in bulk and packs


• System handles flow rates from feedstocks to bulk (rail cars and barges)


• Pipeline versus "on-hand" inventory management


• Production wheel--dynamic versus static analysis of production requirements planning


• Distribution requirements planning (DRP)--distribution network-wide inventory visibility


• Distribution network and warehouse locator availability


• Transport load planning by weight, volume, and number of containers


• In-transit tracking and confirmation


• Use "change-over matrices" to minimize setup and clean-up times


• LIFO, FIFO, and FEFO


• Push surplus perishable raw material supply through the entire supply chain


• Recommend optimum sequencing based on item number and/or quality characteristics


• Planning "sees" ingredients quality characteristics (for example, milk butterfat) and acts accordingly