The following is a partial list of key requirements in several functional areas an organization might consider when comparing software vendors for Enterprise Resource Planning/Management.  With Clear Select's assistance, the key requirements are fully defined with those being Key Decision Drivers determined.  The key requirements are also a basis for creating demonstration scripts for the vendor demos.  Clear Select will develop the first draft of the key requirements, key decision drivers, and demonstration script.

1. General

1. Vendor vision and direction are in alignment with our company vision and direction.

2. Vendor has quality support record.

3. Vendor is financially stable.

4. Vendor focus is in similar markets as our business.

5. Stable vendor customer base.

6. Easy to use system.

7. Drill down and context sensitive help menus.

8. Easy to use ad hoc reporting and query tools.

9. Flexible system to modify business rules without programming

2. Manufacturing

1. Lot control, including lot tracking, lot allocations, lot visibility in Material Requirements Planning, lot potency, expiration, and USDA.

2. Corporate wide control of sales orders, purchase orders, work orders, Material Requirements Planning, and inventory.

3. Engineering change orders linked to Material Requirements Planning, hop floor, Bill of Materials, routings, including revision control, and enhanced effective date system.

4. Manufacturing Execution system, finite scheduling, rule-based scheduling.

5. System-wide control if item fields.

6. Capability to incorporate set-up and run-time in costing calculations.

7. Corporate wide distribution requirements planning capability.

8. Resource planning for rough-cut and capacity resource planning with labor forecasting.

9. Engineering and R&D playpen for Bill of Materials, cost builds with automated transfers to and from live structure.

10. Quality Tracking

11. Inventory Management system

12. Corporate wide forecasting

13. Multi-mode manufacturing environment

3. Distribution

1. Domestic and International tax capabilities

2. Domestic and International freight capabilities

3. Multi-national import and export statutory and regulatory requirements

4. Ease of order entry

5. Regulatory, customer, product, lot, and other order hold abilities at order entry.

6. EDI capability

7. Drop shipment capability

8. Multiple invoicing types and schemes

9. Contract system

10. Automated shipping and warehousing

11. Generation of shipping documents including hazardous material (MSDS)

12. Shipment consolidation across warehouses and plants; shipment separation for optimal use of most cost-effective carries.

4. Cost Accounting

1. Availability and functionality of Theory of Constraints, Activity based Costing, Actual Cost, and Average cost methodologies.

2. Multiple costs supported for the same item.

3. Support for various types of cost drivers for absorbing overhead into production costs (machine, direct labor hours, completed units, etc.)

4. Ability to selectively change (roll) standard costs by product lines, type, categories, product class, specific Bill of Materials, general ledger, etc.

5. Ability to generate shop floor report that shows inventory movement, labor and overhead absorption, outside operations receipts and variances.

5. Finance

1. Integrated modules for inventory, accounts receivable, accounts payable and sales into the General Ledger system including the ability to drill down from the general ledger to Accounts Payable, and online account number validation in sub-ledger modules.

2. Ability to change roll-up structure

3. Ability to perform mass creation/change to certain account number blocks

4. Advanced reporting features

5. Credit hold before order is received and after the order is process but not shipped.

6. Different credit terms to  different customers with account aging based on due date not invoiced date

7. Tracking of special terms

8. Cash application capabilities and non AR cash application

9. High integration of Accounts Payable with Purchase Order and Receiving system.

10. Ability to track debit memos and the return to vendor process.

11. Imaging capabilities including the link to our optical imaging system.

12. Functional project accounting capability with integration into the General Ledger and Accounts Payable modules.

6. Technical

1. Ability to easily and quickly obtain corporate wide information without duplicating the data using distributed processing capability and open system architecture.

2. Ability to easily interfaced with outside systems.

3. Ease of maintenance and support

4. Availability 7X24

5. Security on fields, screens, person, group level, department, database, with record locking and disaster recovery.

6. Ease of implementation with conversion aids, support, planning, and training.

The above is only a partial list of key requirements in several functional areas.  Additional requirements and functional areas are determined by the business processes, industry, and unique products, services, customer relationships and vendor relationships of your business model as it relates to Enterprise Resource Management, Customer Relationship Management, Supply Chain Management, Product Life Cycle Management, and other business technology areas as can be determined using Clear Select's expertise.