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ExtSTAR™

Features & Benefits

(EA! denotes ExtSTAR Advantage features not found in other extrusion industry software)

Components

Features

Details

Benefits

  • Order Entry
  • EA!  Multi-line item Shop Orders
    (Click here for sample)
  • Multiple parts of the same profile but different cut lengths, fabrications and/or finishes can be scheduled as a single extrusion job
  • Eliminate redundant data
  • Reduce paperwork
  • Simplify scheduling
  • Order acknowledgements
  • Can be e-mailed to customer and outside-processing vendor contacts on demand
  • Reduce manual effort
  • Improve accountability
  • Planning
  • Configurable planning
  • Planning can be done using the actual wt/foot for a specific die (copy) or a profile’s nominal/print wt/foot
  • Improve planning accuracy
  • Whole-order optimizer
  • Computes optimum billet lengths and quantities for small and large orders
  • Avoid overruns
  • Reduce stock
  • Alloy-specific billet lengths
  • Helps control the number of different billet lengths that need to be ordered from suppliers
  • Avoid surcharges
  • Scheduling
  • Flexible lead times
  • Lead times for each process or department can be specified globally and overridden at the part or order level
  • Improve on-time delivery
  • Improve coordination with vendors
  • EA!  Accurately projects press utilization on a weekly basis using the estimated extrusion date for each order and the most recent production rates of scheduled profiles, resulting in a highly accurate schedule
  • Schedule for each press can be adjusted independently and customized for any week to accommodate holidays, extra shifts, scheduled maintenance, etc.
  • Press time can be reserved for important customers
  • Improve on-time delivery
  • Adjust production to accommodate changing product mix
  • Ensure that there is room to give priority to important customers
  • Drag & drop daily scheduling tool
    (Click here for screen shot)
  • Intuitive interface
  • Alerts operators to billet shortages and late orders
  • Identifies when multiple orders for the same profile are in the schedule so they can be run together
  • Large orders can be split into multiple runs that are scheduled independently
  • Ease scheduling
  • Reduce setups
  • Minimize the number of dies needed for large jobs
  • Value-added process and packing scheduling
  • Group processes into logical Schedule Groups by the process to be done, the press the order was run on and/or the machine to be used to perform a process
  • Drag & drop scheduling tool makes prioritizing jobs easy
  • Line up is automatically pushed to operators in the plant
  • Balance labor resources
  • Prioritize hot orders in value-added and packing processes as well as extrusion
  • Communicate priorities to production personnel
  • Billet & Log Inventory
  • Tracks inventory by size and attributes
  • Summarizes billet and log requirements for future weeks and computes order quantities based on a user-designated order window
  • Shows billet and log requirements by weight or quantity
  • Know alloys, sizes and quantities needed most urgently
  • Product and Tool Database
  • Customer Part database
  • Stores length, tolerances, alloy, temper, cooling specifications, production and finishing processes, notes and PDF files containing fabrication and packing diagrams/instructions for each part
  • Supports assemblies and kits with a single-level bill of materials, including purchased items
  • Ensure a consistent and correct product
  • Profile database
  • Stores profile drawings and packing prints in PDF form
  • EA!  Includes built-in PDF viewer for every user at no extra cost
  • EA!  Stores billet temperatures, extrusion speeds and notes specific to each press, alloy and temper
  • Maintains a history of changes to production parameters as well as approved Extrusion Data Change Requests
  • Up-to-date information and drawings are available to all plant personnel on demand
  • Die database
  • Identifies attributes of individual dies (copies), including hole count, vendor, coating, location, actual wt/foot and EA!  support tool matrix
  • Tracks production history by die (copy), including updating actual wt/foot from values recorded with production data and updating die status after each use based on disposition and comments entered after each use by the press operator
  • Maintains a history of notes entered by die repair for each copy as well as changes to die-specific production parameters and approved Extrusion Data Change Requests
  • Instantly computes cumulative statistics for a die, including number of billets and lifetime gross and net weight per hour
  • Detailed history is available for each die
  • Support tool database
  • Allows any number of user-defined tool types
  • Tracks multiple copies of any tool
  • Track all tools needed for production
  • EA!  Extrusion Data Change Requests
  • Allows press operators or others to request changes to profile-specific production parameters (i.e. extrusion recipes) such as billet temperatures, cooling type, extrusion speed, butt length, etc.
  • Requests are either approved or rejected by production management, engineering or quality control personnel
  • Press operators are informed of newly-approved and pending changes to production parameters
  • Maintains a detailed history of changes that could affect productivity and/or quality
  • Shop floor production information presentation and collection
  • EA!  Designed for use at the extrusion press as well as any value-added process or packing station
  • EA!  Optimized for use with a touchscreen to allow easy selection of jobs and recording of production data
  • Captures all job-related production data, including production time, downtime, billets extruded, piece quantities, actual weight/foot and scrapped pieces and reasons
  • Interfaces with press process control systems such as Parijat’s EPOS and SMS Meer’s PICOS for two-way exchange of order and production information
  • Generates bar coded packing tickets
  • Tracks in-process material using either shop tags printed after each process or rack IDs permanently assigned to racks, carts or bins
  • Enable real-time production reporting
  • Updated order status is available instantly
  • Enforce traceability
  • EA!  Billet and Log Queue
    (Click here for screen shot)
  • Log and billet added to queue when delivered to the press
  • Queue is relieved and billet/log attributes are automatically copied to orders as they are extruded
  • Avoid extruding job with wrong billet/log
  • Reduce scrap
  • Reduce entry and improve accuracy of production data
  • Real-Time Plant Monitoring
  • Shows the status of all press, value-added, QA and packing jobs currently in process anywhere in the plant, including whether they’re running past their expected finish time, have a Quality Check due, are down or are affected by a non-conforming product Alert
  • Monitor status and progress of all operations in real-time
  • Be instantly informed of quality, mechanical or other issues
  • Operational & Management Reporting
  • Production reports
  • Computes production rate (weight/hour) and recovery/backstock by press, date, shift, profile, die, alloy and customer, for any date range
  • EA!  Shows production rates including production-related downtime for a truer picture of productivity
  • Compare current recovery to established targets
  • Easily compare current to historical production
  • In Process reports
  • EA!  Show detailed progress of each order through both internal and outside processes
  • Know the status of each order for any customer
  • Cost analysis reports
  • Computes contribution and profit by press, customer and profile for any period of time (requires Quoting and Automatic Pricing module)
  • See how orders impact the bottom line
  • BIRT business intelligence reporting tool
  • Create custom reports based on a number of predefined data cubes for a variety of subject areas
  • Quickly develop and customize reports
  • Purchasing
  • Die/Tooling Purchase Orders
  • Generates and tracks purchase orders for new dies and support tools or rework/re-coating of existing dies/tools
  • Can be generated directly from an accepted quote (requires Quoting and Automatic Pricing module)
  • Provides visibility of die availability to schedulers
  • Billet/Log Purchase Orders
  • Blanket orders indicate a target volume from a given vendor over a period of time
  • Releases identify specific billet/log types and quantities to be delivered in a particular week or on a particular day
  • Reports compare scheduled orders to on-hand inventory and scheduled receipts
  • Identify where additional billets/logs are needed
  • Purchased Items
  • Issue and track purchase orders for purchased items, such as those combined with extrusions to produce a kit or assembly
  • Keep an accurate inventory of purchased items
  • Quality Module
  • Material Certificates
  • Document chemical analysis and pull test results for orders
  • Automatically generated for customers/parts that require them
  • Multiple pull tests can be recorded on a single certificate
  • Warns operators if any material is out of specification before shipping paperwork is generated
  • Avoid shipping material that does not meet specifications
  • Test data import/export
  • Reduce manual data entry
  • Improve accuracy
  • Alerts/Quality Concern Reports
  • Production personnel can create an alert for material with a potential quality or other issue
  • Alerts can include a photo and be given a warning disposition to instruct operators in downstream processes to check or sort suspect parts
  • Alert quality assurance and supervisors to non-conforming product
  • Avoid shipping non-conforming product
  • EA!  User-defined Quality Checks (Click here for screen shot)
  • Define custom quality checks for profiles and/or parts
  • Each quality check can consist of an unlimited number of data points to be entered, which can be decimal, integer, pass/fail or string values
  • Users can be prompted to enter a quality check reading with a user-defined frequency, in any specified process
  • Data points can be specified with a tolerance; if user enters an out-of-tolerance value, they will be prompted to create an Alert
  • Validate that material meets specifications
  • Help achieve ISO quality standard certification
  • Document quality check readings, including when they were taken and by whom
  • Corrective/Preventive Actions
  • Document steps to be taken to solve or avoid a quality- or production-related issue issue
  • Automatically generate Alerts for upcoming jobs to prompt production personnel to implement corrective action steps
  • Document and control the correction of issues
  • EA!  Engineering Change Notices
  • Require approvals from affected departments when specifications for a profile or part change
  • Profiles and parts are prevented from being added to a shop order or scheduled for production while approvals are pending
  • Ensure that all stakeholders are aware of specification changes and affirm that changes are feasible and documented
  • Return Material Authorizations (RMA)
  • Includes receiving and approval functions to track the progress of an RMA
  • Document material to be returned and the reason
  • Stock Inventory
  • Stock availability alerts
  • Operators entering new or updating existing orders are alerted to the availability of material in stock that can be used to fulfill part or all of the order
  • EA!  Stock material in long lengths can be reserved for orders that require a shorter length
  • Utilize material already available
  • Keep stock inventory to a minimum
  • Scrap Tracking
  • User-defined scrap reasons
  • Scrap reasons can be configured to permit the entry of an additional detailed description of a problem
  • Encourage reporting of scrap
  • Scrap data cube
  • BIRT report template can be easily and quickly configured to report scrap by any of several dimensions
  • Identify primary sources of scrap so they can be addressed
  • Bar Coding
  • Generated documents
  • Shop orders, packing tickets and shipping documents all include 2D bar codes that provide a variety of information about the order and items
  • Quickly pull up information about an order by simply scanning a document
  • Applications
  • Both ExtSTAR Desktop and ShopStation support scanning of bar codes to identify orders, parts, packing tickets, shipping documents, etc.
  • Save time
  • Avoid mistakes in identifying parts and orders
  • Custom labels
  • Avoid missing the generation of custom labels
  • Shipping
  • Shipment builder
  • Can build a shipment including all necessary packing lists by simply scanning a group of packing tickets to be shipped together on a truck
  • After or as a truck is loaded, the packing tickets can be scanned a second time to verify the load
  • Avoid having a truck leave with missing or extra packages
  • Ship function
  • Marking a packing list shipped automatically records production data for the Shipping process associated with each order
  • Positively affirm that the items on a packing list/invoice have shipped
  • Outside Processing
  • EA!  Web-based outside processing application (optional)
  • Optional module permits vendors who provide value-added or finishing services to report material processed via a web application
  • Supports assemblies and kits
  • Supports multi-vendor routing
  • Coordinates shipments from vendor sites
  • Supports stocking a vendor with lineals that can be cut back to any length finished part
  • Provide timely and detailed records of material processed by vendors
  • Provide full traceability through outside processes
  • Pricing & Invoicing
  • Automatic pricing (optional)
  • Rule-based tool generates all extrusion, setup, fabrication, material certificate and other charges for every order for any customer
  • EA!  All prices have a starting and an optional ending effective date, which lets you generate pricing for any effective date at any time
  • EA!  Generates customer price lists that can be automatically distributed to customers via e-mail (Click here for sample)
  • EA!  Contract prices can be specified that apply to a particular volume or period of time and a select group of products; contract fulfillment can be computed at any time and included on customer price lists
  • EA!  Pricing can be based on either order date or ship date with the ability to override the global setting for particular customers
  • Automatically generate charges for orders at time of shipping
  • Eliminate many manual pricing activities
  • Configure and confirm pricing changes before they take effect
  • Maintain a complete history of pricing
  • Easily manage and apply contract pricing
  • Automatic invoicing
  • Automatically generate invoices from shipped packing lists
  • Reduce manual effort
  • Report Server
  • Document distribution
  • Order acknowledgements, outside-processed orders, invoices, shipping documents, custom price lists and other documents can be e-mailed or faxed to customer and vendor contacts automatically
  • Ensure consistent distribution of documents
  • Report scheduling
  • Users can request reports to be run on a schedule and automatically e-mailed to one or more recipients
  • Automate distribution of important reports
  • Quoting
  • EA!  Web-based quoting application (optional)
  • User-defined workflows route quotes to all personnel whose input is needed
  • E-mails sub-quotes to vendors and finished quotes to customers/prospects
  • Includes widget that estimates recovery and wt/hour for a quoted profile
  • Track all details related to a quote
  • Prevent quotes from falling “off the radar”
  • Other Features
  • Locale selector
  • Supports country- and language-specific text and formats for numbers, dates and currency
  • Customize application for a region
  • English and metric units of measure
  • Lengths and weights can be specified in any of several English and metric units of measure; a built-in conversion tool is also available to convert from one unit of measure to another
  • Accommodate local units of measure
  • Custom documents
  • Custom PDF documents containing fillable fields or BIRT reports can be stored in ExtSTAR and automatically generated for selected customers and/or vendors, with fields populated by values from an invoice, packing list or shop order
  • Provide important customers with information in a format they desire
  • EA!  Notifications
  • User-defined notifications can automatically e-mail selected personnel when certain events occur, such as the ship date changing on a shop order for a certain customer
  • Ensure that the appropriate people are notified of occurrences that may require additional action
  • EA!  Platform-independence
  • ExtSTAR is written in Java™, allowing it to run on virtually any platform, including Windows® and Linux®
  • Leave your options open