WHAT’S NEW IN iMETAL v4.7

The iMetal 4.7 version has introduced new features for the mobile application suite, such as: 

• the ability to search stock items using cast numbers, specifications and dimensions, enhancements to use mobile devices in picking and moving stock items for production, 
• enhancements to pick the stock items for despatch notes or transport plans, 
• validating the stock items to be loaded to the vehicles, 
• recording  the production operation confirmations.

There are also new features in 4.7 for iMetal desktop such as: 

• EDI Enhancements for outgoing documents in various formats (997, 850, 855 and 865) in ANSI X12,
• ability to enter goods inwards adjustments,
• enhancements for Stocktake to handle non-traceable stock items, 
• defining the cutting time for products and calculating the process costs in sales orders with MLC, 
• ability to configure product attribute/specification fields as mandatory for Sales, or Stock, or Purchasing Entry screens, 
• enhancements in internal production orders for flat rolled products,
• entering production recordings for merged processes on a grid table,
• duplicating personnel groups with menus and group preferences,
• copying group preferences from one personnel group to another, and,
• exporting and importing group preferences to/from a spreadsheet.

The enhancements for EDI functionality includes processing purchase orders in formats 855 and 865, and generating acknowledgement responses for them.

• Outgoing 850 PO 997 Acknowledgement
• Outgoing 855 PO Acknowledgement
• Outgoing 865 PO Amend Acknowledgement
• Outgoing 860 PO Amend 997 Acknowledgement.

A new application, “Goods Inwards Adjustment”,  has been added to the inventory management module to adjust the Goods Inwards entries. The feature will enable the user to 

• provide an adjustment reason code, 
• search and select the goods inwards line, 
• view stock items received, 
• add missing receipt lines,
• add missing stock items for the received lines,
• adjust the stock item quantity values and costs for the items, and,
• report the goods inward adjustments

If the product category of the product received is configured for Non-traceable logic, then the system will merge the stock items added to the existing ones if they match the criteria for the merge.

The Stocktake application has been enhanced to be able to perform “Normal”, “Blank” and “Blind” stocktakes for companies using non-traceable stock items. In the “Normal” stocktake, the stock items with expected quantities to be found in the selected stocktake context are divided into a number of sheets.

The “Blank” option is used for generating blank sheets to record the stock items found at a given location  where the “Blind” option generates stocktake sheets without any quantity details for the stock items expected to be found in the selected stocktake context. 

Stocktake sheets can be allocated to the inventory operators, printed and distributed. When the operators complete the stocktakes given on the sheets, they can record the entries to the system. Any unexpected item found in a given location can be added into the stocktake entry. If the company uses non-traceable stock logic, then they would need to enter the product code and quantity figures for the item found.

Cutting time per product may vary depending on thickness, density, width of the product. A new field to store the cutting time has been added to the product maintenance. If it is entered, then this new cutting time in “seconds” per product will be used when calculating the cost of the Multi-Level-Cutting (MLC) process. Otherwise, the system will use the standard time (in “minutes”) defined in the process maintenance for cutting. It is possible to see on the MLC which time has been used in calculating the cost.

Previously, when an attribute is defined as mandatory, it should be entered in all transactions where they are displayed. This enhancement will allow configuring attributes as mandatory in modules Sales Orders, Stock Transactions, and Purchase Order entries, rather than mandatory in the whole system. For example, it will be possible to make an attribute mandatory for only Sales Orders while it will not be forced in Stock or Purchase Order transactions. In order to make an attribute mandatory across the system, it would be enough to configure the attribute as mandatory for Sales Orders, Stock and Purchase Orders.

The new enhancement allows the user to select multiple coils and allocate to the order. The scrap is displayed in both length (e.g. feet) and weight (e.g. pounds). If a part is used, then the processing step note defined for the part is populated in the process plan.

Also, automatic adding of “packing” jobs is now dependent on a new configuration option. If the new option is configured as true, then the will add a packing job to the process automatically.

The new feature allows operators to enter the produced items, quantity details for merged process groups on a grid table and generate the stock items rather than selecting each process step and entering the produced item details for each. This feature will enable the operators to complete production recordings much faster if tens of jobs are merged into one. As the feature is configurable, the operators can use the system in both single entry or multiple entry modes.

There may be multiple user groups in the organisation requiring access to the same applications and reports. This new enhancement allows copying the menu items from a user group to another, as well copying the user group to another with the existing menu items selected. If there are multiple branches, then this would be a useful tool to configure the system and user rights quickly. Also, it will be possible to select and deselect the menu tree nodes to make it easier to create the menu options for personnel groups.

The new enhancements on maintenance of the personnel group will allow copying one personnel group to another with menu and group preference settings together. 

The new feature will allow copying all or selected group preferences from one group to another. The group preferences linked to a personnel group and their values can be exported to a spreadsheet, and also group preferences and their values in a spreadsheet can be imported into a personnel group.

The new enhancement will allow companies to register the material produced in internal production orders as Transient Free Stock.  In the applications Advanced Production and Standard Production, the operators will be able to  record finished material against a production order item and NOT have it allocated to that production item. 

Also, when using the applications, Production Optimiser and Production Generation, to generate expected production, any  finished material created against the production order item will NOT be allocated to that production item.

As a result, it  can easily be allocated to a mill run.

The enhancements in sales margin validations when converting a quote to an order include:

• using the term Enquiry or Order depending on the document in which the margin validation is performed, 
• copying the user notes into the validation message, 
• recalculating the margin validations, 
• and, copying the margin validation from the Enquiry to the notes history in Sales Orders.

On the “Batch Cost Update” application screen, the options “New Price” and “New Price and Unit” are added to the Adjustment Type dropdown. When the option “New Price” or “New Price and Unit” is selected, then the field New Price will be displayed. The values entered will be updated to the records selected as part of the selection criteria.

In the Stock Item Enquiry application, search capabilities using the cast number, dimensions and attributes have been introduced. It is possible to add multiple criteria for dimensions and attributes. 

The stock items matching those criteria will be displayed. The criteria for dimensions and attributes can be cleared separately.

The Live Stocktake application has been enhanced to improve the navigation between the items or the lines on the sheet. Now the user can navigate to the next line or the previous line using the buttons on the form. If there is a change on the item on the screen, then it will be saved automatically before displaying the next item.

With this new feature, the workcenter operators will be able to record the production outputs, consumed materials, and the time spent for a job. The operator is able to search for jobs by using search criteria including process group Id, job due date, workcenter, process type, production step, and the product code. After locating the job number, the operator can view the job details. 

On the job detail screen, the operator can :

• start the job where the system registers the timestamp for the start of the job,
• register the duration to finish machine setup,
• view, add or remove consumed items, 
• add produced items, 
• print stock item labels for new products, 
• view the job totals,
• view the start and finish timestamps for the job, and the time spent for the job,
• and, finish the job by registering the production time. 

The new feature enables viewing the list of order lines to pick by scanning or entering transport load Id or despatch notes. The operator will be able to see the stock items linked to each order line including quantity figures, warehouse, stock location, vehicle, area, and run number. When the operator scans the barcode or enters the item number of a stock item, the system validates whether the item is in the list or not. If it is found in the list, then the line containing the stock item number is highlighted and flagged as “Picked”. 

If there are multiple stock items to pick for an order line and only one of them is picked, the order line is highlighted as “partially picked” until all the allocated stock items for the order line are picked. If there is no stock item allocated to the order line, the operator is also able to search and select an available stock item to pick for the order line. If the stock item allocated is not easy to pick, then the operator can select another stock item from the list of available items and allocate to the order line to pick. 

The number of items to pick and the number of items picked are also displayed on the screen.

The new feature enables viewing the list of order lines to load to a vehicle by scanning or entering transport load Id or despatch notes. 

The operator will be able to see the stock items linked to each order line including quantity figures, warehouse, stock location, vehicle, area, and run number. When the operator scans the barcode or enters the item number of a stock item, the system validates whether the item is in the list or not. If it is found in the list, then the line containing the stock item number is highlighted and flagged as “Loaded”. If there is no stock item allocated to the order line, the operator is also able to search and select an available stock item to load for the order line. 

If there are multiple stock items to load for an order line and only one of them is loaded, the order line is highlighted as “partially loaded” until all the allocated stock items for the order line are loaded.