PENTAGON 2000 Videos Pentagon 2000 is pleased to introduce our series of tutorial movies. Materials Management Process Overview History Tool Bar The History Tool Bar™ is one of the most powerful features we have available in Pentagon. Located in the Partnumber record, clicking the History button opens a floating window which shows you all of the documents that are available in the system related to that part number. Clicking the appropriate item will open a list of the documents recorded in the system. Selecting the desired document will open the system record for you to view. With just a few clicks you are then able to see where, when, and how each part in your inventory has been utilized. This incredible tool provides you quick access to every aspect of your system and offers you the highest level of visibility and efficiency. Assign PO Line to SO Say that you have an existing Purchase Order in the system when a new Sales Order arrives from a customer. How do you go about booking items from the open PO to the newly created SO? The answer is simple. From the open Purchase Order, enter Edit mode. Select the line or lines you wish to assign to the new SO. Click on the Options button and select Assign Line to SO. The system will automatically allocate the Purchase Order line(s) to the new Sales Order. Using this method, there is no need to create any new documents or include unnecessary extra steps! Customer Alert Flag Pentagon has recently included a new Alert flag in the customer record. Instead of formally placing the customer/vendor on hold, a user may now check the Alert flag in the customer record and include a note regarding why this was done. Perhaps the customer is behind on payments or is nearing their shipment limit, now the alert message will appear whenever a new document (Quote, SO, Invoice, etc.) is created for that customer. This is also a useful tool for any message you might wish to appear to the user, providing an opportunity to alert users regarding any special service, procedure or note you need them to see. Auto PO by Recommended Vendor When creating purchase orders for a customer it isn’t always necessary to go through the usual bidding process with your vendors. Sometimes it is much simpler to use a recommended and reliable vendor whom you know, and more importantly, whom your system knows. When creating a PO from a sales order, you may automatically create one using a recommended vendor. These vendors are noted in Pentagon as reliable for having the part as well as for delivery and performance. To use this feature, simply click the Options button in your SO and select, “Auto PO by Recommended Vendor.” A window will open allowing you to select from the recommended vendors and even gives you a snapshot of your history and stock levels. Average Cost by Line Type Have you ever needed to know the average cost to your company for inventory items by line type? What is the average cost to repair the part? The average cost of an exchange? A quick and easy feature of Pentagon will give you that information in one click. From your inventory parts record, enter the “Costs” tab. Under the header “Cost” there is a green button marked “Average Cost by Line Type”. Clicking this button will open a window listing the average cost for each line type including min/max values and number of lines. This feature is perfect for pinpointing budget figures. Excel Export Button A general tip for more efficient system use is a relatively new feature, which can be found at the bottom right of any search window. Upon opening your Inventory, Quotes, Customer, PO, etc. list you will notice a small green button featuring a Microsoft Excel icon. Clicking this button will allow you to export and save whatever information is contained in that search window to an Excel file. If your search window is listing 50 results, those 50 will be represented in the excel spreadsheet. This saves you the time of having to select, format, and run a report to obtain the same information. All with one click! Internal Mail Notifications Pentagon can be set up to send you internal email notifications when certain events occur within your system. These alerts can let you know many things such as when a fax fails or when a Work Order closes. The notification emails can also inform you of outgoing shipments and of changes made to Purchase Orders. To set up this valuable feature, simply select “My Settings” from the “My Pentagon” menu along the top of the screen. Select the notifications you desire from the menu by checking the boxes. When an event occurs you can expect a helpful reminder from Pentagon! Receive Over Ship Sometimes your vendors, for whatever reason, decide to ship you a little more than you asked for. This can create a problem when you are trying to account for these extra items in Pentagon. There is a simple solution that will eliminate these issues. Open the Vendor’s file and click the Edit button to enter Edit Mode. Click the Defaults tab. Under the “Shipping” section, enter a percentage into the “Over Ship by:” field. Click OK to save. Pentagon will now allow you to receive more pieces than had been previously arranged for on the receiver. This is done per vendor and should be reserved for vendors with whom you have a solid working relationship. Replicate Part At certain times it is necessary to create a new part number for a part that has returned from being repaired or has been modified in some other way. Pentagon makes this very simple by using the Replicate Part function. Located in the Options Menu of the Partnumber master file, simply select option J “Replicate Part”. A window will open where you can modify the part number, description, and NSN/ATA numbers. Click OK and you will see a notice that the replication has been completed successfully. This option will copy all of the part credentials including the memos and XRef notes. This will save you the time of creating an entirely new part record from scratch. Send Documents by Default Every customer and vendor may prefer to receive their documents from you in a different way. There is a simple way to account for this in Pentagon without having to check your notes or open the customer record. In the Customer or Vendor record under the Defaults tab you may determine the preferred method for document submittal, Hard Copy (Printer), Fax, or Email. If selecting Email you may also choose the format; PDF attachment, embedded, or TIFF. Once that preference has been set, each time you go to send a document to that customer or vendor, you only need to click the Default button under the printing options and the document will automatically be sent to the customer via their preferred method! Quick Receiver Pentagon knows how important efficiency and productivity is to our customers, especially at repair stations where time is money. To ensure you get to spend the most time working, Pentagon is now offering a new module, Quick Receiver, which will automatically create the Receiver, Sales Order and Work Order from one screen. This is of great benefit to companies that do a high volume of repair/overhaul and would like to save some time on data entry and document creation. Simply enter the customer, the WO type, PO number, and the Part Number and click, “Create Doc” and the system takes care of the rest. This module will be a huge time saver for those companies that create all three documents (receiver, sales order and work order) upon receipt of a customer unit to be repaired. That’s less time spent entering data into Pentagon and more time spent repairing parts, which increases turnover and profitability. With a fast and simple implementation, you could have Quick Receiver reducing your paperwork load the same day as purchase. Phone Order The Phone Order module is a single screen that provides full visibility of all sales processes for any given customer or vendor. This module let’s you simultaneously view histories of quotes, sales, RFQs, and purchases all in one place. It also incorporates stock and warehouse information so you will know precisely what you have and where you have it. The Phone Order even enables cross-referenced parts and capabilities listings to be seen in the same screen. With the Phone Order module you are able to track all part sales activities including work orders, offers, exchanges, electronic catalogues, repairs, kits, processes and rejections from one simple to use and convenient location. If you do a high volume of sales and would like to expedite the process, look no further than the Phone Order module. Parts Tracing Types Inventory lies at the heart of the Pentagon system and we provide you with some excellent methods for controlling it. One of the most fundamental options for inventory tracking are the three classes of Tracing you can apply to a part. The tracing types allow you to track all parts and serial numbers by warehouse location and provide high visibility of specific parts system wide. The first option is Tracing Only which allows parts to be received to an individual location in any quantity. The second option is Serialized Multi which allows you to receive any number of serialized parts to a single warehouse location. The final option is Serialized Unique which creates a warehouse location for each individual serial number. With these tracing options in place, you will have thorough control over the parts that lie in your inventory and will be able to specify, down to the serial number, which parts you wish to utilize in your operations. Reports Scheduler The Report Scheduler enables our customers to create reports and designate them to run automatically at a given time. Now users will always have the information they need to keep their business moving without having to manually configure and run a report. Create reports once, “set it and forget it”, and then receive new reports with the latest data at the designated interval. Schedule reports to run every few seconds, once a week, monthly, or any timeframe in between. Even specify certain days of the week or a particular calendar date. You will always have the latest information available and will not have to think about which report you need. All of the reporting information is up to the second, coming live from your Pentagon database. Audit Trail Mandatory Fields The Audit Trail module enables Pentagon administrators to designate mandatory fields within the system for a picture perfect audit trail. Users will not be able to save documents without properly filling in the necessary fields, assuring quality data capture and painless audits. The system will prompt users to fill designated numeric fields with appropriate values as well, based upon setup. In addition to mandatory fields, the Audit Trail module also provides a value tracing feature, allowing you to track all changes that are made to designated fields in the system. You will know who made the change, when, what it changed from, what it changed to, and can even set up reasons for why the change was made. You will now have yet another level of control over and insight into your business! Tool and Equipment Calibration Management Module The Pentagon 2000 Tool and Equipment Calibration Management Module enables identification and tracking of the periodic calibration requirements for tools and inspection requirements for equipment and machines. Controls exist to prevent tools and equipment for which calibration or inspection intervals have been identified from being allowed to be issued for use on component or maintenance work orders. Reporting identifies tools and/or equipment where calibration/inspection is coming due/overdue. This module maintains calibration/inspection results history, to include the detailed results of each test required by the calibration/inspection. Purchase order (calibration, repair, servicing), shipping, and receiving history for each tool or piece of equipment is also maintained. Within the module, the issue and return history of each tool can be viewed. This module will help to ensure that there is 100% visibility of the location of all tools, equipment and/or machines used in your operation and that those items remain in a useable condition. Employee Training Module The Pentagon 2000 Employee Training Module enables the creation of a complete curriculum of training courses designed to ensure compliance with all applicable regulations. Certifications, licenses, and skills may be associated with each course; as courses are completed the employee will earn those credentials. Training classes may be scheduled, multiple evaluation criteria set up, and the results for each evaluation recorded. Functionality exists for recording the employees’ evaluation of the training classes as well. If used in conjunction with the Scheduling Server Module, alerts may be sent to the employee and any other individuals required for recurring training that needs to be performed. This module will help to ensure 100% visibility of employee’s training and certification and that those employees will be properly qualified to perform the tasks necessary in your operation. Quality CAR Module The CAR (Corrective Action Reporting) Module will enable your organization to consolidate and maintain records of discrepancies in your business processes, failures in your quality system, health and safety incidents and the corrective actions taken to resolve each issue. The Quality CAR Module allows you to assign status codes and priorities to each corrective action report and the Quality CAR search window allows users to quickly identify corrective action reports that need to be completed or those that require follow up. To facilitate trend analysis, each discrepancy and corrective action may be categorized and viewed in a set of reports. An unlimited number of existing documents (sales, purchasing, materials, flight operations, work order, maintenance) can be linked to a corrective action report to provide backup for the discrepancy or the corrective action. Users can also attach scanned documents, images, or videos to each corrective action report. Exchange Manager Module The Pentagon 2000 Exchange Order Module enables the management of parts exchanged to customers and vendors. When an exchange order is created, additional line types are created to track the core exchange costs and/or core repair costs (if applicable). When an Exchange Sales Order is created, a Core Receiver is automatically created to ensure visibility of all cores pending receipt; similarly, a Core Shipper is created upon the receipt of an exchange part from an Exchange Purchase order. The module facilitates the ability to setup default values for all parts you sell or purchase and to identify whether or not to charge for cores up front on a customer-by-customer basis. If your organization sells or purchases exchange parts, this module is vital for 100% visibility of those parts throughout the exchange process. Email Fax Services Module The Pentagon 2000 Email Fax Services Module enables sales and purchasing documents as well as component and maintenance work orders to be faxed directly from the application. This eliminates the need for a traditional fax machine and may reduce your long distance charges considerably. There are a multitude of online fax services providers that you may choose from. This module allows the document to be sent to the online fax services provider of your choice and the fax will be forwarded to the recipient’s fax machine. The setup is quick and easy. If your organization is required to send faxes in the normal course of business, this module should reduce costs and make sending faxes much more efficient. Consignment Manager Module™. The Pentagon 2000 Consignment Manager Module enables complete management of consignment inventories. This module allows the creation of unlimited consignment warehouses that are completely segregated from one another. Costs owed to the vendor may be calculated using the warehouse cost or by one of several standard formulas. A set of consignment specific reports are included as well. If your organization maintains consigned stock, this module is essential for tracking inventory and costs associated with those consigned parts. Lot Manager Module™. The Pentagon 2000 Lot Manager Module enables complete management of the inventory, costs, and profit associated with the sales of parts from purchased and torn down assemblies. This module allows the creation of unlimited lot warehouses that are completely segregated from one another. Costs may be calculated using the warehouse cost or by one of several standard formulas. A set of lot specific reports are included as well. If your organization purchases assemblies to tear down and sell in pieces, this module is essential for tracking inventory and costs associated with those purchased lots. Open EDI Module™. The Pentagon 2000 Open EDI Module enables electronic data interchange of data to and from sales and purchasing documents. This module allows the import of line data to selected existing documents as well as the export of header and line data from selected existing documents. Utilizing this module can help your organization increase efficiency and reduce human error in sales and purchasing processes. Open EDI is easily customized by document and customer/vendor making it a valuable resource if your organization transmits purchasing and sales data electronically to and/or from customers and/or vendors. ILS Bridge Module™. The Pentagon ILS Bridge is a Direct interface with ILS                 Copyright © 2009 PENTAGON 2000 Software , Inc., All rights reserved