Product Features
The ultimate benefits of our ERP solution can only be realized when necessary hardware is in place. It is our desire that our clients can enjoy necessary and quality hardware at a minimum cost. For this reason, for a new client, we will first form a consulting team to evaluate its existing information infrastructures of all sites before proposing any new hardware to be purchased. This team will also educate the client’s IT staff for all hardware and software installations, so that they can autonomously maintain the hardware and software, as well as source and evaluate additional hardware in the future.
The preparations before the ERP implementation determine how the users’ learning curve will be shaped. Keeping this in mind, we have constructed a sound and comprehensive standard operations procedure (SOP) for all the preparation work. This SOP will enable the users to get familiar with the new operation model before its implementation, and therefore minimize unnecessary hassles and frustrations in later times. In addition to building up the hardware environment, our consulting team will intensively hold meeting with each function’s head and staff to understand their existing operational procedures and discuss possible improvement areas, in order to come up with the final optimal within- and cross-function operation procedures as a team. The result will be the standardization of the operation procedures for the following areas: product sales, production control, inventory, transportation, accounts receivable and payable, purchasing, quotation and exception handling.
Sales Management
Users can create, edit and query board and carton orders and adjust customer prices. Each order can be traced down to its latest status. With real-time material status, production stage information and inventory and shipment status, combined with shop-floor production monitoring, sales staff can easily track down the details of each order and its latest status in the production pipeline. Instant and accurate responses to customers’ order inquiries are therefore made possible, which will in turn raise the customers’ confidence and trust in the company.
Production Control
Pre-scheduling, board/carton production scheduling, shop-floor carton production processing, operation performance assessment and bonus determination, and print patterns and dies management are all taken care of. With planners scheduling orders in the office, shop-floor operators do not need to re-enter production data and numbers. This will greatly reduce the operational redundancies and eliminate the chance of erroneous system entries on the shop-floor. All kinds of production statistics are available right on the completion of the production. Production bonus will no longer require manual calculations, as the system will render the most objective results by compiling the necessary production data.
Inventory Management
Finished goods receiving, stock transfers, stock takings and adjustments, and quality inspection, etc. are all taken care of. The shop-floor operators can directly move and record finished goods into the warehouse. This allows the transportation personnel or contractors to easily locate the finished goods shortly after the completion of the production by simply checking the precise time of their entering into the warehouse and their storage location. Also, the warehouse supervisor and the upper management can access the latest and complete inventory information at any time. This will allow the company to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of the warehouse.
Transportation Management (Truck Dispatching)
This includes trips pre-scheduling and finalization, trips consolidation, customer sign-back registration and cost determination. Warehouse spaces are always limited. The efficiency and effectiveness of any warehouse therefore highly depends on the soundness of the management of inbound and outbound shipments, especially the latter. Many times, warehouses are expanded simply because shipments are ill-planned or mismanaged, but expansion itself cannot resolve problems. With our ERP solution, the warehouse personnel can schedule each day’s shipments according to planned shipment dates and actual production completion dates. As a result, finished goods can be loaded to trucks right after being moved into the warehouse. By so doing, the turnover rate of the warehouse is maximized. The transportation costs will no longer require manual calculations, as the system will take care of them according to the settings of destination zones and cost determination ratios. Manpower waste and disputes over calculations will become the history of yesterday.
Billing, Accounts Receivable and Payable Management
By following the SOPs built into the ERP system, potential mistakes and inappropriate deeds in the billing process and/or the handling of accounts receivables and payables are automatically prevented. These built-in SOPs rigorously enforce the cashier/treasurer and other accounting staff’s compliance to the required procedures, and money flows transparently in the pipeline. All sorts of management reports are available to allow finance, accounting and top management members to stay on top of the company’s cash flow, the due dates of receivables and payables and various accounting statistics, so that they can be in good control of their cash and funds at any time. Cash and funds are at the heart of any enterprise. A rigorous and powerful cash and funds control mechanism frees management’s time to concentrate on the company’s core business, as they can rely on the system worry-free and use it to plan the company’s business directions and fund utilizations.
Purchase Management
Our ERP system enforces every purchase of paper materials and/or other materials to be executed according to the standard procedures. It not only standardizes the purchase requisition form, purchase order and quality inspection form, but also standardizes the material consumption (picking) process and the stocktaking and inventory adjustment process. These standardizations and enforcement make it possible for the supervisors/managers to stay on top of the flow of the materials, and therefore to prevent unnecessary frauds. The fluctuations of material prices often have a significant influence on a company’s annual profit number. The built-in price approval process can make the company’s material cost control more effective. Moreover, this module provides the visibility of the latest inventory status, which will allow the company to take immediate replenishment actions in preparation for any urgent orders. When material supplies are in an upward price trend, the ability to make early inventory preparations will also give the company a desirable competitive edge.
Quotation Management
The standard cost of each type of board is maintained in the system and can be updated at anytime. This provides the sales staff with uniform reference prices to make their quotations to customers at any given point of time. It also provides them with the capability to respond to the fluctuations of the market prices in a timely manner. Also built-in is an approval mechanism that serves as a gatekeeper to prevent any incorrect quotations from being made, which might cause damage to the company, either materially or reputation-wise.
Exception Management
When a customer demands a return of products already shipped to their door, such a request needs to be handled immediately, and the subsequent responsibility determination and corrective actions must also be done in the shortest possible time. Through the standard exceptions handling procedures built into the ERP, you can save yourself unnecessary complaints from your customers. The exception analysis report there also allows you to scrutinize possible loopholes and make improvements accordingly, so that the same problem will not happen again.