Exact MAX

Exact MAX is the easiest to use, full function MRP and order management solution, with built-in integration to Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains and QuickBooks, that is designed for materials managers, purchasing/order managers and quality control managers who need to automate either discrete driven product manufacturing or linear food batch processing.

Key industries and small to medium-sized companies that have chosen Exact MAX as their MRP solution of choice include:

• food processors, medical device, computer & electronics, automotive
• contract manufacturers
• discrete manufacturers in regulated industries

Best of breed MRP system with built-in integration to Great Plains and QuickBooks

With powerful and flexible batch processing, part management, and production planning features, MAX is particularly well-adept at fulfilling the needs of contract service providers, but can also be successfully deployed in full-service manufacturing facilities. For companies in need of a user-friendly business system that can help them manage business processes from order-entry to production planning and on through to fulfillment, MAX is designed to fit the way you do business.

Exact MAX ships with Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains integrated as its financial management system, or can integrate with your own copy of Great Plains, (saving you money) or can integrate with QuickBooks for those companies who want a powerful, integrated best of breed MRP system.

Strong compliance, CRM, workflow and full function manufacturing capability

With screens and workflows that are intuitive and user-friendly, mixed with powerful manufacturing functionality, MAX can help you deliver on the commitments you make to your customers. Fully integrated change management allows you to deploy design changes directly to the Bill of Material, ensuring that your production process is not stalled as you implement a change from a customer or from your engineering department.

MAX is strong in regulated environments as well and successfully supports many companies that must deal with the reality of regulatory requirements. With full lot and serial control from MAX, youýll be able to maintain the level of traceability required by agencies like the FDA, streamlining your role in recalls and providing your customers with the assurance that your processes are sound, resulting in a decided competitive advantage.

MAX also maintains an open architecture that allows you to integrate with smart machines on the shop floor, which streamlines your man-machine interface and results in fewer human errors and real-time inventory updates that you can share with your customers and suppliers.

Capacity Planning

Capacity Planning balances the amount of work that can be performed in a work center with the demand that needs to be produced. Capacity Planning works in conjunction with MRP to help plan and schedule production so materials are purchased not only when they are needed but also when they can be assembled. Capacity planning allows individual work centers to have a pre-defined amount of work that can be performed and then automatically load those work centers with demand that consume the work center capacity. Warning are triggered when demand exceeds capacity, and orders and can be automatically be rescheduled, manually rescheduled using drag and drop to alternate or sub-contract work centers. Work center capacity can be expanded by adding more production time or an additional shift. After the scheduler has balanced capacity with demand at each work center the system will update those changes so they are reflected across the enterprise.

Engineering Change Control (ECO)

Engineering Change Order (ECO) facilitates the creation of a framework to manage additions, changes and deletions to a product. ECO also manages the tasks and approvals associated with that change outside of the live production environment. As each task is approved or rejected, history is maintained capturing the individual that completed each tasks and when they did it. When all tasks are approved ECO will automatically update all impacted areas (Parts, BOM's, Routings, Documents, etc.) in the live production environment. ECO allows a company to more effectively manage their change process, reduce the amount of time it takes to implement change and reduce the overall cost of incorporating customer suggestions or new features.

Labor Tracking

The Labor Tracking Module is an online job tracking system that allows you to track actual work performed for specific work order operations. MAX Labor Tracking allows the computer to act as a time clock, resulting in more accurate run and setup times. Labor Tracking helps you identify direct and indirect labor or machine hours and can interface with your company's payroll system. Labor Tracking allows you do the following:

• Refine run and setup times for your standard part routings
• Calculate efficiencies by employee
• Track indirect labor costs by GL account
• Measure employee and work center productivity and efficiency by time period
• Integrate with Crystal Reports to run reports for labor, Time Tickets, and Workcenters

Lean Tools - Backflush by Operation

In Lean Manufacturing, you strive to flatten the Bill of Material, which reduces the number of work orders you need to create and eliminates the corresponding stocking levels of inventory. The Backflush by Operation tool facilitates the flattening process and allows you to backflush the parts at the exact time and location they are consumed.

Features & Benefits

• Structure BOM components to routing operations
  • Create Backflush Location
  • Link parts to multiple operations
  • Eliminate Manufacturing BOMs by structuring materials where and when they are used
  • Drag & Drop interface
  • View Summarized BOM or Tree Structure
  • Backflush by operation
• Reduce transactions
  • Override Backflush Location by operation
  • Generate transactions as the parts are used
  • Have more precision in inventory counts
  • Flatten BOMs
• Reduce the number of work orders generated
  • Use with additional Lean Tools
  • Supplier KANBAN
  • Consolidated Planning

Lean Tools - Consolidated Planning & Pick

Consolidated Planning allows you to look at the next day's or week's requirements by a specific product family or manufacturing line. Review shortages for specifictypes of parts, and launch the POs as you approve and release your manufacturing orders. Then email the POs to your suppliers and attach a PO form as well as the Lean Vouchering spreadsheet. When it is time to pick the order for the next day's schedule, print a consolidated pick list to streamline stockroom activities, and once picked, issue all of the items to the appropriate orders.

Features & Benefits

• Planning by product line/ time frame
  • Plan a specific product line or cell
  • Plan days in advance, not weeks
  • Review shortages and fill them Just-In-Time
  • Synchronize receipts with specific order requirements
• Increased automation
  • Automatically create Purchase Orders
  • Email distribution to vendors
  • Attach Lean Vouchering spreadsheet and PDF PO
• Reduce workload for planning & inventory control
  • Consolidate planning for product lines/families
  • Consolidate Picking to optimize stockroom activity
  • Automate the issuing process to reduce transaction processing
  • Use in conjunction with other Lean Tools like
  • Backflush by Operation
  • No outstanding POs in process
  • MRP Order Policy logicExact

Lean Tools - Lean Vouchering

Use a Management by Exception approach to streamline the vouchering process. Lean Vouchering compares each receipt record to a file supplied by the supplier, and if it conforms to the user-defined criteria, it creates the voucher and marks it for posting. If an exception occurs, it's presented in a grid where you can review and action the item, thereby reducing workload and allowing your Accounting staff to focus on the significant few items.

Features & Benefits

• Electronic invoicing
  • Vendor emails Excel or XML document
  • Reduce paperwork
  • Reduce the time for APprocessing
• Reduce workload for Accounting/AP
  • Manage by exception
  • Review and update the significant few
• Increased Automation
  • Create user-defined tolerances
  • Create and mark records for posting for conforming entries

Lean Tools - Supplier Kanban

Some of the stated goals of Lean Manufacturing are to eliminate waste and make value flow through the organization. In order to eliminate waste, we remove actions that do not add value to our operations. When the need is recognized, we want to order material from our Supplier in the fewest steps possible, while maintaining a record of our activity.

Features & Benefits:

• Create KANBAN Cards by part
  • Specify Primary vendor
  • Order Quantity or MRP Planned Orders
  • Crystal Reports
• Automatically generate MAX PO
  • Reduce transaction processing
  • Reduce administrative lead time
  • Group POs by supplier and by day
• Email authorization to Supplier
  • Standalone or automated processing
  • Use follow-up summary emails
  • Attach a PO form
• Configurable validation of order logic
  • Buyer ID signifies valid KANBAN part
  • Requirements exist
  • No outstanding POs in process
  • Supplier validation
  • MRP Order Policy logic

MRP Planning

MRP (Material Requirement Planning) is an integral part of any manufacturing planning system. MRP balances total demand with available supply and calculates recommendations on what items need to be purchased and which parts need to be manufactured. Specific conditions (like lead time) can be defined to generate exception messages when requirements exist that cannot be met. MAX offers advanced tools with MRP that allow easy access to drill down through a bill of material to determine the source of the raw materials or peg up a bill of material to provide visibility of where the demand is coming from. MAX MRP offers detailed planning and simulation calculations to determine the impact on planning if additional demand is entered in specific periods of time. This planning and simulation function quickly and easily identifies shortages caused by the addition of new customer demand and calculates an available to promise date based on the complete demand and supply conditions.

Repetitive Manufacturing

Repetitive Manufacturing provides, in a single transaction, the capability to receive a finished item and backflush all of the component items required to build the final assembly. This is ideal for high volume environments or those that are practicing Just-In-Time (JIT) techniques as no shop order is required, thereby eliminating time-consuming order processing and providing a paperless environment.

Repetitive Transaction-One Simple Step:

• Receive finished items into inventory and issue all components required to build the final product in a single transaction.
• Quick data entry only requires the Parent Part ID and the quantity completed to process the transaction.
• Eliminates time-consuming order processing.
• Reduce Work-In-Process (WIP) tracking requirements.
• Maintains complete transaction history information for auditing and control purposes.
• Significantly reduces the costs of tracking requirements for parts or products that do not need complex control procedures.
• Produce finished products without the need of generating work orders, allowing you to reduce processing time and paperwork without compromising data integrity.
• Requires less than half of the normal processing time of using conventional shop orders.
• Quickly review repetitive transactions with the Transaction History Report or Inquiry.
• Optionally use Repetitive Manufacturing for some or all of your parts, depending on your internal requirements.
• Component issues are based on product structure relationships.
• Blows through phantom and pseudo parts while issuing components.
• Component stock can be issued from the primary (point of use) stock location or alternative (buffer stock) locations.
• Perfect for companies who use cellular manufacturing techniques.
• User Preference allows you to remove all cost information from view (for security purposes) while processing the transaction.
• Optional support for Lot/Serial Tracking

Repetitive Scrap Transaction-Flexible Scrap Processing:

• Record actual scrap at any level on the bill in one transaction for increased inventory accuracy.
• Does not require an order number to scrap component items.
• Adjust scrap quantities at any level on the bill.
• Accurately record by-products during the manufacturing process for recovery of expensive or hazardous materials.
• Requires entry of GL Account for accurate product costing.

Shop Floor Control

Purchasing Control lets you create and print purchase orders, track purchased materials, maintain vendor information and predict your cash requirements. You'll know exactly what a part will cost, when you can get it, and from which approved vendors. This module provides information at your fingertips to help you make the most cost-effective decisions and accurately control all your purchasing requirements.

Shop Orders-Increase Labor Efficiency and On-Time Deliveries:

• Automatically generate a pick list and an order routing for each approved shop order.
• Track standard runtimes and queue times for batch unit processes.
• Calculate operation due and start dates using backward scheduling.
• Maintain unique routings and bills of material for customized orders.
• Maintain and print standard routing data by operation for each manufactured part.
• Re-work parts back through the shop without impacting the balance of an order.
• Split a shop order to expedite part of an order through the floor, or change part numbers in the middle of the production.
• Automatically calculate operation start and due dates based on MRP planned order due dates, or you can optionally freeze operation dates to allow for your unique shop schedule.
• Separate total manufacturing lead time into plan, build and stock times.
• Standard routing notes allow you to add routing information that's specific to a part or generic notes for any part.

Post Operation Completion:

• Display load and queue by work center so you know exactly what it takes to finish a job.
• As each operator completes their portion of a job, they identify their actual run and setup times, how many units were completed, and where the job should go next.
• Track actual run and setup times to analyze against the standards.
• Post Scrap at the operational level to monitor production flow and work center productivity.
• Automatic generation of new orders to compensate for scrap above planned levels.
• Drill down on particular cells within the grid to view more detailed information.
• Auto Post feature saves valuable time by automatically posting the operation complete once the required data is entered.
• User preferences allow you to display only operation sequences that contain load.

Subcontract Processing

Subcontract Processing tracks materials, shortages and overages through every step of the subcontract process. Each step has been automated, eliminating many manual transactions, and each is accounted for with costs and variances, including subcontract price and quantity variances.

• Assign a subcontract standard cost.
• Use MRP to plan subcontracted component requirements.
• Issue components to the subcontract purchase order.
• Capture costs at every step.
• Let the system generate subcontractor purchase requisitions/orders.
• Display/report detail costs of materials shipped, product received, and subcontract costs totaled by vendor, part, or order number.
• Project capacity for vendors.
• Ship to subcontractor directly from work-in-process.
• Receive from subcontractor directly into work-in-process.
• Streamline shop floor transactions.
• Improve inventory and asset accounting accuracy.
• Facilitate issuing material to and receiving product from vendor.
• Complete visibility of vendor activity.
• Capture costs and variances automatically.

Synergy for MAX

Synergy for MAX is a powerful tool to help an organization manage the entire front office aspects of doing business. Synergy for MAX incorporates common functions like capturing account data, scheduling activities like call, appointments and meeting while at the same time provide metrics and statistics used as key performance indicators (KPI's) to help manage the business. As a web based tool, Synergy for MAX goes beyond traditional front office solutions by including a complete portal capability to allow secure access for customers, business partners and remote employees. It provides an enhanced level of integration with the back office, allowing users the capability to enter orders, view order status, and view inventory levels. Additional static data such as shipping information, documents and schedules are also available. Synergy of MAX is configurable and can be customized and adopted to the specific needs of the organization by allowing for the addition or removal of specific fields, customization of workflow and multilingual capability.

Visual Shop Scheduler

MAX Visual Shop Scheduler Features:

• Planners and schedulers can more accurately determine the load of each work center against its capacity.
• Test multiple schedule iterations to quickly and accurately determine an effective balance between production limitations and the need to fulfill customer orders
• Identify and manage potential bottleneck work centers and resources so the necessary adjustments can be made to keep the entire shop running smoothly.
• Schedule several variables to determine the load for each work center, including job operations, material due dates, coordination of outside services, and complex assembly.
• Adjust production schedules based on true capacity.
• Users can see which orders will be delivered late and which orders will be delivered on time, giving them the ability to make important scheduling decisions on the fly.
• Drill into daily work center and shop order details.

Work Center Reports:

• Since the Visual Shop Scheduler allows users to adjust for true capacity, the work center reports will be more realistic and better represent actual work center activity.
• Print work center reports that reflect the new schedule for each work center.
• Overdue date order reports can be used by sales to negotiate new due dates with the customer.