>ERP for Foundries//

Item-, Mould- And Tool-Master-Data

• consistent management of moulds and tools for
  • single- and multi-cavity-moulds
  • multi-item-multi-cavity-moulds
  • composite moulds
  • tool-component-management

• separate management of items and moulds allows flexible assignment of multi-item-multi-cavity moulds within the production-planning-system.

Mould-Explorer: Information At A Glance:

• Display of all tool-components of an item in a tree-view (moulds, items, core-boxes, trimming-tools, etc.)
• Display of all transactional data for the mould (inquiries, quotations, order-confirmations, delivery-notes, claims, toolshop-orders, toolshop-delivery-notes, ...)
• crosslinks to all related modules
• document-management for the mould (Excel, Word, CAD-blueprints, fotos, etc.)
• management of lifecycle-journals, notes and remarks

Sales-Documents And Pricing

• Easy and intuitive: documents can be altered at all times, items can be renumbered, inserted or moved

• Wide variety of document-types to choose from: purchase- and sales contracts, order-calls and orders, partial and collective deliveries, sample-deliveries (free-of-charge), credit-notes, proforma-invoices, etc.

• Flexible Pricing: customer/supplier-related prices, quantity-related prices, variable additional price-components and -surcharges (i.e. setup-cost-surcharge, minimum quantity surchgarges, etc.) on a percentage-, per piece- or per kg-basis, flexible rebate-system

• Price Alterations: automated price-alterations with round-option; option for subsequent price-and weight-alterations in existing orders

• Accounts of proceeds: invoiced turnover can optionally be split variably onto different accounts (i.e. foundry, machining, external manufacturing, etc.)

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

• Integrated CRM-cycle: inquiries, order-calculation, quotations, call- and contact-management, follow-up - all business processes are fully integrated

• Customer- and prospect-management: multiple-addresses, multiple contacts per customer; extensive management of communications-data (fax- and phone-numbers, mail-addresses, etc.) per contact

• Activity-management: Management of calls and contacts, workflow-support for follow-ups of calls and quotations, prospect-management

• Integrated communications:
  • integrated mail-client and mail-archive: send your mails directly from TimeLine-ERP
  • Integrated PDF-Generation of all sales- and purchase-documents for direct-email-transmission or archiving-purposes
  • Mail-archive per customer, supplier and prospect
  • serial-emails, email-campaigns
• Integration into MS-Office:
  • Generation of quotations and other documents into MS-Word-documents via customizable templates
  • Excel export-option for all reports
  • Access TimeLine-data from Access or any other ODBC-database, OLAP- or reporting-tool. TimeLine's open-repository-database is freely accessible for any user with sufficent rights.
• Computer-aided-telephony (CAT, TAPI):

  • incoming calls: TimeLine pops up the customer-info-screen automatically on any identified incoming phone-call

  • outgoing calls: call your business contacts by simply clicking on the phone-number in the customer-info.

• Customer-Information-Module - comprehensive information at a glance: correspondence, outgoing email, contacts, notes, follow-ups, internal and external documents, adresses, pricing, historical data and statistics, accounts receivable, order-backlog, turnover and more...

Document Management (DMS)

assign any file to almost any object in the ERP-system:

• supported file-formats: Excel, Word, Access, fotos (tif, jpg, etc.), drawings - any file-type that is supported by the software installed on your system can be linked to an object in the ERP-system.

• supported objects in TimeLine: customer, supplier, prospect, item, tool/mould, sales- and purchase-documents (quotation, inquiry, order-confirmation, ...), production-documents, etc.

Metal Surcharges And Alloy Contracts

Ultra-flexible metal-surcharge-management system reduces time and efforts for maintenance of alloy surcharges and their adjustment:

• Flexible assignment: define metal-surcharges based on alloys or on alloy-groups and assign them to customers or customer-groups. Thus you reduce the effort of maintaining volatile metal-prices to a minimum.

• Variable modes of calculation:
  • current rate - calculated base
  • EUR/100 kgs (or any other currency)
  • EUR/piece (or any other currency)
• Variable quotations on the invoice:
  • EUR/100 kgs (or any other currency)
  • EUR/piece (or any other currency)
  • In total
  • Added into item price
• Alloy contracts are comprehensive and universal:
  • Available for sales- and purchase-documents
  • Can be limited to a period of time or a limited tonnage
  • Automated adjustment on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or custom-period basis
• Easy adjustment of metal surcharge rates:
  • Select alloy contracts and documents to adjust, enter new metal quotation, start automatic adjustment of alloy contracts, start automatic adjustment of open orders, ...done!
  • Comprehensive journal of metal-quotations before and after
  • History of quotations
  • Optional auto-adjustment of metal quotations at time of delivery (upon delivery-note-creation).

Supply-Chain-Management/ Purchasing

• Flexible disposition with variable purchase-order-types:
  • purchase-contract
  • purchase-order
  • purchase-order-call
  • material-requirement-requests for production accessories, auxiliary material and spares
• Automated purchase-procedures:
  • workflow based compliance check of delivery dates
  • dunning procedures for unreturned price-inquiries, unconfirmed purchase-orders and delivery-arrears.
• Integration of various demand-types in a single supply-chain-management-system:
  • Material-requirement-request
  • Direct demands from customer- or production-orders
  • Demands for external contract-manufacturing
  • Automated purchase proposals (MRP-run)
  • Longterm product-range demand-planning

• Efficient Ergonomics:

  • Direct crosslinks to master-data modules from order-processing- and other forms
  • Easy cancellation or modification of orders and transactions at any time
  • Any business-transaction can be processed from within a single form without the necessity to branch into other modules

• Flexible Price-Management:

  • Procurement-directory

• supplier-related prices, quantity- and rebate-scales, variable additional price-components and -surcharges (i.e. setup-cost-surcharge, minimum quantity surchgarges, etc.) on a percentage-, per piece- or per kg-basis, flexible rebate-system
• Automated price-adjustment procedures

Materials-Management

• Multi-warehouse-management, management of storage-locations:
  • management of multiple warehouses (i.e. works, locations, etc.)
  • management of multiple storage-locations
  • rejected parts-storage
  • storage-management for external contract manufacturers
  • storage-management for consignment warehouses
• Material-requirements-planning:
  • Batchsize-optimized purchase- and production-proposals with consideration of deficiency-probability and item-and supplier-related lead-times
  • Optimization of supplier-proposals according to fastest supplier, most favourable price or main supplier
  • Automatic contract recognition and -assignment
• Batch-management/serial-number-management:
  • Batch-management accross multi-warehouses and multi-storage-locations
  • Batch-retracement (back to the supplier)
  • FIFO-proposals on preparation of consignments
• Inventory
  • permanent inventory, yearly-inventory
  • optional blocking of warehouse-transactions while inventory is in progress
  • evaluation of stocks and half-finished products, automated devaluation of stocks
• Inventory-management with handheld-PDAs/scanners

Logistics

• Empties-Management (pallets, lattice-boxes, etc.)

  • Flexible empties-management with automated stockbookings on creation of delivery-notes
  • Customer-specific packing-instructions (typical for the automotive industry)
  • Multi-stage-packing-materials (pallets with plastic-boxes, etc.)
  • Empties requirements planning
• Commissioning
  • Commissioning-proposals (with FIFO-option for batches) based on order-priorities and delivery dates
  • Automated delivery note generation from commissioning-proposals
  • One-step generation of delivery-note, empties-bookings, electronic transport declaration and logistics-documents
  • Creation of package labels, consignment notes and related documents

• EDI-Modules:
  • EDI/DFÃœ-modules for Ansi X12-, Odette-, VDA- and Edifact-formats
  • all common message types are preconfigured without necessity for customization (format mappings have to be individually created using the format-converter)

  • Available message-types:

    • inbound delivery-forecast, order-call, fine-order-call (delfor, deljit, VDA4905, VDA4915)
    • outbound delivery-note (delnote, VDA 4913)
    • outbound invoice (invoic, VDA 4906)
    • inbound credit-advice (creadv, VDA 4909)
    • Pick-up sheet (DELJITPUS)

    • etc.

• Customs-documents: creation of EUR.1, ATR and export-declarations (certain documents may vary for non-EU-countries and may need customization)

Production-Orders And Planned-Production-Orders

The Production-Order is the central document within the production-module of TimeLine-ERP. Its main elements are routing-plan and parts-list.

• Creation of Production orders: Production orders can be created manually, via transfer from a customer order or via release of a production-proposal.

• Planned production orders: more freedom to plan: Planned production orders allow the reservation of capacity and material without actually releasing a production-order for production. At this stage alterations like split, deferral, re-schedule and merge are possible without significant restrictions.

• Release for production: Planned production orders can be converted to released production orders at the push of a button.

• Production documents: Easy and efficient printing of routing plans, production orders, part-lists. Report design is free and can be done using PowerBuilder, Crystal Reports or any other ODBC-enabled reporting-tool.

• Circulation of items in production: Items in production are managed like stocks. Each production-data feedback carries forward the production-quantities within the routing-plan. A distinction is drawn between good parts, blocked parts and rejects.

Planning and Scheduling

TimeLine features four graphical planning boards which integrate fully into the materials management and sales modules. Thus, TimeLine represents one of the most comprehensive planning tools for foundries in the market.

Whether moulding shop, core production, die casting or machining - TimeLine offers unparalleled ease-of-use, effectiveness and precision of production-planning:

• Reliable delivery-date ascertainment:
  • Finite capacity planning considers current capacity load and material-availability when computing new delivery dates
  • Production data automatically feeds back into planning
  • "Update"-function allows to recalculate all completion dates based on fresh data
• Fully integrated:
  • Transfer customer orders directly into the inbox of the planning board
  • Drag & drop customer orders directly onto the machine at the desired date
  • Automated feedback of planned dates to the sales department
• Quickly implemented:
  • Define ressources,
  • Create routing-plans for your items,
  • Enter your customer orders, ...
  • ...and start to plan!
• Powerful, comprehensive and efficient planning-tools:
  • Split, merge, defer, move (backward/forward), set order-priorities, adjust capacity, assign to external contractor, swap ressources/machines, simulate on a separate planning-level - there is virtually no limit as to what you can do in the planning-modules.
  • Forward and backward planning, lead time and manual scheduling
  • Machine order-sequence planning via drag & drop
  • Comparison before-after, pending delays, delivery date diagram, capacity load diagram

Contract Manufacturing, External Manufacturing

• Integrated workflow within purchasing and production:
  • Comprehensive business flow from inquiry to dunning and invoicing of contract manufacturers
  • Define external operations simply by specifying an external ressource in the routing item
  • Create external routing bills directly from the production order module or combine several items from different production orders onto a single external routing bill
  • Quick and efficient feedback process for goods returning from external manufacturing
• Securing deliveries and schedules:
  • Automated creation of production previews allows more precise planning on the side of your contract manufacturers
  • Planning modules will automatically compute dispatch- and return-dates for external routing bills
  • Automated dunning system for delayed returns from external manufacturing

• Pricing effectively managed:
  • Supplier-and item-related prices and quantity scales for every external operation
  • Separate management for setup costs or other surcharges (freight, etc.)
  • Prices on per-piece, per-kg or per-hour-basis

Project-Management For Mould Design And Construction

Information at a glance: TimeLine project-explorer:

• Internal documents: All documents are shown in a tree-view structure

• External documents: Assign all kinds of files and documents to your project

• Milestones: Budgets, deadlines, estimated hours of production: everything you need to manage the lifecycle of a new mould

• Invoice processing: advance payment invoices, closing invoice/account settlement

Quality Management

• Gauges and test equipment:
  • Gauge-status, serial-number, storage location and other information
  • monitoring, calibration and maintenance
  • blocking and release
  • Gauge history
  • Gauge-issues, trackings and returns

• Control plans: integrated quality control:

  • Definition of quality attributes
  • Control plan management with definition of item- and attribute-specific tolerance limits
  • Automated generation of quality- and inspection orders
• Quality order monitoring:
  • Quality order monitor shows all open quality orders with a direct crosslink to enter quality data (Version 11)
• Data logging of quality and measurement data:
  • Data logging of SPC-measurement data
  • Creation of measurement reports (Version 11)
• Inspection orders for:
  • Inbound deliveries (Version 11)
  • Factory operations
  • Factory turnout
  • Definition of item-specific control plans
  • Automated generation of inspection orders

• Claims management:

  • Activity monitoring

  • 8D-reports

  • Failure cost ascertainment
  • Workflow-support
  • Dunning system for delayed recovery activities
• Supplier assessment:
  • Rating for delivery reliability, customer care, product quality, pricing, etc.
  • ABC-rating for suppliers

• Management of rejects and rework:

  • Stock management of rejects and reworks
  • rejects statistics
  • failure cost statistics

Tool- And Mould-Management, Toolshop Management

For die-casts, moulds, trimming-tools, lores and others: TimeLine tool management modules makes tool management a fast and efficient process:

• Tools as a production ressource: Tools can be assigned to production operations just like machines or personnel.

• Durability, maintenance and lifecycle-management: With every production operation, counters for durability and maintenance are automatically updated

• Tool types: Separate management for die-casts, moulds, models, core boxes, lores, gauges and other tools

• Additional features: Blocking/release and suspension, tool-amortization, management of technical data for moulds, assignment of external documents like drawings, fotos, etc.; management of tool-components, tool-related costs and revenues, maintenance history

• Internal toolshop: Accelerated toolshop-order-generation for repairs, conversion and retrofitting.; automated recording of toolshop costs

• External toolshops: inbound and outbound delivery notes for transportation and relocation of tools and moulds.; cost recording of external toolshop costs

• Amortization: Amortization accounts to log tool-related revenues during the tool-lifecycle

Smelter

• Management of melting ressources
• Alloy compositions, alternate alloy compositions
• Import of spectrometric analysis data to create factory certifications
• Creation of logical interconnection between smelter-batch and cast item on entering cast production data feedback

Unparalleled Flexibility Of Customization For Individual Business Processes

• Reporting: create your own reports using any OLAP- or ODBC-tool. Standard reports are delivered in source code for easy modification.

• Screens: Screen editor to disable, relabel or add fields

• Database: fast, reliable and maintenance-free SQL-database with 100 % ODBC/OleDB-compliance

• Business objects framework: TimeLine ERP is based on a comprehensive and powerful framework of business-objects that can be individually modified using OO-technology

• TimeLine ERP can be customized without losing release-capability!

System-Checklists

Interfaces and operating systems