Alliance/MFG business management software for growing manufacturers Alliance/MFG Total Focus On The Needs Of Growing Manufacturers Telephone: 805 683-6363 Fax: 805 696-6718 Toll Free: 800 490-2520 option 4 Fax: 805 696-6718 Email: Website: answers@alliancemfg.com www.alliancemfg.com -2- Brochure Contents Alliance/MFG 4 Part Master & Bill of Materials 5 Customers & Sales 6 Suppliers & Purchasing 7 Inventory Control 8 Serial Number/Lot Tracking 9 MRP & CRP 10 Work Centers & Work Orders 11 Executive Information Suite 12 Accounting Interfaces 13 Improving Your Business 14 -3- Alliance/MFG Business Management Software For Growing Manufacturers Alliance/MFG - If you are like many growing manufacturers, your current system is based on Excel spreadsheets, Access databases, or an accounting software package with little manufacturing capability. As long as your business stays the same, your spreadsheet-based system is a reasonable tool for collecting and tracking your manufacturing information. But here’s the problem: How long can your business stay the same? Alliance/MFG software is designed for growing businesses. Our technology is based on Microsoft standards and utilizes PC’s running MS Windows with scalable database options like Access, MSDE and MS SQL. As a part of the Exact Software family, you can be assured that as your business increases or changes, you’ll have safe, affordable products available to meet your needs. Ongoing success - To help you realize the full return on your investment, Alliance/MFG offers a variety of professional training tools, ranging from traditional classroom training to interactive, on-line courses. Our dedicated and experienced Customer Support and Professional Services team members come to us from a variety of business and manufacturing backgrounds. Many have worked in manufacturing companies like yours. They’ll focus on getting your business systems and Alliance/MFG working flawlessly together for the greatest return on your investment. Powerful and Complete Alliance/MFG picks up where your current system leaves off, giving you complete MRP-II functionality for the planning, scheduling and business management power you need. Exact Software is a Microsoft Certified Solution Provider. Integrates with QuickBooks, Peachtree, Microsoft Great Plains and Microsoft Small Business Manager Accounting Software. Easy to Use and Implement Windows based interface, point & click, drag & drop, copy & paste, quick & easy. User defined toolbar, queries, views and a favorites sidebar. QuickStart TeleTraining & Webinars available. Saves Time and Money Inexpensive to buy and install. Alliance/MFG is the price performance leader by a wide margin. Easily import your existing data using standard templates. Have your system up and realize the benefits in less than 60 days. Executive Information Suite The Business Dashboard includes visual status indicators of your key management areas and critical functions. See at a glance any business functions outside the parameters you established. As Ambitious As You Are -4- Part Master & Bill of Materials Designed for the growing manufacturer…. Powerful enough for the bigger guy product structures Maintain BOMs in text or graphics. Copy existing bills to create new ones. User definable decimals up to 8 places. Attach links, photos and drawings to parts. Engineering Change Notice ECN and history retention. Effective & obsolete dates automatically time phase changes. Flexible WhereUsed search and replacement capabilities. Reference designators with unlimited text. Bills of Materials – BOM’s are easy to create and manage using Alliance/MFG. You can use the Graphical Bill of Materials (GUI BOM) to graphically manage product structures that support unlimited parts and levels per bill. Multi-level cost rollups of material, labor, set-up, sub-contract and burden can be executed instantly. The Engineering Change Management system tracks all changes to each assembly, subassembly and its components, effectively replacing obsolete parts. Automatic Unit of Measure (UOM) and Density conversions on bills of material, work orders, sales orders, purchase orders and all material movement transactions. Inventory reduction Use Phantom/blow-through items to reduce inventories Part Cross-Reference Cross-reference your part numbers to customer, supplier & OEM part numbers. Import/export Easily import existing parts, BOMs, routers and documents, export data and save queries with parameters. Bills are easy to create and maintain with the GUI BOM, simply drag & drop a part number from any view screen in Alliance/MFG Part Master - At a minimum, a part number, description, and stocking unit of measure is all that is required for each of your part numbers. Additionally, you can add notes, revisions, part weights, dimensions, special storage, shelf life, and many other fields containing information used for MRP planning, inventory control, and part costing. -5- Customers & Sales Alliance/MFG - Alliance creates requirements in MRP based on your forecast and/or customer orders, so that you can quickly see what you need to meet your customer demands. Forecasting lets you anticipate future orders in a number of ways, allowing you to plan for expected orders and contingencies and preventing you from being caught short of materials or manufacturing time when the orders actually come in. Print or email quotes, invoices, acknowledgements, pack lists Customer & Contact Maintenance Multiple ship-to and bill-to addresses. Multiple customer/reseller/distributor price discount options. Automatically convert your quotes to sales orders. Advanced or Easy Entry Orders Master planning and contract orders, sales unit of measure conversions, region codes and salesperson codes. Perform shipments by line item or for the entire sales order. Forecasting Maintains multiple forecasts. Automatic forecast consumption in MRP, Forecast vs. Actual Sales reports. -6- Suppliers & Purchasing Alliance/MFG - Alliance makes managing your suppliers, purchase orders, inventory and costs an easily handled integral part of your daily activities. Create, track and print your purchase orders, sub-contract orders and receipts. Incoming inspection, multiple locations, lot and serial number tracking are integrated effortlessly. View open purchase order data by buyer, order, job number, required date, line item, or supplier ID. Maintain unlimited supplier part-cross references and prices. Instantly view your purchasing commitments Part Cross-Reference Unlimited suppliers and OEM cross-references. Perform receipts by line item or for the entire Purchase Order. Converts purchase UOM to stocking UOM and tracks purchase price variances. Subcontract Orders Sub-contract and farm-out orders with material staging and kitting capabilities. Lot and serial numbers can be tracked by receipts. MRP Pegging Planned orders pegged to the sales order, job number, work order or forecast. Quickly convert MRP planned orders into purchase orders. -7- Inventory Control Inventory Control- Alliance maintains the information required about all of your parts. The inventory on-hand quantities, procurement and manufacturing lead times, order quantities, ordering multiples, safety stock quantities, and yield factors provide MRP the information it needs to plan and meet your demands on time. You can categorize parts by buyer, ordering method, revenue class, commodity, inventory source code, system used-on, cost center, and stockroom. ABC codes help establish a cycle counting schedule by part number and relative value. Double click to expand the inventory summary and display details including lot/serial numbers, warranty date, expiration date, cost and more Cost Roll Up can recalculate the cost of your products when component costs have changed, regardless of the number of BOM levels or the type of change. If you make changes to labor, material, burden, setup, or subcontract costs for any part in the system, you can roll up those changes and re-establish your true cost of goods sold. ABC Analysis will analyze your entire part master and classify your parts into relative value of importance according to the definitions you establish. You can assign ABC codes based on year-to-date usage, quantity on hand value, part unit cost or a combination of all three parameters. Cycle Counting You can perform daily or periodic cycle counting to reduce annual physical inventory costs and shutdown inconveniences. -8- Serial Number & Lot Tracking Serial and Lot Number – SN/Lot number information can be assigned during the Purchase Order Receipt, Work Order Completion and Miscellaneous Receipt transactions as they occur or it can be maintained and tracked via the SN/Lot Tracking menu. If your business requires that all transactions for a given part number includes a serial or lot number, you may indicate so in the part master. Setting the “Require SN/Lot Number” flag in Inventory Control insures that all transactions for these parts will require serial/lot number information be recorded. You can optionally assign additional information such as Notes, Expiration, Maintenance and/or Warranty Dates SN/Lot Tracks which SN/Lot number was received on which PO, and was kitted to which Work Order, and then completed into finished goods and was ultimately shipped on which customer order. The Locations report lists all inventory, WIP, subassemblies, finished goods and customer shipments containing that serial/lot number. -9- MRP & CRP Material Requirements Planning – Alliance provides your company with a time-phased material plan. MRP examines information from many sources as it undertakes the complex calculations to deliver your planning and scheduling solutions. First, MRP analyzes what is required and when. It considers all existing independent demands (sales orders, forecasts, safety stocks) and dependent demands (work orders and subcontract com ponent requirements, together with shortages). Next, it takes a detailed look at your current inventory and on-order position by reviewing stockroom inventories, open purchase orders, work-in-process, and the quantities and due dates associated with these parts. MRP creates planned orders dynamically each time you calculate MRP. Create your purchase orders by buyer or supplier, schedule shop orders, and reschedule or cancel excess supply if requirements change or delivery dates are out of phase. Click the Schedule Button to create a Purchase Order from the MRP Action screen Time-phased MRP and CRP identify the tasks that need to be done in order to meet your scheduled demand. You can run multiple ”What-If" scenarios. MRP and CRP help you eliminate “justin-case” inventory by telling you: ? ? ? ? ? What to make When to make it What to buy When to buy it What it will cost You decide whether to use the dates and quantities suggested by MRP or to modify the planned orders to combine quantities and/or dates. Easily display a list of your supplier’s open purchase orders and then decide whether to create a new purchase order or add an item to an existing purchase order. - 10 - Work Centers & Work Orders Work Centers – Work centers may consist of one or more people and/or machines. Create unique work centers and define the capacity. You can also define any number of shifts for a work center, and optionally enter a default labor account that will appear on all labor routers. You can schedule work center capacity by shift-by-day, or schedule multiple shifts with different capacities. Enter Start, Stop and Downtime using a 24-hour clock and track actual labor by employee and job, if needed. Work Orders – Work orders are an internal authorization to manufacture parts on the shop floor. Alliance/MFG gives you all the tools you need to create, release, kit, and complete work orders. You can perform standard or serialized completions. Backflushing provides a method for quickly and easily consuming component inventory at the time the completions for the assembly are entered. The actual quantity of components required to complete the specified number of the assembly are consumed out of inventory. You do not need to create, release and kit a work order prior to the Backflushing step. Print a Work Order Traveler with Bar Codes A WO Traveler includes a labor router, a kit list, optional bar code fonts and other pertinent work order information. You can list the tooling required, describe special instructions or specify tolerances. Labor Routers describe the operations needed to manufacture your parts. They contain data about the per-piece time required to perform each operation, such as fixed Queue Time, Setup Time, and Run Time. Operations can include kitting, assembly, inspection, drilling, polishing and any others required for your plant. CRP uses the work center’s shift(s) start & stop times, any scheduled downtime and the part’s labor router run times to determine your capacity. . - 11 - Executive Information Suite Executive Information Suite (Business Dashboard) The Alliance Executive Information Suite was designed to provide your management team with a fast and easy method of configuring, monitoring and displaying your company's vital signs. These vital signs are composed of information from the critical areas of your business. You define the critical areas, you also define acceptable, marginal and unacceptable values, and you decide the frequency of the monitoring required. The Alliance/EIS product addresses vital signs in four (4) major business functions; Sales, Purchasing, Production and Inventory. Each of these functions contains critical areas that can be configured for your business and monitored as frequently as your business requires. Monitor and display only the data functions you believe critical to your business, select and configure items of concern to your company; items management will act upon if they are outside your established goals. Your Management sets the parameters, and establishes the date ranges to monitor. Your team sets the goals and tolerances. This is your tool; your Dashboard. Your company’s functions, current values and established goals will be calculated and displayed. Colored gauges indicate performance at a glance. Red indicates an item in trouble (below or outside your established parameters). Green indicates an item is meeting your established goals. Yellow indicates an item is borderline or within a given tolerance. Click on the Details Button to drill-down to Item Details - 12 - Accounting Interfaces Automated interfaces to popular accounting software will update your manufacturing and accounting files with a few simple keystrokes. Operation is straightforward and ensures accurate and timely data and billing. The optional accounting interface modules automatically processes Alliance transactions and formats them into files that update the following items: Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Revenue Accounts, Sales Tax Payable, Cost of Goods Sold, Inventory Accounts and Customer and Supplier records. With Alliance, there is no need to throw out your financials to get at manufacturing information. Alliance/MFG works with the accounting system s most used by growing manufacturers. For pricing and information on accounting links call us Toll Free at 800-490-2520. Alliance Transactions - You can choose to process any combination from the following types: Kits and De-kits for Work Orders and Subcontract PO’s, Work Order Completions, Purchase Order Receipts and Returns, Shipments and Customer Returns, Unplanned Issues and Receipts, Physical Inventory Adjustments and Cycle Counts. You may choose detail or summary information by transaction type. In the Alliance/MFG Special Edition for QuickBooks shown above, the user can elect to pull & post in real-time, setup a predetermined schedule or run on a batch review basis. Ungrouping provides part number details and posts individual entries. Grouping allows the interface to combine like transactions with the same distribution accounts, simplifying the journal entry. - 13 - Improving Your Business Help System The Alliance/MFG Main Menu includes a Help System function. You can look up and research without leaving Alliance Realize a full return on your investment To help you realize a full return on your investment, Alliance/MFG offers a variety of professional training tools, ranging from on-site implementation planning and training, training at our Santa Barbara facility, web based Tele-Training, Free Webinars and custom view and report generation. Our experienced Professional Services team members come to us from a variety of manufacturing and business backgrounds. They’ll focus on getting your business systems and Alliance/MFG working flawlessly together for the greatest return on your investment. Technical Support Technical Support for Alliance/MFG is provided on an annual contract basis, which entitles you to unlimited technical support incidents and periodic maintenance releases. Alliance Technical Support is available Monday through Friday between the hours of 7:00 A.M. and 4:30 P.M., Pacific Time, excluding public holidays. You can contact Technical Support by phone, fax, or e-mail. Customer Portal Exact Alliance customers have access to the Customer Portal on the Exact Alliance website. The portal gives you up to date information on our products, downloads, training and seminars. Additionally, you gain access to product FAQ’s and technical support issues you have reported along with their status. Sales Toll Free Number 1 800 490-2520 - 14 - Alliance/MFG Total Focus On The Needs Of Growing Manufacturers Telephone: 805 683-6363 Fax: 805 696-6718 Toll Free: 800 490-2520 option 4 Fax: 805 696-6718 Email: Website: answers@alliancemfg.com www.alliancemfg.com - 15 - Alliance/MFG business management software for growing manufacturers Alliance/MFG - If you are an emerging, growing manufacturer interested in applying the power of information to build and improve your manufacturing operation, you've come to the right place. Since 1996, Alliance/MFG Software has focused exclusively on developing and delivering manufacturing information solutions for emerging manufacturers like you. Alliance understands the balancing act you live day-in and day-out as you compete in the marketplace striving for growth, profitability, strong internal teamwork, and customer satisfaction. And, unlike other affordable manufacturing software, you will discover that Alliance/MFG isn't just a box of software - we're a complete solution, from the personalized, consultative service you get before you decide to buy through ongoing expert training and consulting follow-through as you implement and grow with the system. By doing hundreds of hands-on system implementations, we have developed a strong understanding of the challenges you face in realizing the power of information - we know you need a serious, complete system that works for you, not one that makes you work for it. Our promise is to offer the best complete manufacturing information solutions sized and priced right for your environment. When you explore Alliance/MFG, you'll discover what our customers already know: Alliance is your partner in realizing the power of information. Exact Software North America offers innovative, fast and user-friendly manufacturing, distribution and financial solutions, based on advanced technologies that provide a strong backbone for today’s business environment. - 16 -