STEELMAN™ Steel Enterprise Management Systems®

Product Information

STEELMAN Software Solutions Inc., is the manufacturer of SEMS® an integrated suite of enterprise-wide software solutions developed exclusively for manufacturers, suppliers and processors of steel and other metal products. It addresses the unique requirements of the metals industry, which are not easily adaptable to more generic Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) packages. Unlike other ERP/MES systems, SEMS will not require you to change your business to fit the software. Instead, SEMS is designed from the ground up to fit into your business, without the high price tag. Each SEMS solution is designed around three simple principals: flexibility to handle any metals manufacturing, distribution or production problem; reliability to ensure that every order is virtually error free and is manufactured to meet or exceed your quality standards; and performance to deliver results to your staff and customers on demand. The result - improved customer satisfaction at a lower cost of doing business!

The Steelman SEMS family of applications enables you to optimize production capacity, from raw materials through final product — regardless of manufacturing methodology. A unified data model provides a single, accurate view of your manufacturing process, so you can configure customer orders, optimize subcontracting, and manage for cost, quality, and compliance. And when SEMS runs on Oracle technology, you speed implementation, optimize performance, streamline support, and maximize return on your investment. Each solution is designed to capture a broad range of essential business practices and processes that are employed by corporations in a given segment of the metals industry whether it is ferrous or non-ferrous metals.

Our solutions are highly configurable and customizable, which allows us to quickly implement them to suite your particular requirements. We call these re-usable solutions 'business patterns'. Our Clients benefit from adopting business patterns in a number of ways. Business patterns allow us to focus consulting effort on areas of a business that provide real business benefit, rather than on standard activities. In addition, our Clients are assured that these standard elements are built on tried and tested solutions. A pattern-based approach also reduces the time, complexity and levels of change management involved in deploying solutions.

Benefits

At the core of every STEELMAN, implementation lays the STEELMAN E-Business Platform. This flexible, Internet ready infrastructure is built on the industry leading Oracle 10g Business Platform to deliver the high levels of performance, security and scalability that are necessary to run your enterprise. The benefits to you include:

• Lower information technology running costs
  • Simple 3 tier architecture
• Reduce inventory and increase turnover rates with corporate purchasing tools, cross company and divisional inventory control and intelligent stock selection.
• Improve profitability with Sales Order Management tools.
  
• Improve customer service and efficiency.
  
• Reduced labor and handling costs
  
• Improved facility utilization
  
• Increased order accuracy
  
• Innovative customer service
  
• Adaptability to accommodate future growth
  
• Increased revenue
• Streamlined warehouse operations
• Accelerated return on investments
  
  
  

Key Features

• Designed for the metals industry. Built in understanding of industry terms, products, standards, grades and processes.
• Full tractability of all materials, operations and business transactions is maintained.
• Powered by the industry standard Oracle 10g data-base, Oracle 10g Application Server.
• Easily modify or create new queries, reports, graphs and charts using Oracle Reports and Discoverer Tools. Distribute information by e-mail, fax, or print in a variety of formats.
• Open system design allows for extensive customization.
• Support for a wide range of hardware and networking platforms, including the Internet and corporate Intranet.
• Technical support and training is available
• EDI Standard interface tables

Product Modules

The SEMS system consists of an integrated family of products that can implemented individually, or as a whole to provide an end-to-end solution for your business. The SEMS product core modules include:

• System Configurable Setups
• Business Partner Management – Customer/Vendor
• Product Catalog
• Sales Management
• Contract Management
• Dynamic Pricing
• Production Management
• Fabrication BOM – Product Routings
• Warehouse Management
• Purchasing Management
• Costing Management
• Logistic Management
• Claims Management
• Quality / Testing-sample tracking
• Reports and Business intelligence

Metal Products Catalogue

Metals suppliers rely on a vast amount of industry, customer and company specific data to define the products they sell. The SEMS Metal Products Catalogue lets you manage your products and related technical information in one place, and to share this information throughout the entire STEELMAN-SEMS system. Flexibility is the rule for this module, as it must be able to conform to meet the needs of any distributor of metal products. And most important - it understands the language of metal.

• Build products from:
  • Shapes
  • Dimensions
  • Units of measure
• Build a catalog hierarchy
• What can be made from what?
• What are the grades?
• What are the properties?
• What are the tests?
• What are the processes?
• Build complete workflow to produce a customer’s part

Customer Relationship Management

Building and maintaining strong relationships is a key to success in today's competitive marketplace. STEELMAN-SEMS Customer Relationship Management software provides an effective, metals-industry specific set of tools designed to help your sales force manage and understand your customers and suppliers.

Sales Order Management

SEMS Sales Order Management provides the tools to capture orders and inquiries for metal products quickly, reliably and accurately to ensure customer satisfaction, with the added benefits of reduced error rates, processing time, paperwork and ultimately cost. Our software gives a customer service representative the tools to enter, price and quote a delivery date for an order while the customer is on the phone. The production or shipping status of any order can easily be tracked by a sales representative, or even by the customer via our secure Internet-ready interface, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Production Management

Line Detail Production Management to compete in today's global metals market, metals suppliers must be able to deliver product to their customers when they need it, on-time, every time. Unfortunately, metal production is a complex and often unpredictable task that requires careful scheduling and constant monitoring to ensure that production objectives are met. SEMS Production Management helps you to manage your operation by providing sophisticated tools to:

• Apply stock to orders using intelligent search methods to ensure that your customer's requirements are met, and your inventory is being used cost effectively. Support for toll-processing and vendor managed inventories is also provided.
• Develop a realistic production plan for each order that minimizes production inventory costs, and can be quoted to the customer with confidence.
• Balance work-center loads.
• Notify Production and Sales staff of potential scheduling problems that may affect on-time delivery so that corrective actions can be taken proactively.

Distribution Management

Distribution Management Metal products are simply not like parts in an assembly shop - they have multiple, complex properties with precise dimensions. SEMS Distribution Management gives your purchasing and inventory managers the tools they need to effectively purchase, track and control metal inventories. The history of each inventory item is maintained to provide complete tractability from the mill-heat through to the finished product.

Costing Management

Inventory Detail Screen Cost Management Managing cost is a critical factor in the quest to remain competitive in today's global metals marketplace. Profit margins are eroded by intense competition in shrinking markets. Meanwhile, new technologies, tighter quality requirements and just-in-time supply chains add complexity and cost to your products. Without a good understanding of the actual cost of production, those small profit margins can quickly disappear. SEMS Cost Management was designed to help metals suppliers to understand the real costs of their products. Accurate sales-order costing ensures that pricing covers all hidden manufacturing costs resulting from special processing, packaging or shipping requirements. Tracking the actual cost of production and analyzing the variances between predicted and actual cost will identify problem areas where corrective actions can be taken to control your costs.

Logistics Management

The ultimate test of a company's performance lies in its ability to deliver product as promised. SEMS Logistics Management provides the tools to easily build, schedule and dispatch loads to ensure that each order is filled and shipped on time. All of the necessary paperwork is prepared to accompany the order, including customizable invoices, bills of lading and product documentation including mill test reports or extracts.

Claims Management

The Claims Management application provides the functions that are required for creating and maintaining Customer and/or Supplier claims. It also includes the functions required for creating and maintaining credit and debit memos. The system will keep track of the links between the customer claims and supplier claims, if any and will allow definition of defect codes to be used for claims. The user can attach an external document (such as /images or text document) to a claim.

• Enter and maintain claims from customers, or to supplier. Supplier and customer claims can be linked.
• Multiple defects can be recorded against any claimed item, using industry standard or customized defect codes.
• Track the status of any claim, from initial investigation to its final resolution.
• Allow all or a portion of the claim. Material can be returned to the supplier, or scrap credits can be issued.
• Store multiple digital photographs with any claim.
• Link any electronic document to a claim.
• Create credit and debit notes and post to Account Receivable or Accounts Payable.
• Analyze claim history and trends for any product or customer using advanced Business Intelligence tools.

Business Intelligence

Reporting and Business Intelligence Information is a valuable commodity in any business, but all too often, it is hidden away in complex database structures and cannot be readily put to use. SEMS Business Intelligence is a sophisticated decision support and analysis tool that empowers you to make critical business decisions by placing information at your fingertips. Users are shielded from the underlying complexities of the database so they can concentrate on analyzing and solving business problems. Users can easily create new queries, reports, charts and spreadsheets and add them to the SEMS system. And of course, your sensitive information is protected from unauthorized access or modification

• In addition to advanced analytical tools, SEMS also provides the tools necessary to distribute information to those who need it using a variety of techniques (including e-mail, fax, and print) and formats (including HTML, PDF, RTF and ASEMSII). Business Financials

SEMS was designed using open software development techniques to allow it to be integrated with a wide range of business financials packages. As a result, your critical business applications can remain unchanged, thus minimizing the impact on your operation.