For small manufacturers
A stockroom with the same traps as a distributor’s
Raw material bought by weight or by the thousand, parts entered twice, stock the ERP shows that isn’t on the shelf. The free health check finds them in your ERP’s exports, and the daily order plan covers spare parts and the goods you resell. Planning raw materials from bills of materials and work orders comes later.
What goes wrong
Where the buying goes wrong
One part short, the line waits
One missing component holds up a whole work order, so buyers keep extra of everything, just in case.
Extra of everything
That just-in-case stock adds up: material for products you no longer make, and parts bought by the box when you use a few.
Steel, resin and the dollar
Raw material follows the market and often comes in US dollars. A supplier’s notice leaves a few weeks to decide how much to buy before it applies.
What Datazimuts does
A plan every morning, and nothing sent without a yes
The order plan, supplier by supplier
Every morning, what to order from each supplier, rounded to their packs and minimums, with the reason behind every quantity.
The item doctor first
Unit and price-unit errors, duplicates and phantom stock are found before any forecast. An item with a problem gets no order line until a person confirms the fix.
A free health check, in ranges
Dead, excess and returnable stock, rebates within reach and stock to verify, each as a low and a likely figure with its evidence. Never a promise.
Supplier invoices, read and matched
Forward invoices to your own address. Each one is matched to its PO and receipt; a price or quantity that differs is held with its reason and dollars.
Alerts in plain words
Write the rule the way you would say it. You see it as understood, tried on today’s data, before it starts.
Drafts in your ERP, after a yes
Nothing reaches a supplier on its own. A buyer approves, then the POs land in your ERP as drafts, or as files you import yourself.
What moves the numbers
What moves your demand and your costs
Your production plan
What you buy follows what you build. Today the plan works from what leaves your shelves; planning raw materials from bills of materials and work orders comes later.
Steel
Steel sets the price of fasteners, pipe, strut, studs and much of what is made from it. An announced increase goes in once, and the next plan reads it.
Resin
PVC, PEX and ABS pipe and plastic conduit follow resin prices. An announced increase goes in once, and the next plan reads it.
Copper
Copper moves the price of wire, pipe, fittings and motors, and suppliers pass it on with a few weeks’ notice. Enter an announced increase once: the next plan reads it, and each line it touches says so.
The exchange rate
Goods bought in US dollars cost more when the Canadian dollar weakens. Orders keep their currency, approval limits count US-dollar orders at your rate, and an expected change of rate goes in as an event.
Plant shutdowns
Your customers’ plants stop for maintenance in summer and over the holidays, and maintenance parts rush just before. Your past years show it, and the forecast starts from them.
A typical year
Follows your production plan more than the calendar; summer and holiday shutdowns show as dips.
The item doctor
Unit traps caught before any order
An item with an unresolved unit problem gets no order line and no dollar figure until a person confirms the fix.
Bought by weight, used by the piece
Bar stock and sheet bought by weight or by the length and used by the piece: the purchase and stock units have to agree before any figure.
Hardware per 100
Fasteners and small parts priced per 100 or per 1,000 but counted by the piece.
Metric and imperial
Lengths in metres in one place and in feet in another: the doctor finds the 3.28 between them.
The same part twice
The same component under two part numbers, or once in French and once in English.
Buying ahead
Should you buy ahead of an increase?
Buying before an increase saves on every unit, and costs money to hold until it sells. Move the sliders on a made-up example to see where it stops paying.
Illustration · made-up figures
Buy ahead of an announced price change?
Steel bar and sheet for production: about $7,000 bought a week.
+$1.3k–1.4k
Worth a look: even the low figure comes out ahead.
Your ERP
Reads the ERP you already run
Eight ERPs have a ready mapping, and any other can send CSV or Excel exports. Each export guide names the five lists to send and where to find them.
- Common in this trade
- Also read
Free health check
Get your free health check
Tell us who you are and which ERP you run; your trade is already chosen. We write back with the export guide for your ERP and the next steps.