AXIS Helps Metals, Wire & Cable Companies Address Current Industry Issues With Release 5 of the AXIOM ERP Software Solution

Industry- and Customer-Driven Capabilities Help Companies Streamline Operations and Enhance Customer Responsiveness to Improve Bottom-Line Results

Release 5 of the AXIOM® Enterprise Management System (AXIOM 5) contains well over 100 new features developed to directly address current issues affecting the industry, including increasing customer price and delivery pressures, rising raw material and freight costs, and the expanding use of electronic commerce throughout the supply chain. Several new capabilities within AXIOM 5 are the result of insights gained through AXIS’ involvement with industry organizations, such as the Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI), the Association for Iron & Steel Technology (AIST), and Wire Association International (WAI). Other features are the direct result of AXIS’ customer-driven enhancement process. The AXIS customer community includes leading metals producers, processors, service centers, and wire and cable manufacturers.

“This is a comprehensive AXIOM release, featuring a number of significant, industry-specific enhancements that are important to our customers and our markets,” summarized Janna Hoiberg, general manager of AXIS. “Our ongoing vision is to infuse value into our solution by cultivating active communities of leading metals, wire and cable companies. Nothing is more important to future releases of AXIOM than customer input—from business-critical issues to best practices, we are working to facilitate that kind of dialogue and build solutions accordingly.”

“AXIS has done a good job of understanding where the metals industry is going and working with their customer base to develop the enhancements in AXIOM 5,” stated Donna Walters, director of information services at Sharon Tube, one of the earliest users of AXIOM 5.

“A great deal of new functionality has been built into AXIOM since we first installed it,” said Peter Nicholson, director of materials at Champlain Cable, a company currently upgrading to AXIOM 5. “AXIS has worked closely with wire and cable companies to understand and address unique industry needs.”

One of the most significant new capabilities in AXIOM 5 is Dynamic Order Fulfillment. This suite of related enhancements dramatically simplifies order processing and product management for companies that make a virtually unlimited range of products based on variations in attributes (such as grade, specification, size, shape and finishing for metals companies, or number of wires, gauge, insulation and color for cable manufacturers). Specific functionality includes order entry and pricing by attribute; dynamically generated product descriptions, customer comments, and routings based on attributes; and sales analysis by attribute.

AXIOM 5 also features a number of new capabilities in the following areas:

• Cost Management – Numerous enhancements that enable a company to use either a standard, actual, or average actual approach to cost management.
• eCommerce – An enhanced XML-based infrastructure and expanded range of supported inbound and outbound transactions.
• Freight and Carrier Management – New capabilities for handling fuel surcharges, truck scheduling, rail routing, and preferred/restricted carriers.
• Sub-Contract Management – A streamlined management method for outside processing from planning to shipping, visibility of material, receiving, and costing.
• Cut To Length (CTL)/Slit Order Management – Enhancements to support both service centers and cold finishers.

Dozens of customer-driven features also were added throughout AXIOM 5, impacting areas such as cycle scheduling, finance, inventory control, material tracking and control, MRP, purchasing and receiving, process routings, quality tracking and control, sales order management, system administration, and user table management.

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