Manage Challenges in the Metal Processing Industry with an ERP System
The metal industry is characterized by rapid changes and fierce competition. Ever-shifting supply chains and multiple routes to market require manufacturers to be agile and ready for changing conditions and opportunities. Your business needs streamlined operations, efficient production processes, and real-time information for critical decision-making. It’s the only way to gain agility, minimize costs, and win against competitors that rely on cheap labour.
A Forbes study found that 90% of businesses recognize the importance of technology, but only 40% believe they have the best tools. As the economy swings wildly, metal manufacturers must ensure they select technologies that simplify business processes, improve efficiency and productivity, and scale as they grow. The increased demand from consumers for more personalized products also requires more agility. With more opportunities organisations need excellent visibility into their supply chain, lead time information, inventory levels, production capacity, and delivery capabilities. By integrating your various business functions into one ERP system, you can:
- Automate core processes, saving time and money
- Lower operational costs with more effective inventory and production management
- Streamline and simplify data management (no more manual reconciliations!)
- Analyse performance in real-time so you can optimize production processes and be more competitive
- Improve customer satisfaction by ensuring good quality products reach them on time.
SAP Business One ERP Software – Key Functionality for Metal Processing
Inventory and Traceability Management
Inventory module simplifies the tracking of stock levels across multiple sites and multiple stores. Users are enabled to issue and receive goods as well as transfer, return or even discard of goods in multiple unit conversions. Has powerful batch expiry and serial management of inventory. From a warranty claim or safety concern, one can trace the part back to the correct supplier as well as isolate which production run or batches contain the offending item.
Demand and Material Requirement Planning
It allows the businesses to plan the timely delivery of raw material, promising optimal production cycles. Allows you to maintain location wise safety and re-order levels ensuring your locations neither understocked nor over stocked and in turn reducing cost of holding stock. A forecast can be generated from historical data, amended and planning done allowing you to get the right quantity at the right time.
Purchasing and Supply Chain Monitoring
Delivers real-time information on the shipping, production, and value chain departments – keeping an eye on the supply, demand, distribution, and logistics. Have greater, real-time insight into production yields and supply bottlenecks while eliminating siloed data by ensuring purchase requests are delivered within defined lead times.
Sales, Dispatch and POS
Sales module covers the processes of sales booking, sales order, and delivery and dispatch. It enables the sale of goods and services with the help of customer-wise order management. This module is linked with the inventory module so inventory levels are updated after every successful sale. The integrated POS system ensures timely sales order billing. Pick and Pack allows one to do route and dispatch planning while ensuring timely delivery of goods.
Accounts
Accounting module helps users in keeping track of all their accounting transactions and enables them to make better decisions. Improved financial reporting with real-time information from all departments including costing, profitability, credit exposure, cash flow, trends, budgeting, fixed assets and period end reporting.
Customer Relationship Management
Stay ahead of competitors with opportunity and pipeline management, customer relationship management and campaign management. Updated sales information allows production to see which order is for which customer, while historical sales information assists the marketing team on what initiatives to design for which customer and proactively engage them. Customer account information is critical to predict demand.
Plant Maintenance
Maintenance and in-house service of all plant equipment. Maintain preventive maintenance schedules and ad hoc repairs job cards integrated with inventory and purchasing for sub contracted maintenance. With visibility of the production plan, one can minimise downtime.
Analytics
Analytics module can play a vital role in transforming your data into powerful decision making tools. With AI-based predictive analytics, this module can help in employing the right procedures to improve efficiency and productivity. The provision of complex metrics in the form of data visualizations can also help users in making better decisions.
Formulation Management
Support single and multi-level Bill of Material (BOM) to manage recipes and routings during production. Yield calculation and tracking (+/-) throughout production. Multiple units of measure conversion capabilities. Manage by-products of the production process, maintain raw material potency and other key product attributes. Easily define Overage%, Assay, LOD against the Raw Material/Intermediate Product.
Quality and Weight Control
Quality control module helps you to create your own quality parameter templates and define various quality control stages for your production processes. Integrate with weight bridge and scales to improve controls. Maintain certificate of analysis, QC-based approval/rejection management and efficient complaint management.
Production and Costing
Perform planning and auto-create an intermediate production order. You can also complete the re-work / re-blend / re-grade process, stage-wise yield calculation, define routing/sequence for operations or stages, and undertake the stage-wise revaluation of product costing and its calculation including WIP. Combine business data with industrial IoT data to maximize manufacturing efficiency, improve sustainability, and cut costs.
Regulatory Compliance and Reporting
Manage exceptional events with automated workflow and alerts. Get forward and reverse traceability with automated recall capabilities. Have security audit tracking, archives of historical transactions & electronic signature approvals. Easily define the process validation and generate report as per compliance.
Customer Stories
See how Metal Processing Customers are Succeeding