October, 2024: There has been a remarkable uptick in the adoption of new business technologies within the metal service center industry, just in the past couple years. This trend will continue to accelerate, spurred on by labor and material challenges and increasing expectations from management teams.
Whether a company is already a technology-forward organization or is just embarking on its next-generation technology journey, there are many advantages to implementing the right software and tools at the right time:
• Increased productivity: Removing or automating repetitive tasks allows employees to focus on the activities that have the biggest impact on the bottom line.
• Sales enablement: Providing sales teams with quick, accurate data on customer buying behavior and real-time inventory information gives staff the tools to maximize sales, reduce inventory waste and expand average order size.
• Improved data accuracy: Reducing manual data entry and optimizing processes means fewer opportunities for errors.
• Access to real-time business data: When processes are automated, such as picking inventory using barcode scanners and having customers make payments online, data is available immediately and business decisions can be made more quickly.
• Improved employee satisfaction: Employees are more engaged when they are focused on tasks that have a real impact and the results of their work are clearly visible. There are a core set of business applications and tools that should be part of any business’ arsenal when fighting for competitive advantages and growing the bottom line.
ERP
Enterprise resource planning systems come in many shapes and sizes. Some are built specifically for one industry, such as Enmark’s Eniteo, while others are more generic manufacturing tools that require a high level of configuration and maintenance. For most manufacturers and distributors, an ERP system manages all core business functions, from accounting and purchasing to customer orders and inventory control.
ERP systems built specifically for metal service centers will include advanced quoting and sales functionality, which optimizes the purchasing of non-stock items, identifies new product opportunities, and streamlines the sale and tracking of dimensional inventory.
ERP systems for service centers should provide a platform for optimizing business processes specific to the industry, while also delivering data that drives business decisions that are fast, accurate and smart.
INTELLIGENT DECISIONS
Business intelligence and decision support tools use the data in a core business system (ERP) to highlight trends, provide insights, and notify companies of exceptions and issues that may need to be addressed quickly.
Don’t think of these tools as reporting tools. Where ERP reports will provide a list of all recent purchase orders, business intelligence dashboards will showcase the value of purchase orders each month compared to the same months last year and allow filtering by vendor or drilling down into the detailed information. Decision support functionality, such as that found in Enmark’s EnVision tool, will send a notification when a new purchase order exceeds a set dollar value—or highlight products where profit margins are lowest—so that you can make real-time, informed decisions about what to purchase and where to purchase it.
BARCODE SCANNING
Barcode scanners are not a new technology, but they are being adopted by an increasing number of service centers to optimize processes and reduce inventory errors. Understanding best practices and options for tagging inventory and ways to use scanners in the warehouse is critical before adopting this technology. It is equally important to spend time ensuring that employees understand how to use the scanners and buy into their benefits. More than any other technology, barcode scanners will be used primarily by warehouse staff.
ONLINE INVOICING & PAYMENTS
It is accepted these days that invoices can be viewed and paid online. Digital payment options can be a way to both increase customer satisfaction and reduce payment time and errors. Integrating digital payment options in an ERP system allows customers to receive payment links within the invoices generated by the system, and staff no longer needs to manually apply payments to the correct invoices. Wherever an organization stands on its journey, the available technology should always serve a specific purpose that solves a business problem and improves the bottom line.
Ben Lion is president of Enmark Systems Inc. ( http://enmark.com ) and has 20 years of experience in the SaaS industry as a sales, marketing and operations executive.
