The Issue:

In factories that process a large quantity of parts, it is too difficult to maintain the various levels of safety stock manually. The solution described here allows you to calculate safety stock for each part in a controlled automatic manner. The calculation is performed on the basis of actual material usage during a defined period, and includes the possibility of adding coefficients or manually revising recommended quantities.

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The solution:

Priority provides a form that displays the usage of raw materials during the desired period, and recommends the appropriate level of safety stock on the basis of this data, as well as various coefficients. Usage data are taken from issues to the plant floor, warehouse transfers and customer sales.

You can manually revise the recommended safety stock after approving the results displayed in the form. You can also perform a general update of the safety stock on the basis of the form data.

When goods are received into inventory, a barcode label must be applied to each item before it can be distributed to stores. In order to save valuable time when receiving the goods and avoid distribution delays, you can run a simple program well before the goods are received, which sends the correct amount of labels for each part directly to a label work area, according to the itemized vendor invoices linked to a given shipping voucher.

Companies whose sales reps circulate in the field with handheld devices can provide their reps with comprehensive data regarding a customer's debts. Once a day, the device can be loaded with up-to-date detailed information regarding open invoices, post-dated checks, etc.

Field/Sales Agents: Receiving Orders & Reporting Customer Returns Using Handheld Devices

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Priority's POS utility is designed for working online or offline, to pass information back and forth regarding sales orders and customer returns. The module provides sales reps with up-to-date details regarding parts a customer is interested in, unpaid bills, and more.

Planning and Execution of Delivery Scheduling to Chain Store Branches Using a Fleet of Vehicles

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Priority's Delivery Scheduling module enables you to:

• Set up distribution routes and arrange order delivery by date and route
• Manage a fleet of vehicles, defining weight and volume capacity
• Automatically assign vehicles by date and distribution route, controlling for weight/volume limitations
• Prepare order picklists according to distribution route

Produce sales invoices and shipping documents per distribution route

Customers' orders are rerouted for delivery from the logistical center. When orders are delivered, picklists are imported directly from the logistical center, thereby updating order and inventory balances and generating shipping documents and customer invoices.

Managing the permanent placement of each part enables warehouse personnel to go directly to the permanent storage place for specific goods when they are issued or picked from inventory. Inventory management of this type is appropriate only for goods stored in a single permanent location in the warehouse, and not for goods which are stored in several alternate locations.

Managing Price Lists & Discounts by Customer Group: maintaining a single entry for price lists and discounts for a customer group.

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Define a representative customer for each customer group. Changes and updates to price terms or discounts for the representative customer take effect immediately for all customers in that group.

Providing Equipment on Consignment, Tracking Customer Inventory Levels & Periodic Billing According to Usage

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Priority enables you to set up and maintain consignment warehouses, where inventory that has been loaned to a customer is maintained. The customer reports usage on a regular basis, and is invoiced accordingly.

Priority allows you to track returned goods and equipment from the customer warehouse (for example, in the event that goods in the consignment warehouse have expired).

Priority contains a Parts per Vendor form for listing the various parts provided by a specific vendor. When selecting the vendor in purchase documents, Choose lists include only those products that vendor provides, and not the entire part catalogue.

The bonus system in Priority enables you to offer customers bonus parts when they order a certain quantity of a specific part or parts belonging to the same part family. There are two types of bonuses:

• Regular bonuses are given upon purchase of a certain part by some or all customers.
• Special bonuses are defined for specific customers and are given to those customers only.

You can define progressive bonuses based on quantity purchased, so as to increase the customers' incentive to purchase large quantities.

Priority includes a program for automatic assignment of sales orders to distribution routes. The Schedule Deliveries program assigns sales orders to distribution routes based on the order supply date, delivery routing, delivery days defined for the customer, and the company's working hours. For an order to be included by the Schedule Deliveries program, it must have a status flagged in the Schedule Deliveries column of the Statuses for Orders form.

Purchase Planning (MRP) for Commercial Companies

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Material Requirements Planning (MRP) for Distributors enables the planning of required issues for sales orders and forecast orders (without addressing BOMs or production/assembly operations of any kind).

Such planning "explodes" requirements for the assembled product to the next level down in the BOM. For instance, it will generate purchase requisitions for the component parts of a bicycle.

Requests for quotes (RFQs) can be generated automatically from purchase requisitions, for select groups of vendors: the preferred vendor for each item, or all vendors that meet a certain standard of quality. The receipt of quotes based on the same RFQ enables you to compare them, select the best one, and convert it to an order.

Priority enables you to record blanket purchase orders, which offer special pricing terms in exchange for a commitment to purchase a specified quantity of parts within a set time frame. The blanket order acts as a basis for the production of multiple purchase orders. The system provides a means of tracking the remaining quantity in the blanket order, as well as the monetary value of the order balance.

This module supports optimization of the three basic operations of warehouse management:
Directed Picking
Directed Replenishment
Directed Putaway
These are all subject to constraints defined in advance by the warehouse manager.

You can also use this module to plan other routine warehouse tasks, such as inventory count, return to vendor, warehouse transfer, etc. For each warehouse operation recorded in this module, an appropriate inventory transaction document (e.g., shipping, sales invoice, or warehouse transfer document) is created, using built-in programs.

The module interfaces with automated data collection (ADC) systems, and supports input of inventory data via handheld devices and other data collection tools.

Priority's Special Offers module enables users to offer incentives to customers that purchase a designated amount of goods within a defined period.
In the first stage, you assign a name, start and end dates, and Priority to the offer (i.e., if two offers are defined for the same part or part family, the offer Priority determines which one will be attached first to invoiced sales when the campaign is over). Later on, you can define a target quantity for the part, which the customer must purchase in order to be eligible for offer benefits. Alternatively, you can define a target sum; customers who purchase target parts equaling this sum during the defined offer period will be eligible for benefits.

Customer compensation can be according to any one of the following models:

• Offered Products: Select a part number and quantity to which the customer will be entitled if they meet the offer target.
• Credit in Percentage of total purchases during the offer period: Determine the credit % which the customer will receive.
• Fixed Monetary Credit for purchases made during the offer period: Indicate the amount of credit which the customer will receive.

Priority's Replenish Consignment Warehouses program calculates current and projected inventory levels in consignment warehouses and determines the quantities of each part that are needed to replenish the supply, according to a set of inventory parameters defined by the user. Furthermore, the program can be set up to open the necessary orders automatically.

Using the electronic data interchange (EDI) module, you can maintain a continuous dialogue with branches of a chain store. The module enables you to manage separate part numbers and packing units for your own company and for the chain branches.