Bar Products

Companies that specialize in bar products often carry a wider range of grades and/or alloys in many different sizes than a typical service center. This enfables them to fulfill special customer requirements that require specific product and application knowledge as well as additional value-add processing. Sales staff frequently need to select inventory that meets specific metal standards (ASTM, ASME, EN, etc.) or specific chemical or mechanical test results (40 to 45 PSI, for example).

Specialist bar companies also often require specialty processes such as Heat Treatment, turning, and trepanning that are provided through internal processing or using outside processors. In some cases, the product must be processed by more than one outside processor.

STRATIX has extensive bar distribution and processing functions that enable these companies to quickly take orders and turn them around for shipment with minimal steps. At the same time, STRATIX can easily handle complex orders that require multiple processing steps. This blend of simplicity and complexity is an important STRATIX attribute that enables bar companies to be operationally efficient, sales oriented organizations.

Turning/Boring
A specific feature that is frequently used by our customers who sell bars, is one that enables them to sell bars to specific OD’s and ID's through turning and boring type applications without having to set up new product codes for each unique size.

To accommodate this specific requirement, STRATIX includes specialized features that enable sales, production and purchasing staff to dynamically specify precise OD and/or ID as sales, purchase and work orders are created. This eliminates the need to create separate product codes for each unique combination of OD and/or ID.

For example, a sales person can specify the exact OD and ID required by a customer such as 9.885" x 6.815" ID to be processed from a 10" bar. Based on this, STRATIX will:

Automatically format the product description
Calculate the theoretical weight of the sold product
Include the sold OD & ID in the sales history
Provide option to gross up the weight for pricing

The production system can be used to create the required turning and boring jobs easily and quickly.

Jominy
STRATIX includes features to record Jominy test results and print them on a company test certificate along with the chemical and mechanical properties.

Drawing
Some bar companies carry bar/wire coil products that can be drawn into coil form or bar form.

Quality & Standard Specifications
Material can be purchased and sold to multiple ‘Metal Standards’. These represent industry and customer-specific standards to which material can be certified. Examples include ASTM, SAE, MIL, AISI, etc.

Actual Test Results
Actual chemical, mechanical, heat treatment and jominy test results can be recorded manually or imported electronically. As results are entered, warnings are given when the actual results differ from the standards.

Sales Order Verification
As material is applied to orders, STRATIX has an option to verify that the material applied meets the metal standards and specifications requested by the customer.

Heat Treatment
STRATIX includes unique features that complement Heat Treatment performed by outside processors. These features include an integrated Outside Processing purchase order, Heat Treatment Test Certificate scanning, and the ability to generate (email/fax/print) a copy of the Mill certificate and related Heat Treatment certificate at time of shipment.

Automatic Printing of Certificates at Shipping
To significantly improve productivity and ensure certification accuracy, Original Mill Test Certificates can be scanned or downloaded and linked to Heat and Tag controlled inventory.

Sales and production staff can view mill certificates and/or recorded results from the inventory inquiry, and a copy of the original mill certificate or a company certificate can be automatically printed or emailed with the delivery documents.

For companies that produce their own Test Certificates, the chemical and mechanical test results are stored in STRATIX and automatically printed/emailed/faxed at time of shipment.

Testing & Special Treatments
STRATIX enables any type of additional document(s) to be attached to the produced material due to any additional testing, inspection, or additional treatments such as Ultrasonic Testing, Magnetic-particle inspection or 3rd party testing. These documents can be automatically printed or emailed to the customer at time of shipment.

Multi-step Processing
Handling orders that require multiple processing steps such as Turning, Polishing, Heat Treatment at an outside processor are easily accommodated through a sophisticated yet simple to use production planning system. Transfers to and from outside processors are easily handled and fully integrated with the order status.

STRATIX Features
To see a summary of STRATIX features, click on a business area below! The features in bold are specifically targeted to Bar service centers.

 Inventory Control

• Product Coding based on native attributes familiar within industry
  • No part numbers to look up or memorize
  • Specialized Product Coding for Round Bars & Pipe/Tube
  • Ability to turn &/or bore tubes to customer-specified measurements without the need to create new product codes
• Handles All Metal Types (carbon steel, aluminum, stainless steel, brass, copper specialty metals, & titanium)
• Handles all metal forms (i.e. structural, coils, sheet, plate, pipe, tubing bars, wire mesh, rebar, slabs, billets, blooms, & basic materials)
• Product 'Short-Cut Code'
  • Dynamic Dimensions
• Comprehensive Side Cut/Drop/Remnant Functionality
• Material purchased, inventoried, & sold by Pieces, Lineal measure (feet or meters), or Weight
• Material control by Lot/Location, Heat, or Tag 
• Track inventory in third party yards, docks, & other facilities
• Specific Costing or Real-time Average Costing
• Cost in various units of measure (piece, lineal measure (feet/meter), weight, etc.)
• Weight Control to decimals of a Pound/Kilogram for high-value products such as Titanium & Nickel Alloy
• Comprehensive Stock Inquiry
• Ability to record Actual Measurements (Diameter, OD, ID, Wall, Gauge, etc.)
• Entry of Total Lineal Measure (feet/meters) for Random Length Bundle (pipe & tube)
• Extended Finish Code (Paint Color, Stencil, Indented, Polished, Threaded)
• Theoretical or Actual Quantity Control (for each of Pieces, Lineal Measure, & Weight)
• Material designated for specific Customer or Salesperson
• Length Control Options for better inventory utilization
  • Fixed Length
  • Mill Length (Single/Double Random, etc.)
  • Length Range (16.5’ to 21’)
• Track Jominy results (bar)
  • Vendor Consigned Inventory
  • Customer Consigned Inventory
• Shop Floor Wireless Operations for Physical Inventory, Location Change, etc.
• Multiple Material Defect Codes by Tag/Bundle
• Traceability & History

Purchasing

• Standard & Blanket Purchase Orders
• Multi-destination Purchase Order
• Direct Shipments (Vendor to Customer)
  • Buyout Purchase Orders for items that are not stocked
• Copy PO Options
• Vendor Price Book
• Imperial and Metric Functions
• On-line Purchase History
• Purchase Analysis by Vendor & Product
• Purchase Material to multiple Metal Standard Specifications (ASTM, etc.)
• Mill Acknowledgement Function
• PO Change History
• Automated Alloy Surcharge Handling
• Landed Cost Options
• Print/Email/Fax Purchase Order document
• Custom Terms & Conditions on PO document
• Inventory Planning & Forecasting for quick decision making
  • On-line Replenishment Position Inquiry
  • Highlights items that require immediate replenishment

Receiving

• Warehouse &/or Office Model for Receiving
• Special receiving function for outside processing
• Pre-Receiving – Advanced Shipping Notice
• Customer Returns
• Label Printing

Material Quality & Certification

• Original Mill Test Certificate Scanning
  • View/print from stock inquiry
• Digital Signature on In-House Test Certificates
• Entry of Chemical & Mechanical Test Results
• Automatic Print of Test Certificate(s) at time of Shipping/Delivery
• Scan additional certificates such as Heat Treat or Charpy Tests
• Quality Hold & Controls

Sales Order Fulfillment

Sales Productivity & Profitability

• Fast Quote Entry with access to real-time customer, inventory, & pricing information
• Simple Quote to Order Conversion
• Quick order to shipment fulfillment options (Same Day/Next Day)
• Lost Quote Analysis
• Counter Sales
• Blanket & Multi-release Orders
• Stock, Buyout, & Direct Ship Purchases & Sales
• Create Buyout PO directly from Sales Order
• Customer Part Specifications for repeat orders
• Multi-Currency Pricing
• Sales can specify exact Diameter, OD/ID/Wall for Bars, Pipe & Tube
• Sell Tubes, Bars, & Hollow Bars by any combination of OD, ID, Wall
• Special Features for Turning, Boring, Honing (pipe & tube)
• Sell material by Pieces, Lineal measure (feet or meters), or Weight

Pricing

• Flexible Metal Price Book
  • Generic pricing, Customer Pricing and Contract Pricing
  • Easy Replacement Cost Maintenance
  • Commodity Pricing (to allow quantity discount over group of items)
• Special Quoting View
• Processing Price Book
  • Fully integrated with Quote/Order Entry
  • Sawing Pricing
• Integrated Freight Tables
• Flexible Pricing by Piece, Lineal Measure, Area, Weight, Lot, Roll

Order Fulfillment

• Multi-Warehouse Process Route 
  • Automatic creation of transfer orders
  • Used to make full use of material/processing options at sister warehouses  
  • Includes outside processing
• Integrated Capacity checking for realistic due date promises

Outside Processing

• Fully integrated with Quote & Sales Order Entry function – seamless!
• Automatic creation of transfer orders for orders that require outside processing
• Automatic creation of Outside Processing Purchase Order
• Can include multiple outside processes
• Test Certificate Scanning
• Automatic Fax/Print of all required Certificates at time of Shipping

Value-Add Processing

• Each value-add service can be built into selling price or charged extra
• Includes outside processing
• Includes freight to & from outside processors and sister warehouses
• Estimated net profit based on value-add costs

Sales Order Status 

• Comprehensive On-Line Order Status Inquiry
• Includes internal and external processes
• Started and completed status for each process in the route
• Planned Shipment status or date and time of shipment
• Inter-Warehouse transfer status
• Outside Processing status
• Ready-to-Ship status
• Invoice status

Production

Production Planning

• On-line Production System for Planning, Scheduling, & Recording
• Eliminates needs for paper copies of orders
• Multiple sales orders can be combined on a single job
• Multi-step Processing

Scheduling

• Capacity Planning
• Cut and Paste on-line schedule
• Re-schedule jobs from one warehouse to another with one click
• Change jobs from internal to external processing
• Warehouse Pick Lineup for on-line operation
• Work Center Scheduling for prioritization

Shop Floor Production Recording

• Real-time Production Recording in the Warehouse
• Pre-Pick function for production jobs
• Integrated Drop Cost Table (to devalue drops based on % or rate)
• Scale Interface
• Track Work-in-Process
• Value-added Costing based on actual or estimated costs
• Hand-held wireless functions for Picking & Location Change
• Barcoded labels for scanning and identification purposes
• Record Use of Strippable Film or PVC ('Consumables')

 Shipping

• On-line Transport/Load Planning by Route and Zone
• Includes transfers to sister warehouses and outside processors
• Identifies longest width & length for proper vehicle selection
• Multi-Stop Transports
• Real-Time Transport Status (% Ready-to-ship)
• Common Carrier or Own Truck Designation
• Hand-held wireless functions for load verification
• Shipping documents include Manifest, Packing List and Bill of Lading
• Automatic print/email/fax of Original Mill Test Certificate &/or in-house certificate(s)
• Inbound & Outbound Truck Scheduling
• Customer On-time Delivery Analysis Database

Sales Management

• Customer & Product Sales Analysis
• Ranking Reports for Customers, Products and Sales staff
• Executive Management Dashboard (optional)

Financial Management

• Invoicing
• Credit Management
• Vendor Invoice Reconciliation
• Integrated AP, AR & GL
• Full GL Integration of all inventory, production, sales and invoicing transactions
• Financial Reporting
• Third Party Financial Product Integration (optional)

Workflow-enabled

• Automated Notification of System Event or User Action
• Notification via Email or STRATIX Workflow Queue

International Features

• Fully Multi-lingual software
• Document Control
  • Documents & reports print in the language of the customer and vendor
• Multi-currency transactions
• Supports envelope formats for different countries
• Country specific sales tax computations
  • European & VAT sales tax computations
  • Mexican tax Retention
• Supports A4 Paper Size
• Date Formatting based on user profile (day, month, year)
• Currency Formatting where a comma is used instead of decimals (1.000,00)
• Localized Test Certificates
  • Supports European Certificate Standards (3.1a, 3.1b, …)
  • Test Certificate Charges (common in Europe)
• Mechanical tests in imperial or metric units of measure
• Additional In-House Test Certificates to meet European standards
• Terms of Trade & Discount Terms (many more options than what is used in USA)
• Display of information in localized time zone
• Track Intrastat information (required in Europe)

STRATIX/MULTICO

• Used by companies with multiple divisions operating independently of one another, often with different operating requirements, at 'Arms Length', i.e., they exchange business transactions using independent sales, purchasing, shipping and receiving functions at a profit
• Provides ability to pool facilities & inventory together to provide operational synergies at minimal cost
• Includes features such as Consolidated Stock View & Inter-company transactions for sales order fulfillment or re-stocking

Internet Products
	Web Customer Service eCOMMERCE CRM Executive Dashboard

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