Stock is the hub of SM; all other modules interface to it in some way. The stock module not only allows users to see what's currently in stock, but also what's due in (and when) from suppliers or production, and what the impact of sales- and enquiries-demand is on stock levels.

Whether your selling from stock for next-day delivery, or engineering components to a customer's specification with a lead-time of months, you'll find SM's Sales Order Processing module quick, easy to use, intuitive, flexible and powerful. Any or all of the functions can be configured in if you would find them useful, or configured out if they would get in the way. 

Imagine this: there's a customer's truck in your yard, his steel has been loaded, you've prepared the delivery ticket, and now the mill-cert is nowhere to be found! Sounds familiar? SM's eDoc module was designed to ensure that situations like that are things of the past. All critical documents are stored within our system and are always available.

• Configurable to meet your business processes
• Integrates into popular ledger packages

The Production Module offers both a facility to raise internal manufacturing-orders to convert stock from one form to another (the product starts off as stock and ends up as stock usually on a different stock-line), and also an add-on to the Sales Module (the product starts off as stock but is despatched from work-in-progress - this is useful if your business is jobbing manufacture: it means that you don't necessarily need a stock-line for everything that you despatch to a customer).

In both functions, you set up a process-route (either from scratch or from a library of standard routes) which defines the different manufacturing stages through which the product must pass in order to reach the desired end-product, either the new stock-line or the customer's requirement. Stages on the route can be either internal or subcontracted. Production stationery can be produced at appropriate stages as the product progresses along its route, eg Works Order, Subcontract Purchase Order, Collection Note, etc.

Since route-stages are scheduled, then production problems can be identified early by asking SM which jobs are running behind schedule, which internal resources are overloaded, what material is currently at subcontractor-x, etc.

The Purchasing module gives full visiblity of both supply and service purchase-orders.

• Raise purchase-orders for both policy-stock and also merchanting (back-to-back) requirements; analyse both separately
• Use SM's powerful purchase-planning facilities to assist in making those policy-stock buying decisions
• If a purchase expected-date slips, alert users associated with sales waiting for the material; within the sales module sales with such material-availability issues are traffic-light colour highlighted
• Ask SM to remind you when it's time to expedite this or that particular purchase
• Optionally ask SM to check either or both of chemistry and mechanical-properties of the material received
• Enter suppliers' invoices and check them against receipts. Post purchase-invoices into a range of popular accounts systems
• Allocate sales-orders against outstanding purchases. When material is received, prompt user to reallocate, or use SM's alert system to inform sales staff that material has been received. If the purchase's expected-date slips, highlight affected sales
• Send a purchase enquiry to several suppliers; convert the "best" to a purchase order

We don't try to re-invent the wheel, and since there are many good accounts suites out there (you're probably using one yourselves) we don't write our own ledgers. Instead we provide interfaces into popular accounting systems, which has the advantage, if you're using such an accounts suite, that you don't need to change your accounting system if you become a SM user.

• Import customers and suppliers from your ledgers into SM.
• Credit-check customers at the point of entry of a sale or enquiry, and optionally at despatch as well; invoiced-debt and optionally the value of outstanding sales can be compared to customers' credit-limits.
• Post sales- supply- and subcontract-invoices directly to your ledgers: no duplicate entry needed.

Of course you want to raise a delivery-ticket at short notice, for example because a customer's truck has just pulled into your yard to collect material. But you will also want to optimise your shipping, perhaps by loading your truck with material ordered by several customers in the same general geographic area. SM allows you to do both or either. Equally, a cash customer probably needs an invoice there and then, but your account customers are more conveniently invoiced once a week, say. Again, SM provides the required flexibility.

Does this sound familiar? Sales take a call from your best customer who wants to confirm that his order such and such will be with him tomorrow, as promised. Your computer-system tells you that the works order has been printed and presumably that means the job is on the saw now. But has sawing actually started? How many pieces have been cut? Will the job be finished in time for the customer to receive it tomorrow? "Sorry, let me get back to you…" and the salesman has to go out into the works and find the works order by the saw and start counting pieces. And while he's out, the works order comes back to the office indicating that sawing is complete! SM's shopfloor automation module is designed to remove the wait for paperwork to get back to the office, but allows real-time updates to the computer from terminals on the shop-floor. The terminals might be ruggedised PCs, typically with touch-screens, close to your production equipment, or might be hand-held devices connected to the computer-system via an RF wireless network. In both cases the terminals will have barcode readers so that operators don't need to type order numbers, or saw numbers, etc. An additional benefit is that decisions about which job has priority on which machine, made by production-planners in the office, are communicated instantly to the shop-floor. An operator, finishing one job on a production resource, merely asks his terminal, "What's next?" and is informed of the job currently scheduled next on that resource.

If you've been in the business for any time, you'll know that quality-assurance requirements today are much more stringent than they were yesterday, and you'll probably be able to predict confidently that they'll be even more stringent tomorrow. Many of the requirements are routine, but they all take time, and are all prone to human error. That's why allowing your computer-system to check as much as possible is such a good idea. And if you think that the list below offers far more than you need now, be reassured that it's all individually configurable on or off, and that you are prepared and can turn it on when a customer imposes a new requirement on you next week.

SteelManager comes with its own set of prebuilt reports built using SAP Crystal Reports. This allows you to quickly analyse your data without worrying about report design.

We also offer add on options making use of other products from the SAP Crystal Report family. These range from the full version of SAP Crystal Reports that allows you to design and create your own interactive reports or SAP Crystal dashboard design.

Expand your access to Steel Manager data over the Web. The new data driver offers additional Web access to Web services by providing support for RPC encoding of SOAP messages, SSL-secured Web servers, as well as a working compatibility with the WS-Security standard. It adapts to custom logon requirements such as e-mail addresses or user/password.

SteelManager can integrate into other leading software packages with ease. Whether it's using a spreadsheet to analyse your data or using an email client to send electronic stationery SteelManager will work with you.