Intuitive ERP, an Aptean ERP solution, was built around the concept that the software should support standard business cycles and that the underlying technology should be flexible and affordable. Developed using solely Microsoft technologies, the software incorporated well-established manufacturing and accounting practices (such as those prescribed by APICS and GAAP) and an intuitive user interface to deliver very sophisticated solutions, as well as economic value to mid-market manufacturers.

Video Overview

Since 1994, Intuitive has been dedicated to providing discrete manufacturers with software solutions that truly add value to their business. Intuitive's enterprise solution is designed to deliver superior functionality, rapid implementation, high levels of usability and a technology standard that is unmatched in the industry.

Aptean has over 800 Intuitive customers in over 20 countries, in industries ranging from aerospace to bicycle parts and circuit boards to boat docks. Though virtually all manufacturing segments are represented in Aptean's customer base, the top three industries served are electronics, industrial machinery and equipment, and fabricated metal products. Intuitive ERP is designed for discrete, make to stock, make to order, configure to order, assemble to order, and mixed-mode manufacturers.

Product Development

Aptean focuses 100 percent of the Intuitive product development efforts on the needs of our customers. We listen closely to customer input and offer many forums for providing input on product development including:

Best practices for product definition
Access to our Expert support site to directly request changes and/or enhancements
Beta testing opportunities
Participation in user group meetings with Intuitive product experts

R&D funds are directed to serving the needs of our customers. In other words, Aptean invests R&D on product enhancements that our engineering and enterprise resource planning customers care about. Intuitive software is designed solely for the unique requirements of the manufacturing industry.

Intuitive software products are only released after stringent quality metrics have been achieved. At Aptean, delivering a quality product with the robust functionality to meet our customers needs takes priority over meeting an arbitrary target release date. Since product development decisions are not governed by the needs of the sales team, we are not under the same pressures as other software vendors that may rush applications to market and sacrifice quality in the process. Because we take the time to fully scope out customer requirements, build deep functionality, and thoroughly beta test our products, Intuitive customers receive more reliable software.

A Technology Standard Unmatched in the Industry:

Intuitive ERP was built, from the ground up, with 100% Microsoft technology. The current release of Intuitive ERP has a pure .NET managed code framework and over 90% of the standard product features have been rewritten in pure .NET.

Intuitive ERP Addresses the Following Business Needs:

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP): Complete integration of planning, materials management and procurement, manufacturing and financial business processes reduces costs and improves productivity, quality and control within your operation.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM): Automation and integration of sales, marketing, support and e-commerce helps you win sales and improve customer satisfaction, increasing customer responsiveness and loyalty.
Business Intelligence: Unparalleled business intelligence (BI) tools provide complete visibility into your system's critical business data, allowing you to make faster, more informed and progressive company decisions.
E-Commerce: Web applications and adoption of Microsoft's .NET technology enables you to access information, sell product, run business processes and connect with customers and partners anytime, any where via the internet.
Extended Enterprise: Intuitive ERP is designed to support businesses that operate at a single location or with multiple plants across town or across the world.

Business Intelligence

Decision Management Tool

Intuitive's unique Decision Management Tool (DMT) provides management the visibility of those key elements that provide vital information on the health of your company. With DMT, you can:

Monitor business performance
Identify trends
Work with data in comfortable and flexible setting of Microsoft Excel
Generate HTML files with DMT data

DMT tracks and analyzes over 50 key performance indicators (KPIs) using data from Intuitive ERP. These indicators (which include Return on Assets, Return on Net Worth, Inventory Turns, Days Sales in A/R, Current Ratios, Quick Ratios, and many more), are calculated automatically for you and displayed instantly.

You can compare periods, quarters, or years, and can therefore track the changes in your company's health throughout time.

The Decision Management Tool indicators may be displayed in spreadsheet format or graphically, depending on your preferences, and may be e-mailed, faxed, etc. from within the spreadsheet.

This outstanding feature is comparable to packages that sell for tens of thousands of dollars by themselves, and is included in the base price of the system - no extra charge required.

Executive Management Systems

The Executive Information System (EIS) is a visual reporting system that provides management with real-time updates on critical elements of company-wide data in a graphical, easy-to-read format.

A powerful Business Intelligence tool, EIS gives you quick access to key business measures, allowing you to monitor your operations and increase the speed and accuracy of the decision making process. With the Intuitive ERP EIS, you can:

Quickly generate up-to-the minute graphs
Access high-level manufacturing and financial data in graphical format
Back up graphs with facts and figures through 1-click access to source data
Report on data over different time periods

A one-page EIS summary provides a high-level view with drill-down capability for each selected indicator.

With user-friendly point-and-click simplicity, you can graphically display critical information on sales, purchasing, inventory, production, and financial activity.

Real-time information allows you to examine and graphically report on current bookings levels, vendor performance, inventory valuation, past due work orders, accounts receivable and accounts payable, and much more.

OLAP Analytics

The OLAP Analytics module provides the sophisticated functionality needed to analyze and report on large amounts of transactional data using advanced On Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) and data warehousing technology.

OLAP Analytics enables you to gain critical insights into financial activity, sales analysis, and production and inventory management. Through the use of OLAP and data warehouse technology, The Intuitive OLAP Analytics module delivers key analytical information throughout your organization and gives you the power and knowledge to reduce inventory, increase customer satisfaction and reduce costs.

Analyze large amounts of business data
Easily create your own reports and analysis using familiar Microsoft Excel user interface
Select, sort and analyze data in an unlimited number of ways
Uncover hidden trends

While OLAP technology is available to all Microsoft SQL users, the difference with Intuitive's OLAP Analytics option is that the OLAP cubes have been pre-filled with all the data required for you to simply run reports. Other systems offer OLAP technology, but Intuitive offers pre-filled cubes that will save weeks or months of development time. Intuitive's OLAP Analytics option is ready to start analyzing data right out of the box, with no modifications or development required.

OLAP Analytics presents business intelligence information in a way that was not possible before, and does so with unprecedented speed and flexibility. Now, instead of waiting a week or more for someone to format a report and/or analyze the data, you can access it directly from your desktop as quickly as you can drag and drop the attributes of interest to you. OLAP Analytics allows you to select, sort and analyze data in any way you want, virtually as quick as you can think of it. It gives you the ability to rapidly drill down into your data to see trends and conditions that would otherwise be invisible using slower data retrieval technology.

Ad Hoc Report Wizard

The Intuitive ERP Ad Hoc Report Wizard puts the power of your data directly into the hands of the end users by providing the freedom to quickly and easily create simple or sophisticated custom reports based on Intuitive ERP data without needing to know any data structures or having to make modifications to the system.

No database, query building, field name or programming knowledge is necessary to take full advantage of the features of the Ad Hoc Report Wizard. All that the user needs to know is which fields they want on the report and in which order they want them in--the Wizard takes care of the rest. Adding simple or complex calculations is easily accomplished and you can also format your reports exactly the way you want with data filters and sorting and grouping options.

It is extremely easy to move fields to where you want them, add data filters, change sorting and grouping, etc. which means you can format your reports in exactly the way you want to see them. The user can also add simple or complex calculations to reports without needing to understand programmatically how to make this happen.

All reports created by the Ad Hoc Report Wizard include:

Excel type data display
One-click Export to Excel for easy graphing and distribution
Dynamic borders and floating data for easy reading
Ability to dynamically change filters on the fly

CRM

Relationship Management

The Relationship Management module provides the tools necessary to manage important business information about not only your prospects and customers, but also vendors, business partners, and other third parties your company deals with. Contact and account information, schedules, a complete history of interactions and transactions, current orders and financial status, and other data are immediately available to assist your sales and support teams in effectively maintaining valuable business relationships.

Store an unlimited number of customers, prospects and companies, and unlimited contacts within each company.
Record all interactions associated with a customer or prospect, including conversations, meetings, letters, faxes, e-mail messages, file attachments, and more.
Access a complete history of a customer or prospect account, including quotes, orders, collections status, warranty status, and more.
Schedule future interactions into your existing Microsoft Outlook calendar.
Work in a team environment with multiple members on an account.
Create document distributions based on Mail Merge features of Microsoft Office.
Attach documents and emails to contacts or companies.
Automatically create Microsoft Outlook To-Do lists.
Assign activities to other team members and notify them by email.
Output any data to Excel with one click.
Record an unlimited number of notes per contact.

Opportunity Management

The Opportunity Management module maximizes the efficiency of your sales force by helping to manage and identify the best strategy for moving to close the deal. By providing a tool to effectively manage every component of an opportunity, Opportunity Management helps your sales professionals capitalize on sales potential with prospects and increase business from existing customers.

Manage sales opportunities by creating and linking opportunity records to specific accounts.
Track opportunities, including percent chance of close, opportunity value, and all associated data.
Add user-defined fields to each opportunity record.
Schedule interactions, such as follow-up phone calls and onsite meetings, into your existing Microsoft Outlook calendar.
Maintain a complete history of activities with specific notes about each opportunity.
Create and link appointments, tasks, notes, documents, e-mails and activities to specific sales opportunities.
Report on sales funnel and opportunity progress.

Marketing Management

The Intuitive CRM marketing management features provides a single location to create and track the details and results of your company's targeted marketing campaigns. You can create targeted mailing lists of potential and/or current customers with the Search Manager and select the search to be associated with the marketing campaign. Deploy a campaign by automatically creating a mass-email or mass mail-merge document to all campaign participants. You can easily keep track of participants pre- and post-launch.

After launching a campaign, Intuitive CRM allows you to manage responses and associate opportunities to campaigns. A Marketing Response wizard is incorporated directly into the pane system, allowing users to quickly enter response information. You can compare actual responses with forecasted response rates to determine campaign ROI.

Intuitive CRM also complies with Do Not Solicit regulations, ensuring that companies / individuals who request to be removed from future campaigns are automatically excluded from future campaigns.

Intuitive Service

The Intuitive Service module helps you provide superior customer support. Through increased repeat business with your customer base and great referrals from your customers, the Intuitive Service option provides dramatic and measurable return on your investment. These support tools allow you to manage, record and resolve customer support incidents, quickly identify and address urgent customer issues, and analyze the effectiveness of your entire support department.

With Intuitive Service, your service and support departments can access and update detailed customer information, manage customer support incidents, track information to resolve defects, quickly process material returns and find answers to recurring issues fast.

E-Commerce

Customer Portal

Intuitive's Customer Portal module harnesses the power of .NET web services to provide e-commerce capabilities to your business. Your customers can check their activity status, enter orders, and peruse products through the ease of an on-line Web catalog. This functionality dramatically increases customer satisfaction while decreasing your sales and service administrative costs.

Sell your products on the Web
Allow customers to look up order, shipment and account status
Customize the catalog and pricing for each customer using a simple matrix
Accept multiple currencies

With Customer Portal, customers can log on to your secured Web site and browse a catalog of your products. You can also choose to have the catalog automatically customized for each customer to only include items you have specified, with the price matrixing approved for that particular customer. Customers can easily enter orders from the Web, which are sent directly into your Intuitive ERP system and treated as a normal sales order. Automatic e-mail confirmations are sent to the customer when the order is received and when the order has shipped.

Your customers can also look up the status of their orders, shipment activity for all orders or a specific order, their current aging, and other reportsýall over the Internet.

Sales Portal

Web-based access to your Intuitive ERP system provides your remote sales representatives with a powerful tool: the ability to look up information on order value and status, shipments, billings and invoice detail and history over the Internet.

Gain web-based access to your system
Mobilize your sales force
Generate sales reports over the internet
Back up graphs with facts and figures through 1-click access to source data
Report on data over different time periods

Intuitive leverages the power of the Internet to deliver remote access to Intuitive ERP. The Sales Portal module included in Intuitive ERP opens secured access to critical business reports from anywhere in the world, at any time of day or night, through a simple Web browser. With Sales Portal, sales representatives can generate the same standard reports as on-site personnel. Field sales representatives can review all aspects of a specific accountýs status before calling on prospects; this extended access to the system shortens the business cycle and provides remote employees with information that was not available to them before.

Because standard Intuitive ERP user interface conventions are maintained, there is no retraining requiredýjust open the browser and connect.

ERP

Planning

With its superior planning capabilities and user interfaces, Intuitive ERP provides the information required to quickly and easily react to scheduling problems as they occur. This advanced planning functionality allows you to reduce costs and increase productivity by eliminating stock shortages, improving delivery performance, and increasing flexibility in building your demand schedule.

Easily analyze material requirements with graphical pegging information and make accurate delivery commitments on the fly with dynamic available-to-promise (ATP) and capable-to-promise (CTP) tools. Generate and modify material plans on demand.

Capable to Promise

The availability of items in your system is an important piece of information that is necessary for planning future production and making sales commitments. The Intuitive ERP Dynamic CTP (capable to promise) functionality answers the questions: How much can I promise to a new demand on any day, creating and actually planning for this demand?

While Dynamic ATP (available to promise) functionality just interrogates and analyzes the current production plan, Dynamic CTP is actually an advanced planning process that can generate new planned orders. If, through ATP, you are unable to find sufficient inventory to cover a new demand, CTP can then be invoked to take the next step. CTP provides the ability to determine whether the new demand can be filled by creating additional production and/or purchase orders. And, CTP calculates the earliest feasible date that this new production could be completed and your demand covered. CTP informs you of the new planned orders that would be required (what items need to be produced and/or purchased, order start and end dates, quantities, etc.) and allows you to then decide if those orders should be added to the production schedule.

CTP can be called from within a sales order, quote, or a number of other locations for immediate access to CTP information. CTP may be checked by warehouse to provide a complete view of material availability across all warehouses and locations.

When utilizing CTP from within a sales order, each delivery can have an immediate feasibility test run, telling the user whether the materials can be shipped on the date requested, and if not, when those materials can be shipped. The user can save the plan immediately and commit that order with no extra steps.

CTP may be run in conjunction with Dynamic MRP: so that you can CTP-plan your project-based orders and MRP-plan your stock orders for maximum efficiency.

Visual Order Pegging

The Intuitive ERP Visual Order Pegging Explorer provides an outstanding tool to visualize the status of a job at a single glance, or to see the effect a late-arriving materials delivery will have down the line.

Visual Order Pegging allows you to trace up or down the production hierarchy to see the source/use relationships for items. Using Visual Order Pegging, you can trace upwards from a particular work order to see which sales orders are slated to receive the material being produced by that work order. Or, given a particular sales order, you will be able to trace down the pegging linkages to see the status of the various work orders and purchase orders that will cover this sales order. You can also see pegging by project to provide you with complete order status for all items in a project.

Visual Order Pegging includes graphical tools to show you at a glance where the problem areas are in your schedule. Any late orders will display in red, and on-time orders in green. For work orders, the complete status at each operation (routing step) is displayed, and those problem steps are also in red.

Dynamic MRP

Dynamic MRP creates a flexible and responsive planning environment. By incorporating architectural advances, Dynamic MRP enables planners and schedulers to generate and modify material plans on demand rather than overnight. In fact, Dynamic MRP takes only minutes to run planning cycles that used to take hours, frequently exhibiting an increase of 30 to 80 times faster than traditional planning engines.

The ability to rapidly plan and re-plan addresses the reality of changing priorities and new customer demand. With this increased efficiency, Dynamic MRP gives users the power to decide when and how often to update the material plan. The increased speed also means that a total regeneration can be completed instead of a net change process. This leads to a much cleaner, more accurate, comprehensive plan.

Dynamic MRP creates a smarter and safer plan. Smarter because features like the "look ahead" capability creatively address the issue of past due requirements. Safer because the system uses a single rollback transaction to preserve the existing plan in the unusual case of a processing failure. Dynamic MRP planning works together with CTP so that you can use one or the other or mixed mode, depending on your planning requirements.

A state-of-the-art Planner's Workbench provides you with instant graphical representation of you plan and the problems on you floor that need to be addressed.

Dynamic MRP also introduces an unusually high level of auditability. Users can consult an extensive history of MRP logic and planning events to determine why certain activities took place and to optimize the system for future planning cycles.

Planner's Workbench

The new .NET-enabled Planner's Workbench is the cornerstone of a whole new set of planning tools that allow the user to search for material and capacity problems, visualize the problems with a dynamic graphical interface, determine the impact of the problems and easily enact solutions. Planner's Workbench provides a planner all of the tools necessary to optimize their shop floor in one place, at one time.

This workbench includes tools to do the following, and much more:

Graphically display the status of an item's inventory, including safety stock and surplus, and all activity for that item with drill-down capabilities into those activities.
Easily search for inventory problems within the parameters set by the user (inventory surpluses over x days, critical shortages, etc.) and drill down into actions to resolve those problems.
Easily search for order problems within parameters set by the user (late raw material deliveries, pending late orders, etc.) and drill down into actions to resolve those problems.

Inventory

Effective management of finished goods, work-in-process and raw material is critical to your entire operation. Instant access to real-time data allows you to track inventory levels by item, location, product family and historical usage with the click of a button. Complete cradle-to-grave serial number tracking is also included.

Simplify daily inventory transactions and increase user productivity with automated features for frequently performed tasks. Intuitive ERP provides a robust and structured materials management system--everything you need to accurately control inventory transactions, product costs and material usage.

Control Inventory

Intuitive ERP's robust and structured inventory management system allows you to maintain optimal levels of items, whether raw materials, work in process, or finished products. Intuitive ERP automatically tracks inventory levels to provide you with consistently accurate, updated information -- right when you need it.

The "Item Card" is the nucleus of the Intuitive ERP inventory management functionality.

This tool organizes all the information you need to accurately control inventory transactions and manage costs, starting with static data on inventory (such as item IDs, part numbers and units of measure). Stores information on the Item Card includes item and warehouse location and the quantities on hand, in inspection, allocated to sales and allocated to manufacturing. Extensive planning, costing, engineering and drawing information is also contained in the Item Card along with approved vendors maintenance and an image of the actual item. An unlimited number of documents, drawings, etc. may be connected with each part. This functionality is available throughout the system; an unlimited number of files (of any type) may be associated with any document (sales order, purchase order, work order, routing step, etc.).

An item availability look-up feature streamlines inventory control. This tool provides an immediate display detailing the availability of any item (as of a specified date), by bringing together demand information from current, planned and outstanding purchase orders and work orders, as well as outstanding sales orders and quotes. With the click of the mouse, you can drill down from this form into specific orders for more detailed information.

Also, you can see graphs on inventory usage or check your inventory transaction history with Intuitive ERP's extensive inventory management reporting.

Shipping and Receiving

Intuitive ERP's full-screen shipping allows the shipment of an entire order with one click, if desired. Packing slips, internal bills of lading, Proforma and commercial invoices, and serial number tracking, among other features, are included as part of the shipping process. Tools to cancel, add, or reverse shipping transactions give you complete control over your shipping processes.

The shipping operation generates finished goods picklists based on user-supplied selection criteria. This operation can also automatically check your customer's credit status and the item availability before generating shipping picklists. In addition, a report is generated that lists the inventory items that need to be pulled from stores. Shipments against sales order deliveries, inventory levels, and costing information are updated in real-time.

Intuitive ERP offers a one-step receipt process that automatically records receipts against purchase orders, creates receiver records to be processed by accounts payable, and updates average and last costs for items received into inventory. Items can also be assigned for inspection in this process or sent to a Material Review Board cycle complete with return to vendor capability. If there are any current shortages, you can press a button to view all outstanding work orders that have current shortages for this item.

Location/Lot Tracking

For companies that have multiple warehouses, multiple stock locations and/or lot number control, Intuitive ERP offers complete warehouse/location/lot tracking functionality. In addition to the serial number tracking capabilities of Intuitive ERP, this functionality supports the more complex needs of manufacturers in regulated industries or with perishable goods.

Whether you use it to support product recalls or to increase the level of control you desire over your inventory, location/lot tracking gives you the flexibility to manage each item to the required level of detail. Items can be assigned to a warehouse, floor space area, or bin location(s), and extensive activity reports are available for both location and lot tracking.

Complete visibility, both upwards and downwards, is available for each lot. You may enter a lot number and receive full tracking to al work orders and sales orders that included that lot, including shipment information. In addition, you can enter a sales order number and receive "downwards tracking" information to see all component lots that were included in the order.

Cycle Counting & Physical Inventory

Maintaining accurate inventory records is crucial to having a successful enterprise system. This is usually done through cycle counting, which is an inventory audit technique where inventory is counted on a cyclic schedule. Using Intuitive ERP's cycle counting functionality, items that are higher in value or faster-moving are counted more often, and lower valued items are counted less often. You can base cycle counting on usage and/or current inventory value using standard A-B-C categories.

The biggest advantage to cycle counting is accuracy. By the time you become aware of an inventory problem, it could have occurred months ago and now be impossible to trace. Using cycle counting, however, you are able to track problems closer to the time they occur and find solutions more quickly, rather than waiting for a quarterly or annual physical inventory.

When you do need to perform a physical count, Intuitive ERP supports the process of taking a full count of inventory on both stock and work-in-process (WIP) items. At the beginning of the process a snapshot is taken of stock and WIP balances from inventory data within the system. When the physical inventory is complete, it allows you to roll the counts you recorded into the inventory records and automatically makes any necessary general ledger transactions to adjust inventory account balances.

Serial Numbers

Intuitive ERP allows complete "cradle to grave" serial number traceability throughout the system. You can create a multi-level Bill of Serial Numbers, so that you can maintain complete tracking of which serial number is within which assembly, and where the ultimate assembly was shipped. Then you can track the warranty and ownership of those parts through the Service & Repair module. Maintenance of these BOMs is simple; you can add and remove serial numbers, move them as required, etc, and a complete history of all transactions is maintained.

You can also designate the level of tracking you would like for each item. Items may be specified as fully tracked (entry required each time this item is transacted), referenced (not tracked though inventory, but included on a BOM of serial numbers and/or when shipped as a service part), or shipment tracked (only traced when shipped out).

Bar Coding

Using Intuitive ERP's bar code capabilities can greatly improve the accuracy of your inventory data by eliminating unnecessary retyping of data and ensuring that the latest information is directly input into your system.

Our real-time bar coding devices allow you to enter and track work orders, material movement, and labor transactions easily. Bar codes can be printed on work orders, purchase orders, shiplists, picklists, inventory picklist labels, travelers, and more.

Costing

The Intuitive ERP costing feature keeps track of standard, average and last (actual) costs for inventory items and allows you to select which costing type you wish to use as the accounting value for each of the items in inventory. Whenever the accounting value is updated, inventory is re-valued at this new cost.

Many companies choose to use standard costing as a management tool for controlling costs. They establish the standard costs using a standard rate per unit of finished goods when the plant is operating at normal capacity. Then, through the analysis of the amounts written to the variance accounts they are able to determine which areas of their manufacturing or purchasing process need attention. Average costing uses a weighted moving average that Intuitive ERP computes for the cost of items. Last costing uses the actual costs stored in the database for the item the last time it was manufactured or purchased. Regardless of which accounting value type you select, the standard, average, and last cost are calculated for each item for informational and reporting purposes.

The Intuitive ERP stock value report allows you to see your current inventory status including the quantities for each item, current allocations, and the stock valuation. It can also be used to determine the value for your inventory at a specified date in the past and the portion of your company's money that is tied up in items that are obsolete.

Engineering

Increase production cost control and resource management efficiency with flexible bills of material management. Introduce engineering changes without losing control of manufacturing operations and assess the impact of engineering changes throughout your operations.

Visual Bill of Material

Intuitive ERP's flexible Bill of Material management functionality allows you to increase production cost control and resource management efficiency. With Intuitive ERP, you can proficiently create and manage multi-level bills of material with unlimited components or levels.

The Visual Bills of Material form is used to display a graphical representation of the BOM. You may drill-down into any component relationship from the Visual BOM.

The Bills of Material form is used to add or alter bill of material records. Through the BOM form you can control the effectiveness of changes to the bill of material by using effective start and stop dates. This is an excellent way of imposing revision control for your bills, and of pre-planning for changes. Multiple other features are available through this form as well, including scrap related to the manufacture of this component into this parent, substitute items, and lead time offsets.

Methods of easy maintenance, such as Mass Replace, Copy Bill, Loop Check and more ensure your BOMs are current and accurate. Intuitive ERP also includes extensive reports on product structures and parent/component item relationships.

Routings

Routings serve as the instruction sheets that guide materials through shop floor operations. Intuitive ERP maintains the integrity of your routing data to ensure you can track job costs precisely and maintain an accurate production schedule.

In Intuitive ERP, standard processes are saved so you do not need to enter a complete routing for each step on each individual item -- you may simply choose a standard process for each routing sequence. You may also enter additional data that will modify the standard process for a particular routing only.

Routings may also be copied from one item to a similar item for easy data entry. The type of data entered for each routing includes the associated work center where this routing step occurs, machine ID, tool kit, times, etc. An unlimited length memo field is provided for detailed instructions and may also have associated video clips or documents for even more detailed information.

Intuitive ERP provides detailed item costs with the routing rollup functionality, which calculates precise cost amounts for any or all manufactured items.

Engineering Changes

In the fast-paced world in which you compete, the flexibility to introduce engineering changes without losing control of manufacturing operations is mandatory. Intuitive ERP's Engineering Change Order functionality provides you with the information to assess the impact of engineering changes throughout your operations.

With Intuitive ERP, you can quickly generate engineering change requests (ECRs) to view the impact and benefits of the proposed changes and then easily convert the ECRs to engineering change orders (ECOs) or temporary deviation authorizations (TDAs). With one mouse click you can determine the cost of the change. You can also track bills of material and item revision levels as well as maintain data for open work orders, purchase orders and on-hand balances.

Purchasing

Manage all purchasing activities, from a complete electronic RFQ system to preferred vendor selection to entering bids, and from purchase order entry to receiving and inspecting. Take advantage of quantity breaks and vendor performance tracking to minimize spending.

Request for Quote

The RFQ system allows users to automatically generate Requests for Quotes. RFQs are fully integrated into the Quoting system, and can be automatically generated for all components needed for a quote. Vendor responses can be tracked, a vendor selected, and this information fed back into the Quoting system.

Bid Matrix

Intuitive ERP provides a bid matrix tool for entering and maintaining bids from vendors for purchased items. After you enter a bid matrix for an item, the system will use the pricing information from this source on quotes, purchase orders and planned purchase orders.

You may enter multiple bids from a vendor for the same item. You may also set up separate units of measure for purchasing, stocking and selling items.

You can print bid matrices for all vendors or for a specific vendor. This is helpful to use as an audit for price matrices and/or price sheets from a specific vendor.

A complete RFQ (request for vendor quote) system is also included, and is fully integrated into both the Intuitive approvals system and the AlertMessenger feature. The RFQ functionality may be called from the quote, purchase order, or directly from the main menu.

Purchase Order Requisitions

Intuitive ERP's purchase order requisitions functionality allows the entry and complete tracking and approval of PO Requisitions.

The Approval system allows for sequential or mass-email notification to a designated set of users. The Approval system is also tied into sales orders, quotes, and engineering change orders.

PO requisitions may be entered for new or existing inventory materials, for miscellaneous materials or services, and for new or existing vendors.

Purchase Orders and Procurement

Intuitive ERP supports three types of purchase order lines: purchases of inventory materials, purchases against a specific work order (materials and/or subcontract work), and expenses to be charged directly to a General Ledger expense account.

Purchase orders against a specific work order link directly into the outplant processing feature. When a work order is loaded across the shop floor for an item with an outplant operation in its routing, a purchase order is automatically generated for the selected vendor. When the PO is received, the outplant operation sequence is automatically closed and the work order is updated with all costing information.

Purchase orders can be printed (either automatically upon entry into the system, or manually as needed). A detailed report shows all information pertaining to a current purchase order. This report provides tremendous flexibility of report generation: all or selected vendors, order due date ranges, associated Buyers, and other specifications may be selected to include as much or as little data on the report as you would like to see.

Managing procurement also requires good reporting on outstanding purchase orders and the associated cash requirements needed to support these POs. Intuitive ERP includes powerful yet flexible tools to effectively initiate and manage your purchasing actions.

The purchasing system includes an approvals system, as does our sales order processing, engineering change order, and quoting modules. You may establish an unlimited number of contacts (inside or outside of your company) who will receive automatic e-mail notification of a PO and ask for their approval or disapproval. The automatic method of requesting approvals increases control while decreasing time requirements.

The approvals system also links to a PO requisition feature, which allows the PO to remain in requisition status until the required approvals are received. Intuitive ERP also includes full support of blanket POs, including automatic releases against a blanket PO by MRP. Blanket POs are automatically linked to the AlertMessenger feature to provide notification of blanket PO status.

Intuitive ERP allows you to view the outstanding PO requirements for your open orders. This report will display all outstanding PO commitments bucketed into either weekly or monthly periods, and allows you to see the dollar amount committed to open purchase orders.

Planned Purchase Orders

Intuitive ERP allows you to select MRP planned purchase orders and convert them to released purchase orders in a single operation, with no re-keying of data. You can select planned purchase order records by vendor, item, product family, and/or buyer.

When planned purchase orders are converted, one PO is created for each vendor, and one line is created for each item. Multiple delivery dates will be added for multiple requirements of the same item to the same vendor.

Vendor split percentages are supported to enable you to automatically split a single requirement amongst multiple vendors with pre-determined percentages.

The Vendor ID, price, and other information for each planned purchase order is based on the defaults entered for each item in the Item Card. This data may be modified on this form before converting to an actual purchase order.

A report that lists all planned purchase orders that were automatically converted into released purchase orders can be printed for review purposes.

Receiving and Inspection

The Intuitive ERP purchasing functionality provides a one-step process for recording receipts against purchase orders, creating receiver records to be processed by accounts payable and updating average and last costs for items received into inventory.

A useful report available in Intuitive ERP lists all the items flagged for inspection that have been received but have not yet been inspected. This report will likely be used when tracking shortages for issue to the production floor.

Detailed inspection results data are visible through the graphical vendor analysis reporting functionality.

A Material Review Board allows for materials to be returned to the vendor or scrapped. This functionality provides correction tracking, memos, voucher notes, internal notes, etc. It integrates this information with the vendor performance graphs and data-only reports. For items returned to the vendor, it takes care of such tasks as printing the voucher and debit memo in one single step.

Manufacturing

Intuitive ERP's fully-featured manufacturing functions help you manage your work-in-process activities and increase the productivity of your manufacturing staff with labor-saving features that provide more control over production and scheduling.

Quickly generate work orders from planned orders. Maximize manufacturing efficiency with automated backflushing, infinite and finite loading, forward and backward scheduling. Better manage labor and equipment capacity with powerful shop floor scheduling and explore "what if" scenarios to rapidly identify and resolve schedule conflicts and load issues. Manufacturing and accounting data are completely integrated to help you accurately track product costs.

Work Orders

Intuitive ERP work orders are the key to automating your production and eliminating inefficiencies caused by the tedious re-typing of information at each level of production. There are two ways to enter standard work orders into the Intuitive ERP system: all planned work orders that have been generated through MRP can be converted into a released work orders, and new unplanned work orders can be manually input into the system. Work orders for non-inventory items are also available.

Converting planned work orders automatically checks the component requirements for a planned order against each item's availability. The planned work orders can be loaded automatically to the shop floor during the conversion process. With the click of a mouse, you can print a complete shop packet that includes printed work orders, picklists, travelers, and/or picklist labels for all work orders or work orders that meet specific criteria you enter on the selector form.

Materials are issued to work orders using an explode/deduct issue transaction method that allows you to issue all of the components required for a work order all at one time. Or, if you choose to backflush work orders, material issue takes place at either each routing step or when the WIP material is received. Work order bills of material may be modified at any time, allowing for maximum flexibility in material management.

When the work order has been completed, a summary report displays the actual costs of each item on the work order, the standard cost for that item, and the variance between what the cost should have been and what it actually was for that work order. Complete detailed information on each material issue, outplant operation, and labor transaction is available to help you pinpoint the cause of cost overruns.

All materials movement and labor transactions can be entered via bar coding; manual data entry is not required.

Plan and Schedule Production

A work center consists of machines, labor personnel, or a combination of the two. Routing sequences move across work centers while the product is being created. Using Intuitive ERP, you may maintain costs for each work center, define the work center's capacity and utilization, set it for finite or for infinite loading, and enter other work center specific data.

Work centers may also be defined as outplant work centers, meaning that the job is outsourced at this point.

The capacity of each work center is established so that work orders may be loaded across it. Work center capacities reflect the workload that work centers can handle in one day. Capacities are initialized across all days, and then may be maintained by day or hour to reflect planned machine down time, etc.

Work orders are loaded across work centers based on an item's routings and on the capacities and parameters established for work centers. Intuitive ERP uses routing sequence data and standard process data to create work order operation records for work orders, then automatically schedules those operations on the shop floor using work center capacity data. Scheduling features such as overlap, sequencing, and other features are included. Work orders may be loaded either forward or backward, with finite or infinite capacity (set by work center).

Monitor Production Status and Material and Equipment Capacity

After work orders, both planned and released, have been successfully loaded, you will want to check the load and ensure that load on the work centers is even and that there are not any overages.

The Intuitive ERP shop status report allows you to view the status of all work centers at any time. Each work center is marked with either a green light to indicate that the work center is underloaded, a yellow light to indicate that the load is correctly loaded (between the reserved capacity for this work center and 100% loaded), or a red light to indicate a load that exceeds 100% of the work center's capacity. Time buckets may be viewed by day, week, or month to provide a "big picture" view at a glance.

Double-clicking on any of the indicator lights opens the work center scheduling tool for that work center, where you can easily reschedule loads by clicking and dragging operations to the new day, or from one work center to another. Planned orders and release orders are displayed in different colors to provide maximum visibility.

This unique drag-and-drop scheduling provides you with the ability to reschedule your shop floor in real-time to balance work loads. Not only do you have tremendous visibility into the status of your shop floor load, but you also have the capability to dynamically reconfigure this load through real-time drag-and-drop technology.

When your work orders are loaded properly and your work center loads are balanced, you will need to keep your shop floor employees updated with which orders to work on and when. Travelers list all steps through which an order must pass before it is completed and includes the standard setup and run times at each operation as well as spaces for the worker to enter the quantity completed, scrapped, or rejected.

A live dispatch window provides workers at each work center with the data they need to identify which work orders are scheduled to pass through the work center. When a foreman enters data on a work order, the dispatch list window is instantly updated. Video clips associated with a routing may be viewed from this window, and the dispatch list can also be printed.

Intuitive ERP's work in process (WIP) value report provides a complete summary of all of the costs that are currently in work in process. This report, used in conjunction with the stock value report, gives you a complete inventory valuation, including both stores and work in process.

Track Time and Attendance

Intuitive ERP includes complete time and attendance tracking and reporting. This includes a clock in/clock out feature, the entry of labor time against work orders, and multiple reporting options. Data entry may be done via keyboard entry or bar code.

Intuitive ERP provides an easy to use method for tracking employee attendance through a clock in and out function. The data recorded by this form may be reviewed via an employee attendance report.

A labor status report is used to verify an employee's work against a single order, or their total work hours compared to their clocked in hours. Labor information is displayed according to employee, and details each work order that the employee has worked on, including the reported and standard hours for the operation sequence. This on-screen report is for reference purposes.

As operation sequences are completed, the system records labor time as well as quantities completed.

Finance

Intuitive ERP's comprehensive and flexible financial management features allow you to track the flow of money in your company in a secure and accurate environment. Sophisticated functionality streamlines transactions and provides instant access to all your financial data, from summary views to transaction-level drill-down detail.

Manage and process your accounts payable and accounts receivable. Track all accounting activity with Intuitive ERP's general ledger and easily generate financial statements, budgets and other advanced financial reports.

Budgeting & Cash Flow

Defining and monitoring a budget is a critical step in the process of managing any business. Without the right tools, preparing, distributing, and collecting budget workbooks can be time consuming and cumbersome, and departmental or company consolidations can be a nightmare.

Intuitive ERP provides you with a distributed, enterprise-wide budgeting tool that automates creation, distribution, and collection of Microsoft Excel-based budget input and simplifies the revision process so you can focus on establishing the optimum plan.

You can generate and distribute customized budget templates throughout the entire organization. Completed budget sheets are consolidated to the financial data warehouse for reporting, which you can use to easily maintain alternative budget-specific tables. Wizards are also provided to help you complete the budgeting process.

You can also compare actual period-to-date and year-to-date performance to the budgeted amounts.

To assess and monitor cash flow, Intuitive ERP exports general ledger data to an Excel spreadsheet to analyze changes in your cash position.

Accounts Payable

Intuitive ERP contains a complete A/P system, including A/P invoice entry (miscellaneous and integrated to receivers), debit memos, recurring A/P, material burden, automatic and manual selection of invoices for payment, check processing and printing, and bank reconciliation.

As raw materials arrive on your dock from your vendors, invoices will also be arriving in your Accounts Payable department. Intuitive ERP provides the tools you need to enter invoice data, generate payments for vendors, and eventually reconcile your bank statement regarding the payments.

The Intuitive ERP A/P provides a method of entering invoices, matching invoices to receiving records, and assigning approval codes. This process creates A/P records against which checks can be issued. You can also set up recurring A/P entries for regular payments.

Processing checks is an automatic process that creates checks for all invoices that have been selected for payment.

Complete variance tracking between the accounting value of the item and the actual purchase price is retained and automatically calculated.

The multiple accounts payable reports available within Intuitive ERP allow you to organize A/P records into buckets and displays a time-phased A/P status, view the detail behind each invoice, list all invoices that were selected for payment, list invoices that will be paid the next time checks are processed, print checks, and more.

Accounts Receivable

Intuitive ERP contains a complete A/R system, including invoicing, cash receipts, full reporting, multiple A/R accounts, credits, and more. Intuitive ERP supports all different types of terms: split terms, pre-payments, due on a specific date, due on X day of month, free month, or any combination of these on a single invoice.

Generating and printing invoices in Intuitive ERP is a one-step process that offers a great deal of flexibility and control over which invoices are processed. After a sales order has been shipped, Intuitive ERP A/R flags that sales order for invoicing. Every delivery that has been flagged for invoicing will be compared and selected for invoicing based upon criteria you specify. The user has visibility into the shipments selected for invoicing, and may hold some or all based on this information. Invoices may also be consolidated into master invoices at this point.

The A/R account specified in each sales order will be utilized when the invoice is generated. This account number defaults into each order based on the default for the customer.

When payments are received from customers, the payments are applied against invoices in the system. Payment is supported from checks, wires, cash, and credit cards. Miscellaneous cash receipts (cash received not against an invoice) is also supported, are are prepayments, overpayments, and credits.

Track Costs

Intuitive ERP's costing features track standard, average and last (actual) product costs and allows you to choose which costing type you wish to use as the accounting value for each item in inventory. Whenever the accounting value is updated, inventory is re-valued at this new cost.

Intuitive ERP also provides a one-step method for calculating material, labor, outplant, fixed burden, material burden and variable burden costs. This process updates routing costs and the standard and accounting costs for inventory items.

Reconcile Financial Accounts

Intuitive ERP bank reconciliation functionality allows you to reconcile you record of deposits and withdrawals with the statement you receive from the bank. It provides a convenient means to verify that the deposits you have made and the checks that you have written have cleared. It also provides you with a way to verify the accuracy of your general ledger's cash accounts.

General Ledger

The Intuitive ERP General Ledger is where all your company's fiscal records are stored and the flow of money within your company is tracked. In addition, the GL controls financial activity and provides extensive reporting and analysis capabilities.

Intuitive ERP makes it easy to set up your chart of accounts and fiscal periods, keep your accounts up to date, close periods, manage cash flow, and produce both corporate and departmental financial statements. Intuitive multi-company capabilities, summary views, transaction-level drill down, and an unlimited number of user-defined groups and subgroups help you keep track of your company's financial status.

General ledger transactions are generated automatically by Intuitive ERP whenever you do such things as make inventory transactions, pay vendors, receive work orders, etc. Manual and recurring journal entries can also be posted to the GL. You have complete control over when and how transactions are posted.

A complete drill-down financial statement allows you to access data to the transaction level.

Financial Reporting

Intuitive's Financial Analyst option provides advanced financial reporting and analysis capabilities to help you monitor the financial status of your company, manage financial information, and generate and track budgets.

The keys to financial reporting and analysis are flexibility, performance, and ease of use. Financial Analyst provides executives and financial analysts with real-time access to data, presentation quality reporting and the flexibility to meet the unique needs of any manufacturer.

With a global view of your business you can review summary information, drill down into transaction level detail, and prepare presentation-quality reports. Advanced Financial Analyst is extremely scalable, supporting your growth without the need to add IT resources.

Pre-defined templates may be used to create standard reports. They may also be used as the foundation for customized reports, eliminating the need to spend your day creating and maintaining spreadsheets.

Advanced financial management capabilities provide multi-site and multi-company consolidation. Comprehensive budgeting capabilities such as multi-level budgeting, consolidations, allocations, and performance reporting are also available.

Quoting / Estimating

Intuitive's quoting solution shortens the sales cycle and automates order processing. The faster you can configure and quote an order, the faster you can realize revenue.

Provide quotes and estimates
Create and quote new items, bills of material and routings on-the-fly
Provide customer- specific or volume discounts
Check item availability and promise deliveries
View customer status and history
Convert quotes to sales orders automatically

Our Quoting functionality allows you to enter and maintain quotes that may be automatically converted to sales orders. You can track quotes by customer, date, or follow-up date and manage by revision level.

New items can be created during the quoting process. You can also copy an existing item, modify the routing or bill for a new cost, and configure an item on-the-fly through the configurator. If you quote a new item from any of the above methods, the item, bill of material, and routing will be created automatically when the quote is converted to a sales order.

The quoting module is fully integrated into both the Intuitive ERP price matrix (for end items) and the bid matrix (for component items).

A cover letter functionality allows you to establish a Microsoft Word document template as a cover letter for each quote, or to connect any other required document to a standard quote.

The quoting system includes an approvals system, as does our sales order processing, engineering change order, and purchasing modules. You may establish an unlimited number of contacts (inside or outside of your company) who will receive automatic e-mail notification of a quote and ask for their approval or disapproval. The automatic method of requesting approvals increases control while decreasing time requirements.

After your quote has been approved, you can easily convert quotes to sales orders automatically, eliminating manual data input errors. The entire quote does not have to be converted at once; lines of the quote may be individually selected for conversion to a sales order.

Several reports are also available with the Intuitive ERP Quoting option. These reports provide the functionality to print individual quotes, print a listing of all quotes in the system according to customer, item, etc., and also a follow-up report that is used as an action list for salespeople on open quotes.

Order Processing

Visualize the reaction when you custom-configure a complex, dimensional product, provide a detailed quote and enter a sales order -- all while sitting in your customer's office...

Intuitive ERP's complete order processing functionality, including direct quote-to-sales order conversion, revision tracking, full-featured order entry forms, multiple commission options, sales analysis reporting, and more, provides the tools necessary to maximize the efficiency of your sales force. After sales orders are entered, Intuitive ERP takes the newly created demand and reserves inventory or generates planned purchase orders and work orders to procure raw materials and build manufactured parts. Once the finished goods are complete and available to be shipped, sales orders are fulfilled and invoiced.

Promise Deliveries

The availability of items in your system is an important piece of information that is necessary for planning future production and making sales commitments. The Intuitive ERP capable to promise (CTP) functionality answers the questions: How much can I promise to a new demand on any day, creating and actually planning for this demand?

CTP can be called from within a sales order, quote, or a number of other locations for immediate access to CTP information. When utilizing CTP from within a sales order, each delivery can have an immediate feasibility test run, telling the user whether the materials can be shipped on the date requested, and if not, when those materials can be shipped. The user can save the plan immediately and commit that order with no extra steps.

While available to promise (ATP) functionality just interrogates and analyzes the current production plan, CTP is actually an advanced planning process that can generate new planned orders. If, through ATP, you are unable to find sufficient inventory to cover a new demand, CTP can then be invoked to take the next step. CTP provides the ability to determine whether the new demand can be filled by creating additional production and/or purchase orders. And, CTP calculates the earliest feasible date that this new production could be completed and your demand covered. CTP informs you of the new planned orders that would be required (what items need to be produced and/or purchased, order start and end dates, quantities, etc.) and allows you to then decide if those orders should be added to the production schedule.

Sales Order Processing

Complete sales order processing is available in Intuitive ERP, including direct quote conversion if the quoting module is being used, revision tracking, full-featured order entry forms, multiple commission options, sales analysis reporting, and more. After sales orders are entered, Intuitive ERP takes the newly created demand and reserves inventory or generates planned purchase orders and work orders to procure raw materials and build manufactured parts. Once the finished goods are complete and available to be shipped, sales orders are fulfilled and invoiced.

The sales order entry process has been refined to a one-form event in Intuitive ERP. The Sales Order Card presents all of the information and entry fields needed to create or maintain a sales order quickly and efficiently in one step.

With Intuitive ERP sales order processing, you can:

Create a sales order directly from a quote
Easily enter and/or maintain complex sales orders
Process point-of-sale purchases
Check item availability and promise deliveries via CTP
View customer status and history
View the status of all the purchase orders and work orders associated with a sales order
Create and maintain blanket orders
Maintain an unlimited number of representatives and/or sales people for each line
Customer records can have bill to, sold to, ship to and distribution center entities
Drop shipments supported
One order can be shipped to an unlimited number of addresses

If the quoting module or EDI is being used, the sales order entry process is even easier, as quotes can be converted directly into sales orders and EDI order transactions can be automatically received as orders or releases against a blanket order. The Sales Order Card is fully integrated into quoting, configurator, EDI, and price matrix functions.

The Sales Order Card contains a grid for the entry of lines. Each user may customize their order entry layout by clicking and dragging fields on or off the pane, in the order they would like to see, defining tab order, changing length, etc. Templates can also be created so that different types of orders can be taken differently (project orders versus blanked orders, etc.).

The Sales Order Acknowledgment report is used to print out, fax, or email an acknowledgment copy of any sales orders for your customer. Many sales analysis reports are available in Intuitive ERP, including Bookings, Backlog, and Sales Order Revisions reports.

The sales order processing system includes an approvals system, as does our quoting, engineering change order, and purchasing modules. You may establish an unlimited number of contacts (inside or outside of your company) who will receive automatic e-mail notification of a sales order and ask for their approval or disapproval. The automatic method of requesting approvals increases control while decreasing time requirements.

Configure New Items, Bills of Material and Routings On-the-Fly

Process Point-of-Sale Purchases

The Point of Sale (POS) form allows the user to book the order, ship, invoice, and apply cash all in one easy step (the process may be stopped at any point; for example, you can book, ship and invoice, but not apply cash). This extremely fast and simple process allows over-the-counter type sales to be entered quickly and easily.

Maintaining Price Matrices

Intuitive ERP's Price Matrix Maintenance functionality provides your company with a tool for entering and maintaining price policies for customer types, customers, product families, and/or individual items.

To determine the prices to use in the sales order and quoting processes, Intuitive ERP starts with the unit sales price, then applies the pricing matrix guidelines. It determines the price for items based on all the price matrices that pertain to the customer / item / quantity combination on the quote or sales order. For example, suppose a customer who receives a 10% discount on all orders places an order for an item that is on sale at 10% off the standard price. The customer would automatically receive 20% (10% for the customer pricing matrix plus 10% for the item matrix) off the final price for that item.

Maintain Customer Item Aliases

In Intuitive ERP, you can enter your customer's Item ID's for your part numbers. Then, when taking orders for this customer, you can enter your part numbers and they will see their part number on their paperwork.

Advanced Configurator

With Advanced Configurator, Intuitive provides the toolset that manufacturers of custom-configured products have been longing for. Our Internet-enabled Advanced Configurator streamlines the quotation and ordering of configure-to-order products to deliver accurate pricing, product configuration and specifications, as well as bill of material and process routings--all generated on the fly.

The Advanced Configurator provides unprecedented configuration tools to give engineer-to-order, make-to-order, or configure-to-order manufacturing companies a competitive edge:

A true "bottom-up" rules-based configurator provides simple point-and-click product definition under a powerful rules and constraint-based guidance engine.
Enables your sales force and customers to configure customized products, viewing design and pricing changes automatically as configuration modifications are made.
Simplifies the collection and management of critical product data for sales and order entry functions.
Internet ready, the Web browser-based user-interface is logical, straightforward and easy to use, with the power and flexibility to support even the most complex products.

Quality

By implementing an ERP system, you are already taking the first step in improving quality control across your entire operation. Intuitive ERP takes that level of quality a step further with specific quality-focused tools to assist your company in achieving optimal quality control over your products, performance and procedures.

Maintain a high-level of product quality with complete inspection procedures: from raw materials, to work-in-process, to customer returns. Easily track defective materials and assign them for return to vendor, scrap, or rework. Effectively track your production performance and procedures with statistical process control tools. And provide exactly the data your vendors are looking for when reporting back to them on the quality of their products. The increased quality of your products and the efficiency of your operations will significantly contribute to a more satisfied customer base!

Inspect Incoming Materials

You have the option to require inspection for any or all purchased materials. The purchase order inspection functionality provides a method of accepting, rejecting, or scrapping materials received from vendors. Detailed inspection results data are visible through the vendor analysis reporting functionality. The material inspection process is fully integrated with our Intuitive SPC module.

Materials that do not pass inspection can then be processed by the Material Review Board function. This tool allows for materials to be returned to the vendor or scrapped. This functionality provides correction tracking, memos, voucher notes, internal notes, etc. It integrates this information with the vendor performance graphs and data-only reports. For items returned to the vendor, tasks such as printing the voucher and debit memo are automatically handled in one single step.

The vendor performance records are automatically updated as inspection and material review data is entered. Vendor performance may be graphically displayed and easily reported on.

Inspect Outgoing Materials

The WIP inspection module provides complete quality control tracking over any or all outgoing (manufactured) materials.

Once materials are completely manufactured, you have the option of requiring inspection before the items are available to be shipped or to be issued to another work order. A report lists all manufactured materials that have been received, but are not yet available for shipment because they are awaiting inspection to help you track your Q/C activity.

Through the inspection process, materials may be accepted into inventory, rejected (placed back on the work order where the material will be reworked and re-received) or scrapped. Complete visibility into past inspection results provide that data required to improve quality throughout the WIP process.

The WIP inspection process is completely integrated with the Intuitive SPC module.

Inspect Returned Materials

The Return Material Authorization (RMA) module applies the same level of quality management to returned items as is applied to production inventory. Inspection is required for all returned materials.

This process allows you to dispose of the returned materials as scrap if they cannot be used, return them to inventory if they are still good, or open a rework order if they can be reworked.

The RMA module provides you with complete tracking functionality, from assigning an RMA number for the customer, dispositioning samples (optional), receiving the returned materials, and dispositioning all returns. Credit memos and replacement orders can be automatically generated if desired.

RMA reports are available to help you track product quality issues. You can monitor the return activity for particular product families and date ranges, and even individual products and customers. An RMA inspection report provides quantitative and qualitative information on the returned materials.

Statistical Process Control

Intuitive's SPC module provides real-time Statistical Process Control at all inspection points throughout the Intuitive ERP system, including work-in-process, purchasing, and material review and return. This module completes the Intuitive ERP quality cycle with a dynamic tool that can capture and analyze high-level data using statistical techniques to help you maintain and improve your company's process capabilities. Intuitive SPC delivers several enterprise-wide benefits, including:

Reduction of scrap, material waste, and returned goods
Improved manufacturing productivity
Satisfaction of contract-imposed SPC requirements
Achievement of detailed traceability and audit trails to help attain ISO 9000 and/or QS-9000 requirements
Compression of timeframe to launch new products
Increased customer satisfaction as product quality improves
Increased corporate profitability as quality improvements find the bottom line

More than just a data entry and charting tool, Intuitive's SPC module is a complete real-time system that combines data collection, charting, monitoring, analysis, communication, and reporting all in a single screen. The Intuitive SPC module includes advanced SPC features such as:

True real-time monitoring and charting
Variable, attribute, and Pareto capabilities within a single file
Completely customizable scaling, point sizing, and viewing options
Gage R&R with scheduling feature

Return Material Authorization

Managing the return of product from customers is another area you can leverage to strengthen the relationship between you and your customers. The quicker you can disposition defective or disputed parts, the faster you can turn a dissatisfied customer into a good reference. Our return material functionality provides you with the ability to ensure a thoroughly professional approach in this sensitive area of customer service.

Receive returned material into a special inventory account
Receive and process sample returns before authorizing a full return of materials
Inspect returned materials
Automatically credit the customer's account

The Return Material Authorization (RMA) module included with the Intuitive solution provides complete return material capability. Parts can be returned even if there is no existing sales order record (the return of a component for example). The RMA module provides you with complete tracking functionality, from assigning an RMA number for the customer, dispositioning samples (optional), receiving the returned materials, and dispositioning all returns. Credit memos and replacement orders can be automatically generated if desired.

Managing this inventory once it is returned is also important to the profitability of your company. The RMA module applies the same level of inventory management to returned items as is applied to production inventory. All material can be processed through inspection, accepted into inventory, sent to rework or scrapped to an expense account.

Forecasting

Intuitive Forecasting provides extended capabilities in forecast generation that allow you to:

Improve the accuracy of your forecasts
Save time and money
Improve planning
Cut inventory costs
Decrease stockouts

Intuitive Forecasting provides you with the ability to generate the forecasts based on your usage data and many different forecasting models. This data is then used by the Intuitive planning modules to generate your demand requirements based on this forecast. Complete analysis of forecast to actual is available in the Intuitive planning functions.

Intuitive Advanced Forecasting is easy to learn and easy to use. It does not require a background in statistics or forecasting. In fact, creating accurate forecasts is literally as easy as clicking a mouse. You provide the historic data, and the built-in expert system analyzes your data, selects the appropriate forecasting technique, and calculates the forecast.

Alternatively, if you want to dictate the forecasting approach, Intuitive Forecasting provides a complete range of forecasting models and all of the diagnostic aids you need. Generating reports, viewing graphs, adding your judgment, saving to spreadsheets/text files/databases, collaborating with others, interfacing with your SCM, ERP or other planning system is all at your fingertips.

Intuitive Forecasting supports multiple forecasting methodologies:

Exponential smoothing
Box-Jenkins
Low volume and intermittent demand models
Curve fitting
Simple methods
Dynamic regression
Event models
Multiple level models
Census X-11 seasonal decomposition
Batch forecasting

Payroll/HR

Intuitive HR is a complete employee tracking and benefits management system designed for the mid-market that can help you eliminate tedious administrative tasks so you can focus on managing your most important and valuable resources: your employees.

As part of the Intuitive enterprise solution, the Intuitive HR module is easy to use, has extensive reporting capabilities, and gives you the tools to:

Manage every aspect of employee information
Simplify employee benefits management
Organize and streamline the hiring process
Improve employee satisfaction

Intuitive Payroll is a complete .NET payroll system designed for the middle market that makes processing your payroll fast and efficient. Intuitive Payroll will help you enter, maintain, process and report on crucial payroll information. And, because you access it via a web browser, you can enter and maintain your data and process your payroll from anywhere you have access to the Internet.

Intuitive Payroll allows flexible printing of payroll checks; they may be printed as needed, on demand. In addition, you can run a trial payroll with full editing capability to provide complete visibility and confidence in accuracy before payroll is processed. Intuitive Payroll includes a powerful tax compliance calculation engine that assures accurate results every single payroll.

AlertMessenger

AlertMessenger is a real-time workflow communication system that provides updates on critical events, delivers work instructions and automates interaction with vendors and customers. AlertMessenger empowers employees throughout your enterprise and extends your enterprise to include customers and vendors, shortening lines of communication and helping you resolve issues faster.

AlertMessenger provides notification through e-mail, pop-up message boxes or even electronic paging systems. Built-in flexibility allows you to choose the method of delivery, or a combination of methods.

Instead of trading phone calls and spending endless time and effort to track down information, your employees, vendors and customers will be proactively and automatically informed of pre-determined events with customized alert messages.

Customize messages for specific system events
Automate messages to vendors, customers and employees
Send messages via e-mail, on-screen messaging or pagers

Project Management

For companies that use project management techniques, Intuitive ERP provides the tools necessary to establish projects and track all transactions related to that project. When a project or master project is created in Intuitive ERP, the project ID assigned is associated to every facet of data within the system related to that project, including multi-level manufacturing and procurement orders tied to a given sales order. Progress billing reporting assists in billing of work completed for a given project. Also available are drill-down reports on revenues, expenses, and profit/loss for any project or master project for complete project profitability reporting.

Establish projects and master projects
Report on revenues, expenses, and profit/loss for projects
Bill work completed for a project using progress billing

Extended Enterprise

Intuitive ERP is designed to support businesses that operate locally or globally. Language and currency need not be a barrier to conducting business. With multi-language and multi-currency capabilities, Intuitive ERP can be implemented around the world. Whether you manage a small company in Paris or an international firm in Los Angeles, Intuitive ERP supports your needs.

Multi-Language

The Intuitive ERP system architecture provides a flexible environment to easily modify language tables, reports and forms. Any language can be supported, including double byte languages. System upgrades do not affect translation; all translations remain intact and fully operational with no maintenance from release to release.

Multilingual capability extends to the user level, not just the client. The same client workstation and logon can be used by more than one employee with more than one language. For example, one employee can be working in Spanish while another employee on the same or a different workstation is using English.

Multi-Currency and VAT

Intuitive ERP is fully multi-currency enabled, allowing for an unlimited number of currencies including the Euro. The multiple currency capability includes currency gains/losses (realized and unrealized), currency transfers, reports written in the vendor/customer's language, default currency by customer and vendor, and more. In addition to single or multi-currency capabilities, Intuitive ERP includes support for the use of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and Value Added Tax (VAT) throughout the system, including an easy-to-establish VAT Percentage Matrix by item or product family.

Multi-Plant Operations

With plants across town or across the world, your company's success depends on the strength of the business systems in each of your locations. And whether you are a corporate controller or operations plant manager, those systems need to provide you with increased productivity, improved inventory management and greater cash-flow generation.

The challenge has been to meet the seemingly conflicting objectives of maintaining corporate oversight and management while providing the local business unit flexibility that has given you a competitive advantage. The solution is Intuitive ERP from Intuitive Manufacturing Systems. Intuitive ERP meets the challenges of a multi-plant environment:

Corporate-level consolidation of critical business information provides the management team with a global view of operations and a drill-down capability to manage issues.
Sophisticated functionality without the complexity of monolithic or bureaucratic systems, empowers employees to make faster and more accurate business decisions.
Flexibility and expandability reduce long-term operating costs while supporting the unique business needs of each division or plant.
A standardized and easy-to-administer IT infrastructure can be centralized, web deployed or distributed to reduce installation, training and maintenance costs.
The system architecture enables technological integration with larger ERP systems.

Product Overview

Developer Aptean
Type Discrete Manufacturing Software
Client OS Windows
Deployment Cloud or On-Premises

Market Focus

Ratio of reviewers by organization size.

Industry Focus

Intuitive ERP is designed primarily for use in the manufacturing industry.

Other Software by Aptean

User Reviews of Intuitive ERP

★★★★★

Submitted on May 18th, 2022 by Carolyn Brock

We are on 9.0.13 and the Pick Lists has a major problem. Once you perform shipment the old version would allow you to recreate the PL and it would give you the balance left to ship (provided you had inventory). The PL now may give you three or more lines of the same item number to complete the shipment. One of our KPIs is Fill Rate — the multiple lines create havoc with that number.

Inventory in multiple locations is an issue for Planning and Shipping. If your Safety Stock level is 10 and one location has 2 pieces and another location has 8 pieces it does not show the location of the part(s) without looking at the locations individually. This creates more work for the Planner — it is also frustrating to the CSR when trying to ship complete only to realize a Work Order hasn’t been cut for the current logical ship from location.

Pick Lists functionality. Lack of vision to multiple warehouse locations.