1. business and industrial

Supply Chain Execution ®
>>Transforming innovation into business value
An Open Standards Based Integrated Suite of SCM Applications
An Advanced Enterprise Architecture
The Platform of Choice The advanced architecture of Aware is employed by many customers in the Supply Chain and Logistics industry worldwide. It is a proven platform that helps them achieve optimum storage space utilization, accurate stock detail, efficient customer service, centralized control and systems management, traceability of stock across multiple sites, and efficient utilization of resources. You could also realize similar benefits by deploying our solutions. Aware is a very flexible and configurable solution based on an open, distributed client/server as well as web based architecture that incorporates a modular design and integrates the core Supply Chain and Logistics Management functions in an easy to use and deploy package which scales with your business demands. The encapsulated message‐based architecture of Aware, with its inherent flexibility and adaptability, offers a comprehensive, functionally rich and innovative product with a high degree of parameterization. It employs best industry practices to ensure that management rules and business policies can be implemented across the enterprise with a high degree of ease as well as exactitude. —1—
Aware™ can help you achieve operations excellence through: ƒ
optimum product and service fit ƒ
on‐time deliveries ƒ
optimized asset utilization ƒ
overall cost efficiencies across the supply chain. ™
The Business Imperative
Reduce Operating and Capital Costs Aware helps optimize warehouse space usage and improves resource utilization, thereby reducing operational and capital costs. Moreover, since the product also helps eliminate receiving and order discrepancies and minimize inventory adjustments, a reduction in clerical costs associated with those activities can be realized. Paperwork is also reduced since the need for paper‐based material handling is removed. Eliminating shipping errors will help reduce freight costs. By sending completed order files to be invoiced faster, cash flow position is also improved. Optimizing order fulfillment from a multi‐warehouse base provides efficiency and cost savings. With an accurate and tight control over inventory in your warehouse, Aware can also help you facilitate just‐in‐
time deliveries as well as manage delivery of time‐sensitive stock. Global competition is a reality in today’s business climate, no matter how large or small your enterprise. So is the need for businesses to streamline their process models and implement the right set of technologies to hone their competitive edge and maximize market opportunities. As paradigms shift in standards of quality, delivery and cost performance for enterprises, management of the total logistics process in an efficient manner will become increasingly crucial in providing high levels of customer service to ensure sustained profitability. Warehouse operations are the nerve center of the supply chain, providing accuracy and high visibility of inventory, responsive and flexible distribution networks, product information and superior levels of customer service. More than just a place for storing products or materials, warehouses are becoming controlling systems for what are essentially high‐level demand fulfillment centers that must respond to increasingly sophisticated and complex customer requirements such as unique packaging, compliance labeling or special deliveries. Aware provides a high degree of operations configuration to address customer‐specific demands as well as allow for adapting to different environments such as mass merchandising, business‐
to‐business or home delivery. Efficient and cost effective control, tracking, and distribution of inventory are the most vital processes of any manufacturing, retail or distribution business. As companies in these businesses strive to improve their financial and operational performance, getting products and materials in and out of the door faster, more cost effectively and with fewer errors are becoming a business imperative for their survival. Our supply chain execution management solutions enable such businesses to deliver their customers the right products, at the right time, in the right place, economically and with a high degree of efficacy. —2—
A Robust and Scalable Architecture
Improve Customer Service Aware provides you tools to ship your orders accurately and faster, resulting in significantly improved customer response and order turnaround times. By prioritizing customer orders, improving visibility into received orders and eliminating out‐of‐stock situations, your shipping order fill rates are increased, resulting in higher levels of customer satisfaction. Increased on‐time deliveries mean superior levels of service and improved customer loyalty. Aware was designed from the ground up by a core team of technical and business experts in warehousing, supply chain logistics, financial and transportation domains. It is an easy to use, comprehensive, feature rich, open client/server topology as well as web‐based objects application that can address the business needs of small and large enterprises. Whether you need to manage a small warehouse or a highly complex, high volume, multi‐warehouse distribution operation, Aware can easily scale to accommodate your current and future business requirements. You chose the database technology, interface, deployment options, operating system and network environment that provide the best fit for your organization. Aware can be seamlessly interfaced with most ERP and financial systems to provide real‐time back office updates and instantaneous status reports. Open, Flexible & Parameterized Design
Increase inventory accuracy and availability Bar coded transactions increase inventory accuracy by eliminating writing and keypunching errors as well as duplicated data entry. Since validation is real‐time, putaway errors are also prevented. Lost or misplaced inventory problems are minimized. With improved inventory accuracy, you can provide accurate information immediately to suppliers and customers and improve service levels. Aware is a very flexible and parameterized solution that incorporates the full breadth of distributed client/server as well as web topologies with the underlying object sets, business rules and data models being completely independent of hardware platform, operating system, executing environment or database. Accordingly, clients can take full advantage of advances in hardware, database technology middleware and operating systems without having to re‐engineer any application objects, thereby providing long‐term investment protection. Aware is user configurable and extremely easy to use. “Our distribution business is all about efficient utilization and movement of resources. By providing real‐time visibility of our operations, Aware has helped us significantly optimize our supply chain and warehouse processes. Our order fulfillment and delivery has also improved as a result of tighter control, tracking and distribution of our inventory. “ Robert Poole, VP Manufacturing Kellum Paper and Cardboard
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Advantage: Aware
Aware integrates the core logistics, fulfillment center and warehouse management functions in an easy to use and deploy package that provides real‐time visibility of your operations to help you optimize your supply chain and warehouse processes and consistently drive flawless order fulfillment and delivery for total customer satisfaction. By providing an improved view of operations, Aware enables your managers to make informed decisions for efficient utilization and movement of resources including space, inventory, equipment and personnel. Aware addresses all the corporate as well as third party logistics (3PL) requirements and offers both traditional warehouse management as well as flow‐through functionality for receiving and shipping products directly, without physically storing them in the warehouse. State of the art radio frequency and bar coding technologies are integrated with the core logistics and warehousing functionality of Aware to address all key business requirements including order management, receiving, quality control, putaway, picking, replenishment, shipping, counts, returns, location and storage management, labor control and related warehouse task management. Increase Staff Efficiency and Productivity With real‐time access to precise information, the system directed activity and on‐line verification can help improve throughput, accuracy and responsiveness. Considerable time can be saved in such functions as receiving, issuing, shipping and cycle counting. Web‐based supply chain visibility with regards to order and inventory status helps prevention of time‐
wasting stock searches. Efficient pick instructions, including multiple order picking, minimize operator travel times. Workload balancing and planning can also be improved using Aware. Hand‐held or vehicle mounted RF terminals with scanners effectively automate inventory receipt and putaway processes, providing accurate order fulfillment, quicker response and considerably increasing efficiency and boosting productivity. Aware is available as a client/server system as well as with a web‐deployed front end. The web enabled version provides faster deployment, seamlessly integrates with other systems and allows remote user access. Our solutions fully conform to de facto and emerging technology standards including XML, UCC, FDA, etc. —4—
Transforming Supply Chains to Value Chains Reduce Inventory Levels and Improve Stock Cycle The need for a large safety stock is reduced by having access to more accurate and timely inventory information, including cycle counting and physical inventory. Control date, serialized inventory, FIFO and LIFO management features ensure proper control and stock rotation. Less inventory and efficient operations promote better inventory turns. Aware can help you realize increased inventory turns by eliminating lost or hidden stock, inaccurate rotation, obsolescence and unnecessary inventory levels. Advanced RF and bar coding technology ensures accurate and timely inventory receipt and put‐away. Get a 360 Degree View of Your Business Business users, managers and senior executives can leverage our pre‐built model templates to access, analyze, and explore corporate data and quickly understand trends and key business drivers. With the data presented in a business context, they can investigate trends, gain new insights, and find answers to the what, where, when and why kind of questions with just a few clicks of the mouse. They can slice and dice data to see business information from any point of view. Drill‐down ability through detail levels lets users get to the bottom of what’s driving key performance indicators. Our pre‐built best‐practice analytic applications can help provide guided root‐
cause analysis across the supply chain to help managers get to the heart of their question. As more and more companies continue to face such challenges as increased competition, demanding customers and shortened product life cycles, they are looking at ways to reduce overall costs, improve operational efficiency, increase productivity and improve customer service. These companies want to ensure that their physical logistics management supply chains evolve and expand towards superior value chains and help differentiate them to gain a competitive edge. In order to explore the configuration of their supply chains and identify areas of improvement, companies need access to real‐time information as well as the ability to monitor and evaluate key business metrics in the chain to identify weak links and then apply best practice to realize the desired results. We at Exactus recognize the need to provide the right people with the right set of tools to access the right information and enable them to make the right decisions, right away. Aware provides quick visibility into the information needed to manage resources and track products and material throughout their life cycle in your facility. The web‐centric architecture of Aware and it’s integrated supply chain processes help customers connect and collaborate with their suppliers, customers, trading partners and employees to reduce time and cost from operations. “Aware helped us in reducing shipping errors and improve our delivery schedules by providing accurate and timely inventory information. With a resultant increase in productivity and efficiency, our operating costs were noticeably reduced, thus maximizing our ROI.” Alex Chang, Logistics Manager Pacific Foods —5—
Business Intelligence
Robust Security With the built‐in high level of security and control features, as well as the optional additional layer of Business Objects security when BI is deployed, the product provides enterprise wide deployment and scalability within and outside the organization through the web interface for sharing information with partners, suppliers and customers. The application features a robust, fine‐grained security architecture with five levels of security: User level, Menu level, Tab page level, Transaction level and Principal level. For web deployment, Aware integrates with industry standard firewall configurations, single sign‐on systems, encryption protocols such as SSL and uses digital certificates for validation. An optional AES 256 bit based Encryption module (FIPS 197 standard) is available for providing file, folder, disk, email and data encryption for high security environments. “We chose Aware because it is an easy to use, comprehensive and feature rich world‐class solution and the flexibility and adaptability it offered was key to our operation. Implementing the solution enabled us to process higher inventory levels, as well as refine picking accuracy and improve labor productivity while decreasing operational costs. The upshot was improved customer service. One of Exactus’ core strengths is their experience in providing fulfillment for third party logistics providers.” Leveraging the power of knowledge and widely using information to support decision making offers increased corporate agility and, therefore, improved competitiveness. To help you unlock the power of information, Aware leverages the BI functionality of world‐class Business Objects suite of products by providing a 360 degree view of current as well as historical data (data models are available as part of the solution offering). Enterprise reporting as well as ad‐hoc query, reporting and analysis is accomplished very easily by different types of users. Our practitioners, strategists and solution architects have developed ready‐made deployment templates for seamless integration with the Aware application to help you transform operational supply chain data into powerful and actionable information. A single shared view of the business is presented through dashboards, scorecards and analytic applications to help better understand customer and operational trends, manage customer/partner relationships and fine‐tune business processes. With enhanced data quality and timeliness, you can get accurate transaction reporting related to the “who, when, and where…” type of questions. Key business metrics can be tracked in real‐
time to answer the “why” questions and enterprise performance can be closely monitored and appraised for improvement strategies related to the management of inventories, transportation systems and entire distribution networks. Users are presented with their own business terminology and never have to deal with cryptic SQL syntax, making it extremely easy and fast for them to navigate and access the business information they require. Data relationships can be viewed through interactive graphs and tables. Exception highlighting, ranking, filtering and extensive formatting capabilities allow users to selectively view key business information. Users can easily analyze supply chain costs, cycle times, inventory levels, and supply and demand patterns over time. Tracking the key metrics can help you determine the efficiency of your supplier network and analyze vendor performance, fill rates, goods received, supplier consolidation opportunities, inventory movement and deterioration, and late orders. By focusing on reducing inventory costs, improving supplier management and optimizing delivery performance you ultimately drive competitive edge whilst increasing customer satisfaction.
Michael Rainier, Sr. VP Operations GlobalOne Logistics —6—
RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) EDI and Application Integration
Aware’s EDI integration includes advanced error detection and resolution features and allows manual or automatic correction of errors through on‐line exception processing, with subsequent reprocessing of single or multiple orders automatically. Several EDI transmissions are supported including customer sales orders, acknowledgments to/from customers and vendors, invoices, ASNs (advanced ship notices) to/from customers and vendors, AR payments and remittance advice, vendor purchase orders and carrier shipment status. Aware’s Enterprise Application integration framework allows you to easily communicate with customers and trading partners, without the need for expensive VAN‐to‐EDI costs. EDI, XML and flat file interfaces are supported and several applications have already been seamlessly interfaced with Aware at the logic and database level, and not just to external files. Transportation Management Whether you want to manage your own fleet, track on‐board shipments or broker freight from other carriers, the TMS module of Aware provides all the functionality needed to accomplish these tasks. Sophisticated rating, billing and payment processing capabilities are included. Customer orders are manipulated to create optimal loads, pre‐assign carriers, balance trailer weights and review route and stop configurations. With Aware, you can reliably plan, execute, track and audit your shipping and receiving operations with real‐
time visibility. Now that industry standards (e.g. EPC, Air‐protocol, Savant, ONS) have been established, equipment and tag costs are beginning to decrease and major retail and distribution companies, along with the US Department of Defense, have mandated the adoption of RFID at the case and pallet level, the impact of RFID technology on your organization is inevitable. RFID can be thought of as a hands free, remote sensing version of bar code technology and offers several advantages over previous ID systems. For example, unlike barcodes, RFID tags don’t require “Line of Sight” to the tag reader, while barcode scanners need to “see” to read the barcode. Standard barcodes only identify the manufacturer and product, not unique items. On the other hand, RFID allows for individual items to have a unique identifier and can identify many items at once. RFID is a powerful technology that can transform the way your company does business in such areas as improved tracking in supply chain, product authentication, shipping & receiving, validation and inventory management. As organizations scramble to put in place an RFID strategy, whilst trying to figure out the steps involved in implementing a solution encompassing the various technology elements such as tags, readers, printers and middleware, we at Exactus have already developed a modular, flexible, and scalable solution that takes all the guesswork out for you. Our EPC compliant RFID‐
enabled solutions leverage leading edge hardware technologies from our partners with a robust RFID middleware integration platform that has already been tested for a quick and easy deployment. With no integration issues related to platform, data formats or communication protocols, you can be assured of a smooth and timely RFID implementation without risk or uncertainties. —7—
Product Highlights Aware allows you to maintain and track individual inventory items by part number, and/or serial number, model number, class code, description, manufacturer, min/max inventory levels, re‐order point, MTD/YTD usage, bin locations, on‐hand and on‐
order quantities. Daily lot control and re‐order list can be generated for items falling below the minimum level. Tracking and maintaining of all issues can be done by customer order or work order. Pallet, case and unit tracking, with ASN functionality, is available. Provision for variable inventory ownership is also available for third‐party logistics providers. Aware incorporates state‐of‐the‐art RF data collection technologies and leverages advanced business logic for easily and accurately handling the most complex activities and transactions, on a real‐time basis, pertaining to receiving, put‐
away, replenishment, cycle counting, inventory consolidation, picking and shipping of orders. Aware allows you to capture key incoming product information such as weight, volume/size, and expiration dates and provides real‐time information on any item in your warehouse with regards to it’s quantity, location, status, condition and history. Aware provides for internet data interchange (quotations, packing lists, invoices) and includes such features as lot characteristics, lot genealogy (materials and resources), lot shipment tracking, lot hold and blacklisting, serial number tracking, product expiration date tracking, customer distribution days, stock rotation, quality assurance and inbound inspection, customer specific product packaging, customer consignment inventories, multi‐national capabilities (multi‐currency, multi‐
lingual, date formats) and consolidated billing. >> Inbound Operations
The inbound module addresses all activities from Job creation through to Job confirmation and encompasses job registration, container details, packing details, putaway, and job confirmation. Extensive inbound MIS reports are available. Key functionality includes: ƒ
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Job registration, based on principal master setup, can be generated automatically or manually Both domestic and non‐domestic jobs can be handled, with entry of container details optional at job level Packing details entry with multiple levels of UOM Putaway to mixed locations based on UPP Multiple putaway preferences, including principal and product level Putaway based on location sequence number Upload ASN details through standard EDI formats Auto cross docking based on order type Setting up of alerts at job level Download of GRNs Simultaneous putaway to mixed and palletized locations Returns processing >> Dimensions
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Categories include principal, warehouse and others ƒ
UOM at product brand, product and product group level ƒ
Multiple levels of UOMs for product/product groups ƒ
Structured for kitting and assembly module ƒ
Multiple pallet units per product ƒ
Principal specific data entry formats ƒ
Putaway preferences at group, brand, product and principal level ƒ
Operations driven by principal/product attributes ƒ
Transport, vehicle, driver ƒ
Carrier assignment based on sales orders ƒ
EDI integrated – standard upload downloaded from the host system features ƒ
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Clearance/Quality check process before putaway Extra pallets Excess receipts Integration with transport module Multi format ASN/Packing details entry Manual putaway Exceptions covered during putaway confirmation >> Outbound Operations ƒ
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Multiple customers for one job and multiple orders for a customer Sales order entry in multiple UOM Pick wave based on pallet ID and serial number Order selection and wave planning and analysis Outbound ASN generation and upload Multi format sales order entry with upload of details via standard EDI formats Integration with transport module Download of dispatch acknowledgement Customizable pickwaves —8—
>> Stock Count
>> Adjustments
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Stock count based on additional product attributes Multiple UOMs in stock count Serialized inventory, lot and expiration date tracking Online stock freeze/count and adjustments Replacement of new product in the existing location Addition of new stock with no inbound trace Physical inventory counting by product, date and bin location Variance percentage reporting based on quantity and stock value >> Billing ƒ
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Consolidated billing Automated billing process to capture all back to back charges Credit Notes linked to invoice Non inventory billing Improvised/configurable parameters for storage charging mechanism Invoicing KPIs >> Replenishment
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Support for FIFO and LIFO stock rotation Partial as well as full replenishment Partial or full cancellation Customizable pickwaves >> Storage Computation
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Storage charge computation based on site‐level, product‐
level, product‐UOM level Storage analysis based on income/volume >> RF / RFID
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Adjustments in the different locations can be made against the book stock Adjustments generated automatically from stock count have a designated prefix and cannot be modified at any point Stocks are not reflected as frozen for picking ƒ
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>> Management Reporting
An extensive number of MIS reports are provided with the application. Some of the key ones include the following: ƒ
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Stock ageing analysis Stock pricing analysis (with minimum and maximum import prices indicated) Key Performance Indicators ‐ (a) principal‐wise invoicing KPI report gives measure of various invoicing activities. b) Profitability report shows invoice‐wise revenue earned Audit reports include putaway cancel report for tracking putaway cancellations and pick cancel report for tracking picking cancellations Stock turn around report reflecting stock quantity and volume turnaround on a daily, monthly and yearly basis Site‐wise stock utilization report /active stock sites Principal‐wise volume and throughput analysis Landed Cost report on job‐wise basis Customer‐wise outbound statistics report including total quantity and total volume of shipments Product (quantity and volume) movement report reflecting principal‐wise total receipts, issues, adjustments and throughput Active transactions report reflecting yet to be confirmed inbound or active jobs Location status report reflecting total number of free, occupied, mixed or bad locations within a specified site Transactional reports at principal‐level, job‐level, product‐level, product attributes‐level (lot no, batch no, document reference no, etc.) ƒ
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Product identification Product stock report Putaway and picking Stock counting Operational reports >> Web Interface
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Order queries Stock/transaction reports Operational/MIS reports Standard reports ƒ
>> Utilities
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>> EDI
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Standard File Formats, SAP, Oracle, BAAN, etc. > RDBMS Support
Stock Attributes Alterations Location Generator Graphical Location status with drill‐down facility Location Integrity checks User‐definable multilingual label generation and printing >> Security
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Database level, Application level, Menu level, Module level and Module‐Operations level ƒ
Oracle, MS SQL Server, Sybase, DB2 —9—
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Kickoff Meeting &
Readiness
Appraisal
Business
Requirements
Analysis
Impact Assessment
Business Process
Modeling
Solution Design &
Process Mapping
Process
Configuration
& Implementation
Testing &
Walkthrough
Deployment &
Signoff
Training & Support Services
A Proven Methodology Roadmap Value Proposition Our practitioners discuss the project scope, milestones, schedules, activities as well as resource requirements and mutual responsibilities of staff involved in the project. A client profile is developed that articulates such things as the project goals, operations overview, implementation and training schedules and data conversion and integration plans. Current business practices, critical business issues and expected benefits are noted. Our process modeling approach incorporates best practices, policies, procedures, process flows and performance measures, and reflects the appropriate parameterization requirements, specific reporting needs and other customization requirements in the solution design process. Once the project planning, design, development and data integration issues have been addressed, the implementation phase gets under way. After thorough testing, the system is then finally deployed. As part of our support services, apart from on‐going program defect support and bug fixes covered under maintenance services agreement, on‐site consulting support services are also available from Exactus as well as our certified partners.
Exactus has always taken the view that our success hinges directly on the success of our clients. To that end, we have developed a methodology that ensures rapid implementation of our Supply Chain solutions to maximize return on the clientʹs investment. Right from the analysis of business requirements through to project planning, design, development, integration/implementation, education and on‐going support & service, our full lifecycle approach delivers fast implementation and deployment of a quality solution to maximize your ROI. Our consultants and practitioners, as well as those of our trained partners, leverage the knowledge and best practices Exactus has developed from many successful implementations. This proven methodology (RAID ‐ Rapid Application Implementation & Deployment) ensures that a client’s business process design and deployment is driven by their operating strategy. Each implementation starts with a thorough understanding of a customer’s business needs and the information environment. After defining the business strategy that promises to translate into a competitive advantage, the current business processes are analyzed and the desired objectives developed. While we ensure that the implementation of our Supply Chain Solutions is driven by the business issues and not by technology, nonetheless, we enforce a full assessment of the prevailing IT infrastructure and skills set to gauge any gaps that might need to be addressed prior to the implementation. We continue to support you while monitoring your success, tracking your progress and listening to you. At the end of the day, customer satisfaction is the highest standard we judge ourselves by. — 10 —
Exactus Systems Inc. 15200 Shady Grove Road, #408 Rockville, MD 20850, USA Email: sales@exactus.net
>> www.exactus.net
Exactus products and technologies related to cryptographic information protection, random number generation, digital signature encryption, and data transformation algorithms are protected by Patent numbers 33745, 36037, 42345, 42531, U23552198 and U24517802. The Exactus logo, Exactus tagline and Aware logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Exactus. All other company, product, or brand names mentioned herein, may be the trademarks of their respective owners. Specifications subject to change without notice. Not responsible for errors or omissions. Copyright © 2009 Exactus. All rights reserved. ®