When your organisation has made the decision to invest in an ERP, you might wonder how your industry-specific processes will be managed in the future. You may also have concerns about the intricate details of your business operations and how things might change when you switch to a new platform. Working with Blue Ocean Systems means that you also benefit from our unique global partner ecosystem of industry specialists who provide specialised and customised enterprise solutions to make the transition to SAP a smooth journey.
One of those ecosystem partners is be.as – a leading SAP partner for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the discrete manufacturing industry for over twenty years.
Let’s meet be.as…
An award winning company, be.as is consistently recognised amongst industry peers for their commitment and dedication to the SAP community; they were recently awarded SAP Solution Partner of the Year for 2012 (for the third consecutive year!)
Almost 60% of be.as customers are SMEs and 40% are customers with more than one manufacturing site so they are in the best position to appreciate the challenges and goals for SMEs within this competitive industry.
What is the be.as core functionality?
be.as focus on two main functions:
- Manufacturing (discrete and process)
- Supply Chain Management (SCM)
Manufacturing functions include:
Master Data enhanced for Logistics and Manufacturing
Master Data is key for all manufacturing industries and its location and ease with which companies can access it is vital to remain ahead. be.as enabled the provision of the vital information needed by SMEs for manufacturing management, cost accounting and controlling.
Industry-specific extended master data in particular may include:
- Item
- Bill of Materials / Recipes
- Routings
- Operations
- Resources (groups, machines, personnel, tools)
- Cost centres
- Tool management
MRP and Production for different Strategies / Organisations
Each company requires specific strategies and functions for their manufacturing materials including order and stock related production, mixed and variant production, production planning and execution of manufacturing orders.
Specific features can include:
- Materials management
- Multiple material requirement models
- Additional options for the control of goods receipt
- Backflushing based on demand of work orders
- Unscheduled postings based on demand to work order
- Extended batch processing and serial number processing
- Extended inventory
- Mobile data collection for warehouse / bin location management
Rough Cut Capacity Planning
Rough-cut capacity planning function clearly shows an SMEs data for used and unused capacities for resources, including:
- By machine, machine groups, personnel
- Using graphic tools for evaluation and reports
- Efficient use of resources within the same group, alternative resources and tools
Detailed Planning (Pool Monitoring)
A forward thinking approach taken by companies looking for the optimum way to plan resources or resource groups. ‘Pools’ can be defined within a certain volume of work and once a production order is scheduled, the ‘pools’ are filled with operations based on available functions.
This method optimises the process so the correct function operates at the correct time with the necessary support. Pooling can also be automated for repeating cycles and milestones can be scheduled according to ‘first planned’, ‘behind schedule’ etc.
Reschedules and recalculations are simple and supported by an online material availability check.
Quality Control
Documentation of quality control methods and procedures is vital for SMEs. be.as offers a variety of tests so the planning and execution of quality checks is simple from material flow, to procurement to delivery.
Specific features include:
- Manage quality control plans
- Quality control by orders from goods receipt through the production phase to delivery
- Monitoring expirations dates
- Check, release or block batches and serial number parts
- Order history
- Capture and analyse complaints of customers, suppliers, internal production
Precalculation
Options are available to prepare estimates for standard products with varying lot sizes as well as customer-specific requirements and designs.
Specific features include:
- Calculation scheme freely definable (client specific)
- Automatically create and manage calculation structures (according to your customer trends / seasonal requirements etc)
- Simulate alternative scenarios by changing the formula structure (raw material change etc)
- Calculation and reporting of marginal costs and full costs and profit contribution (ability to share with sales team for quick pricing adjustments)
- Production orders can be created from the calculation structure
- Batch calculation with creation of price lists
- History of calculation data (for sales and marketing and reporting knowledge)
Concurrent and Postcalculation, Work in Progress
A feature particularly useful for growing SMEs which enables companies to compare accumulated costs with the precalculation of an order or the profit margin of a completed order.
- Flexible to incorporate full, marginal costing or contribution margins
- Several calculations can be run in parallel
- Comparisons target/actual with drill-down procedure of order for assemblies up to individual movements
- Batch-calculation with selection of different evaluation criteria
- Flexible differentiable WIP using the chart of accounts from SAP Business One
Manufacturing Time Tracking and Attendance
Time and attendance in the manufacturing process is critical in ensuring the production costing remains on target.
Features include:
- Structuring the working shifts with flexitime
- Shift scheduling by automatic or rotating the shift schedule and week day shift allocation
- Flexible lunch break
- Calculation of working time
- Actual working time
- Determining employee rights for processing the work orders
Supply Chain Management
SMEs in the production industry who are serious about growing their business know that the secret lies in quick delivery and turnaround times, flexible options and high availability. Sophisticated supply chain management is core to this success.
Many standard supply chain management solutions on the market are not flexible enough to meet the needs of an evolving consumer base and can signal the downfall of an otherwise well-oiled business.
SCM capabilities from be.as include:
- Sales and shipments for companies who work with blanket sales orders and shipment requirements (e.g. car manufacturing)
- Purchase and receipts for companies who need to issue blanket purchase orders and receipts according to their supplier’s requirements
- Communication management / EANCOM for companies who want to exchange single processes that correspond to SAP orders, delivery notes and invoices
- Customisable failure messages and protocols
- Source data (e.g. file and time stamp) are saved
- Status concept allows the filtering of the operations to be processed
- Printing of collected invoices
- Online history confirmation for item numbers and time frames
- Processing of any date formats
- Termination of weekly, monthly and outlook requirements
- Setting of referencing keys for different processes
- Times for the synchronisation of all call types
- Distribution of annual planned figures and definition of weeks and months
- Generation of order / delivery proposal per partner
The features continue and can be customised according to your specific needs. be.as also offers cutting edge technology including the collection and analysis of manufacturing and SCM data (compatible with Analytics by SAP HANA and SAP Business One) as well as workflow management and an API framework.
be.as is fully functional with SAP Business 9.0 and together with the specialist team of consultants at Blue Ocean Systems are dedicated to helping our manufacturing clients build even better, more sustainable businesses.
Where can I obtain more information about be.as?
Read more about be.as here.
Contact Blue Ocean Systems today to discuss how we can help you take your manufacturing business even further.
