Must-have ERP features for Specialty Metals Service Centers & Distributors

ERP systems are used by most manufacturers and distributors to manage their businesses from top to bottom – from purchasing and accounting to customer service and inventory management, and often much more. Metal service centers that specialize in aluminum, stainless steel, red metals, or other specialty metals need specific features that are not found in many generic ERP systems. A business system that specializes in metal service centers is usually the best option, but be sure to look for these specific features:

Detailed inventory traceability

Especially if you are selling into a regulated industry, such as aerospace or medical devices, you need to ensure that you know where your inventory came from and that the information you are providing your customers can be documented.

Inventory properties tracking

Look for more than the ability to track MTR documents or other test reports. Specialty metals distributors typically need to be able to store, manage, and track inventory based on unique physical/mechanical and chemical properties. Your ERP system will need the ability to track these properties for each lot/tag and to allow users to search for inventory based on those fields.

Special order and “buy out” handling

While not unique to the specialty metals industry, the ability to handle non-standard customer orders is critical. Not only will you need the ability to record the customer’s specifications on a quote or order form, but ideally you can link customer orders directly to purchase orders for the requested items. ERP systems like Eniteo that are focused on the metal service center industry will also support the creation of multiple RFQ’s directly from a customer quote, eliminating the need to manually create an RFQ for each vendor. Inventory can then be assigned automatically to the order when it is received.

Business Intelligence and Decision Support

Adding strong business intelligence and decision support tools are especially important for specialty metals service centers that are facing:

1. Material scarcity and rising costs – A strong business intelligence tool quickly identifies inventory trends, pinpoints items that aren’t moving quickly, flags customer orders with low profit margins, and much more.
2. Restrictions to growth – When growth plans are stymied by lack of staff or other resources, a strong business intelligence and decision support tool can help you focus efforts on activities, items, and customers that drive the most profit. Automating processes within the warehouse also increases the speed and accuracy with which orders can be processed.
3. Increasing competition – Business intelligence and decision support tools provide you with a real-time, high-level view of your business. With the ability to drill down into areas of concern, identify trends, and receive notifications of items that need attention, you will be able to make better business decisions more quickly.

Learn more about EnVision, the business intelligence and decision support tool purpose-built for metal service centers using the Eniteo ERP system.

Regardless of the ERP system and other business tools you have in place, make sure that you are getting the most out of them by identifying goals, optimizing processes, and implementing good data management.

And if you are interested in learning more about Eniteo, the #1 ranked ERP system for metal service centers, you can schedule a time to talk with one of our product experts!