Steelman Software Solutions is currently seeking resellers and distributors to help give worldwide users access to our products.

Promote & Earn

Would you like to earn money with our products? Steelman SEMS™ offers three types of promotion: the basic level, Affiliate, the Silver and Gold level, Reseller. These promotions allow you to sell our products and earn commissions (for affiliates) or get Wholesale Prices (for resellers). Read the following information and join immediately!

Affiliates

Affiliates can promote our SEMS™ software and get a commission for each sale they complete. Our affiliate program is simple, quick and free! After joining it, you can place a special link to our website on your website. Then, sit back and earn extra income from visitors who follow that link and buy SEMS™ as a result. For the first sale made by one of your visitors, you earn a commission of 5%; for following sales, your commission is increased to 10%.

NOTE. The following information is only intended for those who want to become our resellers or distributors.

Steelman is currently seeking resellers and distributors to help give worldwide users access to our products. Both general resellers and resellers active in implementation consulting and training fields are welcome. Compared to affiliates, resellers get higher profit, packaged products, full marketing support and additional benefits. Resellers need to be specially trained in demonstrating and implementing in advance.

If you would like more information, please contact us with a short description of your company, channel and activities.

Steelman is also looking for resellers in your area if you know of anyone who may be interested. More information on the resellers can be found on the partner page of our websitehttp://esteelman.com/?page_id=183.

Kindest regards,

Daniel Brody
Managing Director
416-495-0010

Current Global Partners

• ICOS a.s Kosice SK
• Kingdee International Software Group Company Limited – China
• Avance Solutions Inegraies S.C. – Mexico
• SteelGroup.Co.In – Mumbai India
• Boutique System EOH Pty Ltd – Scarborough Australia

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• Resellers Wanted (esteelman.com)

HOT ROLLED COIL

US steelmakers report good order books but some buyers, sensing that transaction figures may be nearing the peak, have become more cautious recently. Today’s prices are 7.6 percent above the January numbers with delivery lead times into late March. There may be further advances in the short term. Currently, Canadian mill delivery lead times are out to April in most cases, although overall consumption is still weak. The producers continue to signal upward movement on transaction values, which have gained another $US40 per tonne since our last report. More increases are anticipated. However, the rises are clearly cost driven and not demand based.

The Chinese market became quiet at the start of this month as business activity wound down ahead of the Chinese New Year. Prices have undergone a 2.7 percent downward correction since our last report, undermined by ever growing inventories. Transaction values have bottomed out in Japan. Tokyo Steel’s decision to lift its list prices for February contracts had a positive effect on market demand. Pickled and oiled material is difficult to source.

About SHM

The SHM folder contains all of the forms that have been documented through the SEMS HELP MAP process, and exported to the Help system. See SEMS HELP MAP for the technical description of SHM creation.

SHM details every field, block and form used in SEMS. It is an essential link required to provide context-sensitive help at the field level. (If there is no SHM entry, the link does not work).

Describing the content requirement for each field is useful, but is not as valuable in understanding the way to use the form as the About and Example entries.

SHM is designed to be updated as forms are amended through change management. When that happens, the amended form can be exported from the SHM Oracle table using XML and imported to the SEMS Help, completely replacing the definition of the form. This is performed by the SEMS Help Maintenance Manager at Steelman.

About Shipping

Overview

Image via Wikipedia

• plan a load for shipment, see About Load Planning
• add material to the load that has a Shipment Status of “Ready”,
• print the shipment documents (automatically)
• pick and ship the load, relieving inventory of the material shipped. – See About Load Shipping

• maintain carriers and carrier freight rates,
• maintain customs brokers, and
• maintain customs duties.
• maintain default freight modes and weights

See Flags That Affect Shipping for details on how company settings affect shipping processing.

In addition, the default FOB point for customer pickups is set in the General Company Setup (STCOMP), General tab.

Documents to be produced on shipping are set up as part of company information in the customer profile.

About Setup

The setup menu contains the forms used to maintain data variables used throughout SEMS. Normally these are set-up initially and are only changed when new business variables are required or when employees leave or are reassigned or new employees are hired.

Often these variables provide limitations or choices for drop down lists used throughout the system. For example an inside sales rep code required on a sales order must be classified as an inside sales rep in the setup process.

Setting up these choices often involves making business decisions, the implications and practices implied represent the range currently in use by SEMS users. Where a standard or best practice has been identified, that practice is set as the default setting.

About Receiving

See Flags That Affect Receiving Functions for details on how company settings affect receiving processing.

In addition, the default location, grade standard, and shipment method for purchased goods is set in the General Company Setup (STCOMP), General tab. For goods received with defects, the default code standard is also set there.

Receiving has these main objectives:

• It adds material to inventory
• It records the Genera Ledger transaction for the value of the inventory received
• Until inventory is received and checked, the invoice for the PO that ordered the materials should not be paid

The receiving menu contains 6 functions:

1. Enter Receipt
2. Enter Consumable Receipts
3. Enter In-Transit Inventory
4. Enter Mill Heat Info
5. Receipt From Consignment
6. Confirmation Receipt

Each of these functions is described in the associated Links

Receipt Types

Receipts of the following types can be generated:

• Purchase Order (receiving material purchased through a PO)
• Customer-Owned Material (receive material owned by the company and received for internal processing or storage)
• Customer Return (receive material sold to a customer as part of a sales order and currently has a claim against it)

• Miscellaneous (receive material for internal purposes such as physical inventory count or opening balance
• Transfer – receive from another company location

Receipt Structure

All receipts have the same structure regardless of order types.  Certain pieces of information may, however, differ or be optional depending on the receipt type. There are also some differences in the way SEMS handles each type of receipt.

Each receipt has a header and one or more line items. The header contains information that applies to all line items. Each line item includes information regarding a single steel product or single consumable item being received.

About Production

The production process has a number of very useful capabilities that manage the complexity of production and support accurate planning and scheduling processes. In general, the journey from input materials to finished goods follows a pattern or sequence, with plenty of variation possible.

The production process is initiated by two demand streams:

1. Sales Orders
2. Independent Work Orders

(Note that a number of flags affect production processes.)

Normal Production Sequence

1. A sales order is entered and confirmed, specifying the required finished items, (or an Independent Work Order is created).
2. For each requirement, a SOI is created, requesting a weight or number of pieces of finished material product.
3. For each SOI, a WO is created, specifying the work steps and sequence that are required to process from the input material to the required finished material.
4. Each step requires specialized processing that is accomplished at a work center with the appropriate equipment to perform the required operations.
5. The work center’s list of grouped work orders  is called a Production Order. A single production order may contain work steps from a number of work orders for different customers or for a number of  Independent Work Orders.
6. A processing plan may be associated with a Production Order  to provide details of exactly what to do at each step in production. There are four types of process - Manufacturing, specifiying production Recording, Packaging to describe the packaging process, Transfer, to transfer inventory between locations and Shipping to request and schedule shipments
7. A group of production orders is scheduled through a Production Schedule.
8. Production demand planning is used to monitor the work steps for each work order through the production process, including the allocated input and output material weights from each step.
9. Production Recording is performed as each Production order is processed. Production Recording records start and stop times, the materials actually used and the WIP produced. It also specifies the production loss or wastage that occurred during the production process.
10. Specific material tags can be allocated to the work steps at any stage: during sales order entry, in the Production Order,  or when production recording begins. Production cannot be recorded without the application of real material, however production planning can use dummy tags or generalized ICI specification as placeholders to plan production processing in advance of the actual tagged material being known. As real tags are created, they replace the dummy tags orICI specifications in the production process.
11. When all works steps preceding  the ship or transfer step have been completed, the finished materials are packaged (if packaging is required) and if the production is for a Sales Order, shipped using the Load packaging and shipping process. Finished materials for Independent Work Orders may be added to inventory or transferred.
12. If the production is for a Sales Order, Invoices are created when the material is shipped.

See About Production Processing Exceptions for details about variations to the standard production process

About Inventory

Use the Inventory module to control the steel products inventories (work in process inventory and finished goods inventory), consumable items inventories, and scrap inventory.

Steel Products: may include merchandise steel products (purchased for resale which form is not altered prior to resale) and job-specific steel products that require further processing before completion and sale. Inventory item is not defined prior to receiving. When received, each item is given a unique tag that becomes the item identifier.

Consumable Items: office supplies, janitorial supplies, shipping supplies, equipment maintenance supplies etc. Inventory Item is completely defined in item setup.

The Company Setup form determines if a reason code is required when inventory item cost is adjusted (on Inventory form) and what the default adjustment codes should be.

About Fabrication Modules

The core modules for Fabrication are BOM Items, Bill of Material, and Product Routing.

This topic explains:

• BOM Structure
• BOM Items
• Bill of Materials Form
• Product Routing Form

BOM Structure

The BOM describes an unlimited structure of materials requirements and processing requirements that together make one unit of the required finished product. Materials can be added or used at any level of the structure. The BOM describes what is required and how much of it is consumed during the process.

Ordering a number of finished items that are the product of a BOM process creates an array of requirements for materials to feed each process, and for processing time on all of the work centers that are required to complete the fabrication process.

Materials required can be multiple units of different items. The input to a process could be several burned parts, some consumable items such as nuts and bolts, some purchased items such as wheels or gauges, or some ICI items.

When a Bill of Materials structure is built and confirmed, it becomes a version. If an amendment is required, to change the materials or the processes, a new version is created and becomes the current version. Previous versions of the structure are still available if required to make the “old” version of the finished product.

Different departments can use the same BOM structure but have variations in routing, which means the same finished item can be made differently in different departments. If a departmental detail is unconfirmed for one department but confirmed for another department, the overall BOM can be confirmed in the first department and unconfirmed in the second department.

The time required to make a finished item can be calculated by accumulating the throughput time for each of  the processes required to make the item.

Finished items can also be components for other BOM structures. If a sub-assembly BOM is changed, it alters the release version of the parent BOM.

BOM Items

Every item that is to be included in a BOM has to be described on the BOM Items form. The BOM items data is additional or supercedes the standard information recorded about the inventory item. It also includes the departmental routing variations which occur, for example, when one department makes an item from raw materials, while another department buys the part or transfers it from the other department.

These items can be customer parts (specific for one customer) or company parts (for anyone to use). Other options for BOM items include ICI or Consumable. An ICI implies a metal item described by an ICI. A consumable is an item such as paint or nuts and bolts which is consumed in a non-specific way, although purchase lots are recorded and lot costing is used in calculating costs.

The BOM provides a template, similar to work instructions, that helps set up production processes and production orders required to produce the required final product.

Bill of Materials Form

The Bill of Material form is used to display and update the Bill of Materials components and levels. The navigation tree on the left panel is used to navigate in the BOM tree structure. The data at the top of the form and in the tabs on the right change as different items are selected in the navigation tree.

BOM Tab

Displays the routing and components used to make the part. In the example shown above, the part is made from five components which are assembled in theKitting operation in step 10 and then shipped in step 20. Note that the routing can also include an option to backflush the production recording (non-steel items only) and/or the costs of the step.

Indented Expl Tab

Displays all of the sub-levels of materials used to make the parent. In the example, there is only one level below the parent. If the Level was 2, it would be indented in the level field, as would each succeeding level.

Single Level Used Tab

Displays all of the immediate  parents for a specific component. In the example, the paint is used in four other BOMs.

Top Level Used Tab

Displays only the finished items where the component is used.

Multi-Level Used Tab

Displays the combination of top level and single level used.

Summarized Expl. Tab

This is a calculator that shows the requirement of materials for any quantity – in the example the calculation has been performed for 51 items.

Summarized Routing Tab

Displays the equivalent of the Work Order for the routing required.

Product Routing Form

The Product Routing form is used to build the routing (work steps) for a BOM part.

There are two types of costing in SEMS:

• Product Costing (or Actual Costing), which is used for the costing of individual inventory items and is the cost that will be booked to the General Ledger.
• Standard Costing, which is used at the time of Sales Order entry to provide an estimated cost of a Sales Order item. It is not used for any accounting purposes other than providing an estimate for the margin of a Sales Order .

Site Setup and Company Setup may affect costing.

About Product Costing

Product Costing is used for the costing of an individual inventory item, and is the cost that will be booked to the General Ledger. In short, it is made up of the actual landed cost of an inventory item, including applicable freight-in, taxes, duties, brokerage, handling and other charges incurred in bringing the item into a facility.

If an inventory item has been processed, the processing cost will also be included in product costing. Processing cost is calculated based on the actual time of processing and / or processed weight (captured in SEMS Production Recording) multiplied by the standard processing rates as defined by the user. If processing is done off-site, whether at the company‘s facility or by an outside processor, the freight in / out will also be included in the product cost.

Because most of the components in Product Costing are based on actual costs, with the exception of standard processing rates, Product Costing can also be considered as Actual Costing.

About Standard Costing

Standard Costing is meant to provide an estimated cost of a SOI so selling price and margin can be gauged accordingly. Standard costs are meant to be approximation of the actual costs only. As such, they are not as accurate and detail as the Product Costing.

Standard Costing is generated at the time of order entry. After all the relevant information for an order item has been entered, including completing the work instructions, click Calculate Cost at the bottom of the form to obtain the standard cost for the item. If using a price table to get the selling price for the SOI clickingGet Price will also calculate the standard cost. In the example below, the standard cost for the item is $44.73 / cwt versus a selling price of $52, providing an estimated margin of $7.26 / cwt.

Right-click on Cost to drill down to the make-up of the cost.