Page 26 - MetalForming December 2017

Material Traceability, Inventory Tracking
and ensures that nothing is forgotten or left out.”
Traceability Supports Building-Code Certification
Electronic material and master-coil traceability also ranks high on the list of fundamental ERP-software require- ments, helping Mitchell and his man- agement team to run a tight ship, “and to ensure that we meet the require-
ments of our IAS (International Accred- itation Service) building-code certifi- cations,” Mitchell says. “For example, when we process each master coil, Adjutant allows us to track backward to the source, all the way to the mill, for each part produced. All of the mill certifications and related documenta- tion reside in an ‘electronic vault’ within Adjutant. That makes traceability, once a very time-consuming manual process
that relied on operators making and filing notes, completely automated. That traceability then helps us maintain good standing with IAS and plays a huge role in helping us win new work.”
With Adjutant, Abis offers numerous additional software modules developed specifically to support steel processing and made-to-order manufacturing, and Mitchell and his team continue to evaluate these options. Among them: Shop Floor Routing, CRM, Wireless Warehouse, Bill of Material and Work Order Management.
“One additional and valuable appli- cation within Adjutant,” says Mitchell, “involves work-order management and shop-floor control, to help us manage smaller orders, rather than large all- encompassing projects. Here, where maybe we need to manufacture just a handful of trim parts or sheeting, we use Adjutant to prepare the quotes and process the orders through the shop. Adjutant helps with these smaller jobs because it provides a window for our sales force into the inventory of parts we might already have on hand to sat- isfy a particular order. It provides visi- bility into our work flow. These types of jobs—partial orders that often will consume products already in inventory —represent 15 to 20 percent of our total volume, and we see, thanks in part to the capabilities of Adjutant, opportunities to grow this part of our business.
“We’re also, with Adjutant, able to collect real-time consumption reports,” Mitchell continues. With that type of visibility into its product flow, he says that the company can more accurately project what it needs to purchase, based on what it has already sold.
“Before,” he adds, “we were oper- ating on ‘gut feel’ and asking managers to review and digest numerous hand- written reports. Knowing more pre- cisely what we need to order, and when, allows us to create significant cost sav- ings, compared to simply ordering the same amount of every material across the board, building an inventory of goods that we hope will sell in a timely manner.” MF
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24 MetalForming/December 2017
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