From enabling the identification and tracking of non-value adding activities inherent in your current operational processes, to the automation of manual processes, SYSPRO's powerful functionality provides you with the tools to implement your LEAN initiatives. Its integrated nature and ease-of-use facilitates the effortless extraction of financial and operational information required for Value Stream Mapping (VSM).

SYSPRO's Inventory module is a synchronized hub providing a consolidated view of all stock locations and those activities that impact inventory optimization and customer service levels, as well as the end-to-end elements of costs and lead times. Features such as Pareto and obsolescence analysis can assist in identifying those products that are suitable for VSM focus, while SYSPRO modules such as Engineering Change Control, Bills of Material, Work-in Progress and Factory Scheduling facilitate the evaluation of targets for kaizen programs, such as reduction in design and manufacturing costs, cycle times, queues and setups.

SYSPRO's powerful inspection, serial tracking and lot traceability functionality aid in the identification and tracking of the source of defects, thereby enabling the implementation of kaizen initiatives towards the principle of 'Quality at the source'.

The queries and reports in Work in Progress enable you to quickly assess the statuses, inventories and costs associated with work in progress, and provide metrics on utilization, efficiency, scrap and rework, while customer and supplier delivery performance metrics are provided by the Sales Order and Purchase Order and Inventory Optimization modules.

SYSPRO's Inventory and Bills of Material modules enable the modelling of the LEAN techniques of batch size and setup reduction on costs, lead time and inventory. SYSPRO's Factory Scheduling provides graphical tools to assist you in optimizing scheduling and sequencing processes, to reduce setup and overall lead time, and improve manufacturing flexibility and sale-to-customer flow. This, along with the inventory optimization and production planning features, enables you to refine the pace of production to match the pace of sales. Furthermore, features such as sales order/job/purchase-order linking facilitate the electronic implementation of true pull supply- chain processes where appropriate.

Document Flow Manager and SYSPRO e.net Solutions enable you, not only to automate resource and time-intensive processes such as order processing, but also to handle increased volumes from global customers. By providing the capability for 24/7 order taking and acknowledgment, they improve lead time, and free up staff to perform other value-adding tasks. Furthermore, SYSPRO's XML-aware solutions enable version-independent integration with best-of-breed shop floor monitoring and control systems.

The system's sophisticated reporting and analytics tools enable user-defined reports and queries, while SYSPRO Workflow Services enable the creation of efficient workflows to implement business rules and standardize business processes. Electronic Signatures and automation tools enable the automatic raising of alerts, triggers and events based on user-defined criteria, thereby aiding prompt problem solving and process improvement.

SYSPRO's flexible integrated features and best-practice focus give you single-point visibility and control, providing support for the implementation of your LEAN initiatives.

SYSPRO's extensive features foster the centralized management and control of the product design process, while its comprehensive security, customization and multi-lingual capabilities enable you to provide tailored access to external collaborative partners around the globe.

Import facilities and SYSPRO e.net Solutions facilitate improved electronic collaboration with your customers for the creation of customer-specified designs, while the Contact Management system provides a central area for the recording and querying of all communications regarding collaborative activities.

Multi-level bills of material for designs modeled on CAD systems can be imported into SYSPRO, thereby reducing double-entry and the margin for error, as well providing a solid basis on which to calculate costs and lead times for quoting to the customer. In addition, other product-related data such as technical drawings can be imported and linked to the relevant products in SYSPRO, while photographs, video clips and other multimedia files can be linked and viewed on-demand.

SYSPRO's powerful engineering change control (ECC) features enable the creation of user-defined workflows to control the product development process and ensure electronic sign-off. Bill of material component and routing changes, as well as the impact on existing transactional data are controlled through paperless approval and authorization mechanisms, including ECC event triggers, as defined by your organization.

Constant innovation is one of the key factors to remaining competitive and on-going research and development to design new and better products is integral to the industry. Your ability to design new products and modify existing designs, as well as improve time-to-market is critical to remaining competitive and profitable.

SYSPRO provides tools to streamline and track the introduction of new product designs and amendments to existing designs, along with relevant costings. SYSPRO's Engineering Change Control (ECC) enables you to apply strict control over your design-to-market processes by providing an integrated rules-based electronic workflow system with full version control, security and auditable history.

ECC gives you the tools to record and track new and modified product design and process changes, assess the impact of these changes on costs and associated data, and control the change routing and approval processes. ECC's queries, audit trail, history and archive facilities, give you quick on-line access to details of prior product versions, as well as the option of reverting to the production of a prior product version if required. In addition, the facility to attach copies of product design drawings to version and release levels provides access to visual details of revisions.

The Where-used Query facility enables you to identify all items affected by the raising of an Engineering Change order for all routes identified as being under Engineering Change Control. In addition, SYSPRO provides a 'replace component where-used' facility that enables the quick replacement of one item with a valid substitute item, thereby streamlining design changes.

SYSPRO's ECC, Bill of Materials, Work-in-Progress and Factory Documentation modules enable you to implement controls to ensure that your products are manufactured under consistent processes, to the correct designs and specifications. Single-level, multi-level, co and by-product bills are all catered for and flexible bill definitions accommodate complex component and sub-assembly requirements.

SYSPRO's Quality Management System (QMS) enables product quality control by allowing the configuration of multiple measurement metrics, as well as inspection points per inventory item, such as length, chemical composition and hardness. This configuration, which includes the allowable tolerances for each metric and inspection frequency, is configurable as required; for example, full, partial, periodic and random quantity sampling is supported.

Exceptions to inspection rules are configurable per customer, supplier, operation and work center with quality inspection points at Work in Progress Inspection, Purchase Order Receipting, Sales Order Inspection and Inventory Inspection. These quality control checkpoints allow the collection of actual physical product data, to facilitate statistical process control, as well as provide an opportunity for simple material review in the event of a non-conformance, with the possible outcome of inventory reclassification or scrapping. Logs of all quality checks performed are held, including the details of the operators performing the check.

The advanced functionality provides the ability to escalate a quality issue or force quality actions to route into a material review board. The review board then has the facility to sanction the inventory action, such as approval or scrapping, and to record the relevant session details. Additional employee certification requirements for each product by checkpoint and operation are configurable and during all quality-related operations and reviews, this certification is recorded and used to determine if the operation at hand may continue.

Where a full QMS system is not required, quality checks may be implemented using the standard inspection facilities in the Work in Progress and Purchase Order modules. Purchased items can be flagged as requiring inspection so that during receipting, detailed records of counts, inspection, scrap, rejects and returns are recorded. Units in inspection are visible, but unavailable for use until accepted into stock. Similarly, SYSPRO's Work in Progress inspection gives you the tools to inspect manufactured product quality and, depending on the results, select to receipt, scrap or rework quantities.

Your ability to harness e-Commerce technologies effectively has enormous potential to transform your business and enhance commercial success and growth.

Your customers and suppliers may look increasingly to closer collaboration, to cut production timetables and minimize disruption to their supply chain. This could involve working via their electronic order and supply chain systems to enable streamlining of operations and to reduce margin for error. Multi-organization research and design teams may need to work collaboratively and to achieve this, you must have efficient, secure systems that can deliver and receive information.

SYSPRO facilitates streamlined, secure electronic data interchange and collaborative commerce through features such Document Flow Manager, e.net Solutions, EDI, Office Automation and Messaging, SYSPRO Workflow Services and various Business-to-Business purchase and sales import and export functions. In addition, SYSPRO's Web Applications are out-the-box solutions which you can run on the Internet/Intranet and easily customize to suit end-user requirements.

Quick response times and accuracy in fulfilling orders are critical to your reputation in a diverse and demanding global market. Automated 24/7 customer order placement and acknowledgment is facilitated via SYSPRO's Document Flow Manager and email. In addition, SYSPRO's e.net Solutions enables the rapid development of applications for mobile devices, so that your sales force can check stock and place orders directly into SYSPRO while out visiting customers, thereby improving order turnaround time.

SYSPRO's e.net Solutions can be extended to integrate SYSPRO with other applications, such as shipping companies' tracking systems to determine the shipping status of customer orders. In addition, e.net Solutions facilitates the integration of SYSPRO with scanning and Smart technologies, thereby streamlining picking and packing processes, as well as inventory stock takes.

If your customers include Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) you can import and easily reconcile vendor EDI releases using SYSPRO's Blanket Sales Order module.

In custom-build, as well as project and service environments, job cost accuracy is essential in attaining correct pricing and profitability, as well as to assess the reliability of the quoting process, while in standard costing environments, it is essential for tracking the validity of current standard costs.

For custom-build environments, SYSPRO's Quotations module enables detailed estimates based on all aspects of the job (or jobs) and the automatic creation of jobs, purchase orders and sales orders based on approved quotes. This ensures the integrity of the quoted and margin information throughout the system. For project and service environments, this same functionality is available, with the added benefits of hierarchical analysis of costs and margins per head and section.

SYSPRO's fully integrated solution enables the capture, tracking and analyzing of job and product costs, and profitability in real-time. Details of expected versus actual costs for material and scrap, internal and external labor, fixed and overhead costs per job, or group of jobs, is available through SYSPRO's querying and reporting features. This enables the identification of exceptions and problems as they occur, such as areas of high cost expenditure, production scrap and rework, and problems in the quoting process. Furthermore, for those businesses wishing to take advantage of government and private enterprise grant programs, detailed R&D job data is easily extracted for regulatory reporting requirements.

With SYSPRO's visibility to product cost details and profit margins, including for co- and by-products, you can evaluate job cost performance, margin analysis and pricing with confidence.

SYSPRO's Asset Register provides the tools to simplify the management and control of your asset investment and to ensure a complete and current electronic view of the status of your asset register. It enables comprehensive tracking of all asset details and history, as well as tax, book and 10 alternate values. It includes integration to capex management, purchasing, work in progress and general ledger, thereby simplifying the asset acquisition and disposal processes and reducing the margin for input errors.

A variety of depreciation methods, basis and date conventions is available, as well as the facility to process depreciation adjustments. Revaluations and transfers are also catered for, as is asset stocktaking and asset expense tracking. Comprehensive reporting and querying is facilitated through asset master details, while user-defined groupings and categories enable the separation of registers by department, or other company-designated structures.

To gain the competitive edge, you must have the agility to respond to market demands at all levels of operation, without increasing costs and waste, and sacrificing efficiency. Whether you use line, batch or project processes, your scheduling activities must balance competing objectives. This includes the efficient management and execution of re-scheduling activities when business priorities and plans change or unexpected events occur.

Having the capability to create and execute an achievable schedule requires a comprehensive view of the current situation and available resources, as well as the tools to perform efficient re-scheduling if necessary. SYSPRO's visual scheduling products provide this capability to suit all levels of sophistication and complexity, from basic manual drag and drop, to automatic algorithm-driven scheduling and changeover optimization.

Particularly suited to job shop, batch process and project environments, SYSPRO Factory Scheduling provides the planner with an interactive decision support tool that helps balance demand and resource availability. Optimization is enhanced through the consideration of priorities, constraints, and conflicts, as well as sequencing and synchronization requirements. Automatic forward, backward and bi-directional scheduling is available, along with manual intervention. The customizable graphical interface enables quick and easy identification of schedule loads, job and operation statuses and links, and resource availability.

One-click schedule performance metrics, as well as the ability to run, save and compare schedules, provide what-if capability and enable the scheduler to choose the best option for the current circumstances.

Whether you operate a simple scheduling environment requiring single-constraint finite scheduling, or a complex environment requiring multi-constraint and rules-based finite scheduling, SYSPRO can help you optimize your scheduling activities with its Graphical Planning Board (GPB), Factory Scheduler (FS) or Advanced Scheduler (AS).

Efficient management of your receivables and mitigation of bad debt is essential to maintaining a healthy cash flow. SYSPRO's powerful features can assist you to improve your credit management performance with reduced effort, as well as to maintain single-point communications with your customers.

Extensive order and invoice credit checking features enable the implementation of flexible terms and controls to suit different categories of customer. Ageing methods offered include by invoice date, invoice due date, statement date and aged statement date, and customer terms allow for a variety of settlement discount options. Multi-currency invoice and payments are catered for, as well as the automation of finance and recurring charges.

Prompt electronic delivery of customer statements, invoices and copy invoices is facilitated through SYSPRO's email and fax integration; documents can be transmitted directly from point of extraction. User-defined stationery formats preclude the need for pre-printed stationery and enable the creation of customer documents in Word or secure PDF format. Additionally, you can allow customers to query your SYSPRO database directly for detailed account information via the internet, with SYSPRO Office Integration or SYSPRO e.net solutions.

The 'Average Days to Pay' calculation and extensive search, query and report features enable the quick and accurate assessment and targeted follow-up of customer debt. Rapid application of customer payments against a large number of outstanding invoices is efficiently handled using SYSPRO's Payments and Adjustment functions, including the automatic payments application feature. Also, the time and effort to manage trade customer accruals, rebates and deductions is significantly reduced through the use of SYSPRO's Trade Promotions and master/sub account functionality.

SYSPRO helps to greatly streamline the completion of account receivable month end procedures. Creation of workflow and checklists for periodic and month-end procedures is made possible through SYSPRO's customizable menus and Task Manager. The system's multi-period accounting enables operational continuity for the new period, reducing pressure on the receivables department to finalize the month's transactions within a severely limited time frame. In addition, SYSPRO Reporting Services provides the ability to automate scheduling and electronic storage of month end reports 'as run', thereby precluding the need to supervise their production and printing.

SYSPRO's standard Trial Balance and Credit Management reports can be supplemented by additional user-defined KPIs and reports using Report Writer or SYSPRO Reporting Services. Furthermore, you can configure SYSPRO's powerful event management and customization features to alert relevant personnel to certain conditions, such as accounts being overdue by a stated number of days, via email or on-screen field highlights.

SYSPRO enables the tight control and tracking of raw material purchases from foreign suppliers. You can set up approved, preferred and alternate suppliers, along with their pricing and catalogue cross referencing, and can specify standard purchase lead times against which to measure actual Delivery Performance. In addition, the blanket purchase order facilities enable you to specify pricing for an agreed quantity of product, as well as to track actual call-off deliveries against contract.

The Purchase Order module gives you the tools to raise and track detailed Purchase Orders and associated deliveries, and provides local and foreign purchase order print and export facilities. Additionally, the Office Automation module enables faxing or emailing of Purchase Orders directly from within SYSPRO.

SYSPRO enables you to hedge against unpredictable supply of longer lead time items through the use of minimum and safety stock levels, as well as flexible order policies. Material Requirements Planning and Advanced Trial Kitting provide facilities for calculating what you need and when you need it, taking into account, demand and supply, lead times, current inventory levels and order policies.

You can rely on SYSPRO's landed cost tracking and multi-currency capabilities to provide an accurate picture of the costs of your imported goods, as well as associated variances between estimated and expected for all cost elements associated with imported items. In addition, the GRN Suspense system highlights any discrepancies between invoice details and actual purchase costs and deliveries.

The necessity to hold diverse inventories to meet customer-driven product variants means that the strict management of raw material lead times is vitally important in maintaining customer service level targets and controlling overall procurement and holding costs. SYSPRO enables you to monitor quoted purchasing lead times against actual supplier delivery performance and to flag reliable suppliers of specific raw materials as certified in the system, as well as to track blanket purchase order contracts. Component-to-operation linking and component offsets facilitate the time-phased calculation of material requirements as well as the implementation of JIT and LEAN purchasing principles. In addition, inventory order point indicators, such as reorder point and minimum/maximum levels provide the tools to help you mitigate problems associated with unreliable supply of long-lead time items, while material requirements planning enables the calculation of material requirements based on forecasts. In addition, SYSPRO's event management enables the automation of notifications to the relevant people when stocks fall below reorder point levels.

SYSPRO provides a number of features to assist you in the control and management of hazardous and dangerous goods with regards to storage, packing and transportation. Multi-warehouse functionality enables you to create virtual warehouses, and bins within warehouses, to represent separate dangerous goods storage areas for specific items. The multimedia features enable you to, per stock code, link and display graphical, video and text information, such as material safety data sheets, dangerous goods safety marks, and safety gear icons. Operators then have access to view and print the information when required.

The system's flexible custom form functionality enables you to capture dangerous and hazardous goods information per stock code; for example you can create mandatory or optional custom forms to capture data such as hazard identification number, class, subsidiary risk, compatibility group, packing group, shipping name and register reference. You can easily configure SYSPRO to display and highlight custom form data on operator entry and query screens; and to print on reports, such as picking lists and on stationery, such as job documentation, invoices and delivery notes.

SYSPRO also provides an extensive notes facility, the content of which you can configure to automatically print on certain documentation within the system. Notes include generic notes against all key fields, as well as special key field notes, such as the technical specification, dangerous goods handling, and inspection notes against inventory items.

Increasing manufacturing efficiency means getting the right balance between demand and supply, while optimizing capacity, improving throughput, and reducing waste and variable costs. SYSPRO provides interactive decision-support tools that give you visibility and control over all inputs and outputs.

SYSPRO's material requirements planning functionality gives you an integrated picture of your time-phased demand and supply, enabling you to model 'what-if' scenarios to produce viable replenishment plans.

SYSPRO Factory Scheduling assists you in maintaining accurate and up-to-date production schedules that take account of your material plans and the complexities of your factory. This enables better co-ordination between work centers, increased productivity, reduced work-in-progress and achievement of improved customer service levels.

Material and labor tracking, as well as cost, scrap and utilization management is facilitated through SYSPRO's Work in Progress module, which enables you to track in-process production at every stage and identify problems as they occur.

For corporate governance requirements, as well as cash flow and operational efficiency, it is critical to budget for capital expenditure and to forecast the requisite cash requirements. SYSPRO's Asset Capex System facilitates the creation of both broad and specific capex budgets with the latter forming a subset of the broader budget category; for example, a piece of equipment within a production cell or line.

You can capture up to three quotations for a capex line and once the capex line is approved, you can rapidly generate a new purchase requisition, purchase order or a job, or link to an existing one. The approval process is controlled through a series of capex line statuses, including unapproved, approved, on hold and closed.

SYSPRO provides simplified acquisition processing once the asset is receipted from a purchase order or a job. The asset is placed in suspense and through a user-friendly suspense review facility you can retrieve and check the details of the suspended asset on-line before automating its transfer to the live asset register. This reduces double entry, as well as the margin for capture errors.

Comprehensive queries and reporting is provided on committed, uncommitted and spent capex values.

Whether you supply original equipment manufacturers, diverse retailers, after-sales service outlets, or distribute product to your own distribution centers, effective planning and control of your inventory and order fulfillment activities is essential for operational efficiency and maximum profitability. SYSPRO provides a real-time integrated view of business operations, as well as the means to manage large diverse inventories and to plan and execute sophisticated warehouse replenishment and order fulfillment requirements. Efficient replenishment planning and fulfillment per warehouse is facilitated through SYSPRO's Distribution Requirements Planning, multi-warehouse and Goods in Transit functionality. The system caters for warehouse-specific costs and order policies, backorders, inter-warehouse lead times, optional inclusion of transfer costs and detailed transfer documentation. Furthermore, the Goods in Transit system enables detailed control, reconciliation and balancing of inter-warehouse transfers.

Distributors supplying major retailers and original equipment manufacturers (OEM) would be challenged to optimize customer service and expand distribution capabilities without e-business capability. SYSPRO's Web Applications enable you to provide your global customers and remote sales force with the convenience of secure 24/7 access to order placement, as well as to queries on pricing, stock availability, detailed statements and order statuses. In addition, sophisticated automated order placement and acknowledgement is facilitated through SYSPRO's e.net solutions and Document Flow Manager. This is further enhanced by SYSPRO's stock code interchange feature which enables customers to query stock and enter orders using their own part numbers.

Customer order fulfillment is managed through SYSPRO's sophisticated sales order picking and dispatch features, while SYSPRO's Customer Relationship Manager and Return Merchandise Authority modules provide the means to manage, control and analyze customer returns and credits. While simple, extended and contract pricing are standard features of the Sales Order module, the Trade Promotions Management module provides complex pricing functionality for distributors, including promotions, rebates and accruals. The Blanket Sales Order module enables SYSPRO customers to easily update call-off schedules for their OEM clients, as well as to reconcile the cumulative position against their OEM contracts.

The diverse nature of manufacturing methods employed in the industry entails the synchronization and integration of a variety of manufacturing techniques all within one fully integrated software system.

Whether manufacturing to order or to stock, using discrete or process methods; engineering to order; or building large project-based assets, SYSPRO's outstanding flexibility ensures a comprehensive set of tools to help you plan, record, track and control your output.

SYSPRO functionality enables you to keep finished goods inventory to an absolute minimum and enhances your decision-making regarding what to manufacture, with what resources, when, where, and in what sequence.

SYSPRO's Quotations and Estimating ensures the integrity of cost and profit calculation for bid processes in project, as well as job shop, engineer and make-to-order environments. On confirmation of a quote, SYSPRO provides the capability to automatically raise all supply actions related to fulfilling the customer order, through its sales order, purchase order and job linking features. Furthermore, SYSPRO's Product Configurator facilitates seamless rules-based order processing for assemble, configure and make-to-order products.

For discrete and process manufacturers, comprehensive bills of material functionality enables the definition of simple single-level bills through to complex formulations with multiple units of measure and relationship definitions.

Master data features ensure accurate calculation of lead times and dynamic elapsed times, and assist in the optimization of production order quantities, while Engineering Change Control facilitates the efficient management of changes to product versions.

Planning features include forecasting, master planning, material requirements planning and capacity planning, while scheduling functionality extends from single-constraint scheduling to multi-constraint scheduling and sequencing.

Material and labor consumed in production may be backflushed, or, for longer production runs, issued as consumed to work in progress. Work-in-progress inspection functionality enables a product to be receipted against multiple items if grades of the final product vary.

Tracking of actual versus estimated labor hours, material usage and scrap is facilitated through the Work in Progress module, while SYSPRO's e.net Solutions enable version-independent integration to best-of-breed CAD and shop-floor data collection systems.

SYSPRO features extensive costing control and tracking, including the facility to model the effects of what-if material, labor and manufacturing route costs.

The effective prediction and management of cash flow requirements depends on access to reliable accurate data. SYSPRO facilitates this by providing you detailed data and a number of tools enabling you to see what cash is due for payment or collection, and when.

The Accounts Receivable module provides an aged trial balance that gives you a clear picture of when your billed receivables are due, along with customer terms and the average number of days each customer takes to pay. Sales order backlog reports by due date along with customer payment terms give you the data you need to calculate receivables for unbilled orders.

The Accounts Payable module provides an aged trial balance for your invoiced purchases along with supplier terms and an option to include unapproved invoices. The GRN suspense trial balance includes an aged balance of purchase receipts not yet invoiced by suppliers, while a Purchase Order Commitment report provides you with projections of the value committed to outstanding orders in any given time period.

The Cash Book module provides a snapshot of your current cash status as well as outstanding deposits and withdrawals and easy reconciliation of bank balances. In addition, the Cash Projection report enables you to forecast the effect on your bank balances of any recurring entries projected into the future.

General Ledger budgets for the current and following year, as well as eight alternate budgets, enable you to capture, query and report on cash flow forecasts at ledger code level.

The SYSPRO Cash Flow Forecast provides the capability to create multiple on-line cash flow models from a variety of inflow and outflow data, such as receivables, payables, cash book, general ledger, sales, purchasing, demand forecasts and material requirements. These forecasts provide a comprehensive view of the company-wide cash flow position. In addition, the various SYSPRO modules provide you with detailed reports and queries which assist in payment and collection control.

Manufacturers supplying an extensive network of after-market sales agents would be challenged to optimize customer service and expand distribution capabilities without e-business capability. SYSPRO's Web Applications enable you to provide your global customers and remote sales force with the convenience of secure 24/7 access to order placement, as well as to queries on pricing, stock availability, detailed statements and order statuses. In addition, sophisticated automated order placement and acknowledgment is facilitated through SYSPRO's e.net Solutions and Document Flow Manager. This is further enhanced by SYSPRO's customer stock code interchange program, which enables customers to query stock and enter orders using their own part numbers.

Customer order fulfilment is managed through SYSPRO's extensive sales order picking and dispatch features, while SYSPRO's multi-warehouse, distribution requirements planning and goods-in-transit features facilitate the planning, execution and control of parts distribution to multiple geographic locations.

SYSPRO's Return Merchandise and Contact Management systems provide the means to manage, control and analyze customer returns and credits. Furthermore, the Lot Traceability and Serial Tracking systems enable the processing of warranty and repair claims, while the Work in Progress module enables costing and tracking of repair and refurbishment jobs.

In an industry where the requirement for customizable end-products is common, flexibility, speed, and accuracy in meeting customer demand is essential to remaining competitive.

SYSPRO enables you to improve your time-to-market performance and streamline constituent processes through its rules-based Product Configurator. Not only does it provide streamlined order-taking by non-technical staff, it facilitates the automatic generation of factory orders and purchase orders, with all the relevant detail such as materials and operations required to make or assemble the correct customer-specific configuration of the product. In addition to releasing technical staff from the order-taking process, the Configurator mitigates the need for manual input or additional bills of materials to cover all product permutations and drastically reduces the margin for input errors. New permutations may be saved for future orders making it easy to recall at order entry time.

Additionally, for complete engineer- and design-to-order requirements, SYSPRO speeds the processing of inquiries through its estimating and quotations functionality, with estimating providing an accurate view of both standard and non-standard material and labor costs, ensuring accurate profitability projection and quoting. Furthermore, SYSPRO's powerful factory scheduling features enable you to quote accurate lead times and delivery dates based on capacity and existing loads. Once a quote is accepted by the customer the conversion to a factory order is a simple automated process.

Understanding the true cost per transaction of doing business means identifying contributing elements, direct and indirect, across the entire organization. These include not only the cost efficiency of operational activities and their interrelationships, but also the time spent on manual and redundant processes, reconciliations, paperwork and reporting, as well as the cost of lost opportunities from a lack of agility in responding to the global marketplace.

SYSPRO provides essential integrated visibility to your accounting, distribution and manufacturing operations, thereby enabling you to easily identify and track your cost elements and to target areas of waste for improvement programs. Additionally, it facilitates the automation of many processes that have traditionally been labor intensive and time consuming, such as operational-to-financial reconciliations and communicating with trading partners.

SYSPRO offers Standard, Average, Last, FIFO and LIFO costing methods flagged at warehouse level, thereby providing accurate operations-focused inventory valuation, which in turn supplies accurate input for product pricing and profitability. Comprehensive multi-level costing of manufactured items is provided through the Bill of Material and Work in Progress modules, with the Product Configurator and Quotations and Estimating modules providing additional tools for assemble/make/engineer-to-order environments. Lot traceability, serial tracking and return merchandise functionality, along with SYSPRO's inspection systems, provide tracking of product defects, thereby helping you to mitigate costly recalls.

SYSPRO's cost rollup and implosion functionality, along with user-friendly costing queries, provides fast access to reliable information on which to base pricing and profit margins. In addition, its extensive what-if costing features enables modeling and comparison of the cost effects of alternative inputs, such as raw materials, production routes, labor rates and subcontractor rates.

SYSPRO provides work-in-progress tracking, enabling evaluation of detailed actual-versus-expected costs, as well as targets for cost savings and continuous improvement programs. Used in conjunction with the Projects and Contracts module, it facilitates comprehensive project job costing. Visibility to production scheduling, along with what-if sequencing and scheduling tools, enhance manufacturing agility and competitiveness and help to prevent lost sales in unpredictable demand environments.

Excess inventories tie up valuable resources both in terms of cost and warehouse management. SYSPRO helps you optimize, manage and track your inventories through its multi-warehouse Inventory, Material Requirements Planning, Purchase Order and Work in Progress modules. In addition, the Purchase Order and Landed Cost Tracking systems provide a more accurate estimate of the full landed cost of imported goods, with the GRN matching and reconciliation features facilitating electronic reconciliation of supplier deliveries and charges.

Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable and Cash Book provide comprehensive balancing and reconciliation tools, as well as credit and cash flow management capability. Additionally, efficient administration of customer accruals, rebates and deductions is facilitated through the Trade Promotions Management module. Commitment accounting is provided through the Accounts Payable and Purchasing modules, while the Assets Register ensures accurate maintenance and depreciation costing, and asset profit and loss realization.

SYSPRO's General Ledger module provides powerful queries with drill-down from journal to transaction source, as well as at-a-glance financial and activity ratios. Processing time is greatly reduced through features, such as sub-ledger integration and reconciliation, journal copy, journal import, automatic weighted transfer of costs and G/L analysis. Furthermore, SYSPRO's ease of ledger consolidation across complex businesses, along with its XML-based financial reporting features, enables prompt web-based deployment of financial reports to SYSPRO and non-SYSPRO users alike.

SYSPRO's flexible user-defined stationery formats, along with SYSPRO Reporting Services (SRS), precludes the need for pre-printed stationery for invoices, delivery notes, order acknowledgements, dispatch notes, purchase orders and statements. In addition, SRS provides considerable savings by reducing the need for paper-based audit trails and reporting. Its automatic scheduling tool precludes the need for resource-intensive supervision of periodic and month-end reporting. Furthermore, the archiving feature provides for the electronic storage of reports as run, thereby enabling users to view them on-line to discern actual print requirements.

SYSPRO's Office (SOI), fax and email integration saves time, postage and paper by enabling you to deliver transactional documents, such as purchase orders and statements, directly from their point of extraction via secure electronic means. Additionally, SOI facilitates direct queries of key operational data from the desktops of enterprise-wide users and trading partners, without the need for the desktop installation or licensing of SYSPRO.

The capability to extend electronic communication, so as to automate the acceptance and acknowledgement of orders on a 24/7 basis, is provided via SYSPRO's e.net solutions, Document Flow Manager and Web Applications. Furthermore, SYSPRO's e.net solutions tools afford non-proprietary and version-independent integration to mobile devices and best-of-breed applications, such as shop floor control and quality monitoring systems.

The ROI of implementing SYSPRO is rapidly realized through full visibility to an integrated picture of your business operations and the resultant reduction in operational costs, processing time and human resources.

A critical after-sales service in the industry, MRO requires detailed record-keeping of customer equipment configurations as well as previously performed maintenance work, in order to meet service-level agreement requirements. SYSPRO's Product Configurator simplifies the raising of orders for variable configurations, while SYSPRO's Bill of Materials, Engineering Change Control and Work-in-Progress provide the recording and tracking of as-built and as-maintained configuration history and service notes, including details of any subcontracted work. Additionally SYSPRO's Serial Tracking and Lot Traceability functionality provide reliable part warranty and replacement details and history.

Thus the extraction of maintenance history and current configuration details is facilitated for customer regulatory reporting , as well as to enable customer-targeted planning of materials and activities for service and repair jobs.

Tracking the costs of long sales cycles and product development activities is essential to identifying true return on investment. SYSPRO's Engineering Change Control functionality enables improved control over product development activities, while SYSPRO Work in Progress enables the capture, costing and tracking of time and materials consumed in various business programs. This provides instant visibility to project cost performance and identification of cost reimbursement values. For complex long-cycle projects, SYSPRO Projects and Contracts enables detailed analysis of activities and costs by user-defined section.