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Note: This is not a
true Web document, so it is not formatted in the best manner for display in
your browser. The content, though, is first rate. The Electronic Want Card An
Implementation Strategy
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Round’s True Value
Hardware
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290 Main Street |
TEL: 617-438-0131
FAX: 617-279-9123
A round table discussion by the organizing
committee for the New England Cotter Triad User’s Group originated the idea for
the Electronic Want Card. We needed to gear our presentations to the general
user level, to provide immediately useful information and procedures and to
inspire Cotter Member Triad users to push their Triad systems to do more, and
by extension, do more themselves. As we become more astute users and Cotter
members, we can as a group urge both organizations to do more too.
The Electronic Want Card (EWC) idea was
selected as a means by which even the novice Triad user could pull useful
information from the system and immediately improve their buying methods. As
the length of the EWC documentation increased, it became evident that it could
also serve as an introduction to order point purchasing and inventory
quantity-on-hand control. As such, I have attempted to segment the material by
member ability.
The Triad system is an integrated computer
system in which all the elements of the system are linked together. While we do
not always agree on how well the system ties together (it has its weaknesses),
it does handle a lot of things quite well. Individual Cotter members must
integrate the computer with the way they run their True Value Hardware store
back home. The Electronic Want Card is one way to start that monumental process
and do so profitably.
The EWC procedure is intended for the new
Triad user who wants some immediate benefits from the system or for the user
who is not yet managing the store’s inventory on the Triad.
The experienced user whose store utilizes
RSO option E will be able to implement the Electronic Want Card immediately to
control the buying of employees and integrate it with order point-based
purchasing.
The EWC is a quick, back-door method to
bridge the gap between "traditional" Telxon order entry and
computer-generated purchase orders. With a minimum amount of effort, the user
should be able to move from seat-of-the-pants buying to a purchasing method
using Triad-generated information. In addition, the user may bypass the Telxon
altogether and directly transmit the weekly Cotter order to Chicago through the
Triad.
This EWC procedure may help you if you
are:
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new to the system. |
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not yet transmitting orders through the system. |
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not on inventory tracking. |
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not confident with RPA, ROP, or RSO use. |
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without disciplined procedures for order entry and receipt postings. |
What are the benefits to using the EWC?
You may:
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Maintain the procedures you now use to
generate your Cotter order quantities. Yes, keep those want lists, pocket
want cards, and scraps of paper from your employees for Telxon entry. |
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Gradually adopt computer-based purchasing
and the physical inventory procedures necessary to make this possible. |
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Pull information from the Triad which you
can use NOW to create better Cotter orders without bogging down in procedure
and inventory counts. The most volatile bits of information to go into a
computer system, counts will not remain correct for long without sound
procedures and disciplines to maintain them. The EWC procedure ignores them. |
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Use the Electronic Want Card to set up
counts and maintain them when you are ready. "If it’s worth buying, it’s
worth counting." |
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See what you are ordering before you order
it. Print out a good estimate of what Cotter will send you on order day. |
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Compare your order against important sales
history information. |
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Use the information generated by the Triad
to minimize slow-moving and maximize fast-moving merchandise. |
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Enter your want card IBM numbers quickly. |
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Amend the proposed purchase order quickly. |
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Minimize purchase order changes in
function MPO. |
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Create a purchase order which could be
transmitted to Cotter through the system and used for receiving operations. |
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Compare your order quantity with the
Triad-generated order point. |
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Gain experience with your purchase order
generation software. |
Will the EWC help you?
I’m making a variety of assumptions here
about how much you use your system. You’ll benefit most from these suggestions
if you fit the following description.
You have been loading skus and have most
of your inventory in the system and can comprehend your weekly Cotter A-copy
descriptions. Your order multiples are in good shape, and your descriptions are
half-way readable. You have the "Keep Stock Info" question answered
"Y" for every sku you want to purchase from Cotter. You include promotional
sales in with your regular sales history. You run your promotions using the
Triad promotional subsystem. You keep sales history and are familiar with the
basics of operating a Triad computer.
Your Telxon order entry device seems
awkward and slow because it allows only a cursory review of skus in its memory.
Do you use POS to process transactions? If you are waiting until you are
"ready" to go live at POS, you will never be ready and you will never
go live. Turn on your Triad this morning and entertain customers this
afternoon. Keep LODing and selling.
COT is listed as the primary vendor for
all your Cotter skus. Your system inventory file is based on a Cotter LOAD
tape, a QuickStart tape, or has some organization to it. Also, the information
you have already entered conforms to the "sorting and selecting"
conventions of the Triad.
Your True Value Hardware store operates in
"real time." You can’t close the front door while you’re doing the
Cotter order. Merchandise keeps selling. You must be able to add to the order
until the minute you transmit it to Cotter to minimize merchandise
"outs."
Setting up the Electronic Want Card (EWC)
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1. Keep loading inventory to collect sales history, etc. Follow the basic
rules for LODing sku’s into the Triad.
The functions you should be using are: BTC
(COTPCR) for price changes, BTC (COTRPM) for Cotter promotional price files,
RPA, order point report (ROP), and of course, POS. Set up RPA and ROP Queues
for the first, second, third, and forth weeks of the month. Although baffling
to the beginning user, they produce important information that is independent
of quantity-on-hand. You can use this information now to improve your buying
approach. In short, run an RPA report before ROP’s. ROP’s are run with weeks of supply and by
popularity code. For more information about these reports, refer to previous
Manchester User’s Group hand-outs. Note: You could run the SEECOT Que the
night before your Cotter order is due, or you could use RUNQ to run the Que
immediately at anytime. The RSO is set up to run in the backround of your
Triad and print once it has fully processed. This technique, called SPOOLING,
will leave you printer free for other work. If your system is small, slow, or
worked hard, this report will cause a general system slowdown especially if
other tasks are running. The report will print out by department,
then class, then sequence number. If your system’s LOD screen information is
inconsistent or random, so will the order in which skus print out. If you
intend to run an ROP before this Que, you ought to spool it. Run it on
channel 21. If you don’t know what a channel is, go to function MPS and add
one using the instructions in the Triad "What’s new for level 7.2"
manual. If your inventory location codes are good, the location code could be
used as a sort field, as could catalog page. The Electronic Want Card Procedure: 1. Collect the Orders Take the "want cards" or
"want lists" you and your employees normally generate in the course
of business. Start small to see how this works. Why not try Tru-Test paint
brushes? 2. Key in the Orders From the Triad Main Menu, type FIL and
enter. Type NEWENTER and enter twice. The NEWENTER screen will come up. Type your first sku, hit the ENTER key,
type your order quantity, and hit the ENTER key again. You have added your
first sku to the NEWENTER temporary work file. If you make a mistake, you may
display the sku and delete it, or more easily, simply type the sku, hit the
enter key, type the proper order quantity, and hit the enter key again. You
will over-write the old record and correct it. Repeat the entry process until
the entire want card is entered. 3. Run RFL Run report RFL options FJX for NEWENTER.
See the screen print to use as a guide. This will transfer the new order
quantities to the IMU screen. 4. Review the RFL report Check for errors. Did your Keep Stock
question answer "N?" Your sku may not be in the system, you might
have made a mistake entering the sku, or perhaps the sku was mis-written on
the want card. If you need to make corrections, add the corrected sku’s back
into FIL and repeat steps 3, 4, and 5. 5. Run RSO Use RUNQ to run the RSO immediately, if
you’d like, or add the SEECOT Que to your overnight reports. 6. Review your EWC through the RSO report Review the Triad Purchasing and Receiving
manual on how to read an RSO report. Note the explanation for the code fields.
Your order quantities (from your paper want cards) will appear in the
"new order quantity" column of the RSO report. Your new order
quantities will be rounded by the system to a quantity which is a multiple of
the "order multiple." The "OM" appears on the RSO report
and is usually the F-pack quantity or the break pack quantity you have chosen
to buy from Cotter. Watch for outrageous new order quantities.
Watch for new order quantities too low in light of high sales, or too high
given slow sales. All new order quantities which you entered in the system
through functions IMU or FIL will appear with an asterisk (*) to the
immediate right of the new order quantity. If there is a pound sign (#) to
the immediate right of the new order quantity, then the system has rounded up
the NOQ in IMU to the sku’s order multiple.
Subtotals on RSO: Weights will be
calculated by RSO. The vendor minimums will come from the vendor record in
MVR. Once you start using the system for direct-ship purchasing, you can fill
in the MVR record with information from relay forms, direct-ship forms, or
the Cotter Micro Fiche. The SEECOT Cotter RSO costs will be replacement cost.
If you run an RSO by manufacturer, the cost will be manufacturer’s cost. Actions to take on the RSO:
Is a seasonal item on the EWC at the end
of the season? Delete the new order quantity. For advanced users, code the
item with the proper seasonal code in IMU screen C.
7. Remove new order quantities you don’t want Enter function IMU. Display the sku. TAB
three times, ENTER once, hit CLEAR FIELD and the CHANGE key. This can be
programmed on a VDT keyboard. 8. Add new order quantities you wish to order Enter function IMU. Display the sku. TAB
three times, ENTER once, type the quantity you want to order, and hit the
CHANGE key. If you want to save time, program your VDT keyboard to put a 1 in
the new order quantity field. In either case, the new order quantity will be
rounded by the order multiple. 9. Change new order quantities Enter function IMU. Display the sku. TAB
three times, ENTER once, type the quantity you now wish to order, hit the
CLEAR FIELD key, and the CHANGE key. Watch the order multiple. Portions of
this task can be programmed. 10. Change order multiples and standard packs Enter function IMU. Display the sku. TAB to
the field you want to change, enter the number you want as your order
multiple or the number for the standard pack from the Cotter Micro Fiche,
price book, bin tag, price tag, or A-copy, hit the CLEAR FIELD key and then
the CHANGE key. Portions of this task can be programmed on a VDT. 11. Change costs, descriptions, codes Enter function IMU and the screen in which
you would like to change information. Type over any of the information you
wish to change. Hit the CHANGE key. 12. Actions to prevent skus from coming up on RSOs Discontinue the sku. Put a user code on the
sku and exclude it from your RSO report. Put an S in the order indicator. If
you buy this sku only on direct ship, put a D in the order indicator. If you
want to buy this sku only from the Cotter warehouse, put a W in the order
indicator. Use the seasonal code. Simply put, (and to
steal a great idea from a fellow True Value Member) W is for Fall &
Winter Goods, S is for Summer and Spring Goods, and R (for Random) is for
goods with a seasonal component to their sales, but we can’t tie it
exclusively to S or W. Lawn rakes are a good example. Order points can be
used to control seasonal items more closely when cut out in this manner.
Three letters and one space give you all the control you will need. Exclude W
items from Spring and the Summer RSOs and S items from Fall and Winter RSOs.
R items may come up at anytime, but you’ll be able to control them. 13. Create a Purchase Order (P.O.) Finish whatever price change work you need
to do in IPC. Run report RPC to update prices before you create a Cotter
order. Run the RSO using printing sequence 2, order calc. options V,
selection options S, other options F, subtotals Y, from primary vendor COT to
COT. RSO option F, selection option S will take the new order quantities you
entered for each sku in IMU, round it by the order multiple if necessary,
create an MPO purchase order record for it, and shift it to the QOO (quantity
on order) field (also in IMU). It is sometimes necessary to fix a purchase
order after RSO has run. For instance, suddenly merchandise is
"found" in the store, or something sells and you want to put it on
the order, or there was an error in the order multiple field of IMU. Use function MPO to fix quantities on a
purchase order line. Use function MPO to add or delete order quantities to a
P.O. at anytime before transmission. If the EWC procedure is followed,
changes should be minimized in this awkward and limited function. If you change a retail in IMU or through
the price change subsystem (IPC and RPC option F), the retail on the purchase
order will change as well. For those of you on electronic receipt posting,
(ERP) costs will be updated on the purchase order when that function is run. 14. Transmit a P.O. Use function BTC-COT to transmit your
purchase order. You have the option to transmit your
retails along with your Cotter order by answering the send retail question Y.
The system will use your retail price from IMU screen P. Your retail prices
will appear on the Cotter price tags. Do not use this option unless you have
a disciplined price change procedure in your store. You must do your price
changes and run RPC option F before you run RSO option F. Remember, Cotter
price changes through the Triad are always a week behind. If you are not on Cotter Variable pricing,
there is a tremendous feature on the Cotter A-copy which becomes active when
you transmit retails along with your order. The A-copy will list your retail
and Cotter’s suggested retail along with Gross Profit percents calculated for
each with the A-copy cost. This is handy to review your retails against the
benchmark of Cotter’s suggested retails. If you are on the Cotter Customer Gross
Profit Margin program, don’t use this procedure. Cotter calculates your
prices for you. Robert Aiken, in his book entitled
"The Strategy of Pricing for Profit" (available from Cotter Member
Services), lays out the framework for a custom gross profit management plan
for your store. Your competitors are using one and you should be too. We’re
lucky to be in the hardware business with tens of thousands of SKU’s to
squeeze for GP dollars. My favorite quote in Mr. Aiken’s book (in
turn quoted from an ex-Target discount store employee) sums up image pricing
(those 200-400 items in your store which should have hot prices on them, a
key technique in variable pricing) as "islands of loss in a sea of
profit." 15. Remove a range of new order quantities Sometimes an entire department of order
quantities are so badly distorted it might need to be re-done. Order point
purchasing users mainly use this procedure to slice portions of new order
quantities out of the warehouse order for direct-ship orders. New order
quantities can be picked up by the RSO to create a purchase order. This
purchase order can then be deleted in MPO. Run RSO with printing sequence 2, order
calc. options V, selection options S, other options F, subtotals Y, from
primary vendor COT to COT. Enter the department or manufacturer whose new
order quantities you wish to remove from the system. 16. Keep your system clean Delete old purchase orders by displaying
the header record in MPO. This is especially important if you are not using
the system to receive your Cotter order and to post quantities to the
inventory. Hit the DELETE key twice. Remove the purchase order from the
system by spooling RPP to channel 91. This will purge deleted purchase orders
and save paper. Run reports AUDITO and AUDITQ at least
weekly to remove phantom quantity on order numbers in IMU. A service mode function (the operating
system software level below the applications software) resets every single
quantity-on-hand to zero. Stores using the first or elementary level EWC will
find this a handy feature. It touches only the QOH, leaving all other fields
alone. Your inventory dates (of last receipt, sale, and physical inventory)
remain in place. 17. Sources of information to correct your inventory information Cotter A-copies: Shipped quantities which
are followed by a dash indicate that Cotter has rounded your order quantity.
Use the F- or B-pack figure from the A-copy to correct your order multiple
and standard pack. Strange GP percents indicate bad costs. Substitute items
need sku changes through RCIN. Discontinued items, not stocked items, valid
skus which are blank on the A-copy, all need to be dealt with. Refer to handouts from previous New England
Cotter-Triad User’s Group meeting on how to handle discontinued items. Check other sources such as weekly Cotter
notice of discontinued merchandise, weekly blue sheets of excess and
discontinued merchandise, relay sheets, promotional relays, and price
changes. Watch especially for sku’s which jump wildly in price. This usually
means that you have a sku in your system which Cotter is now using for
something else. Review the Micro Fiche system, the Retail Fineline Catalog,
and the Tru Trac Electronic Catalog. 20. Basic troubleshooting The problem: a run-a-way RSO. Solution: A
"run-a-way" RSO for our purposes is an option F report sent to the
printer or channel with the wrong from and to’s specified or the wrong
options. A classic example is an RSO sent to printer without select option S
specified. That RSO will pick up every single sku with a quantity-on-hand
less than order point within the from/to range regardless of new order
quantity. In other words, your order will pick up lots of junk.
Unfortunately, Triad will not let us abort option F RSO’s or ROP’s. One DX10
service mode procedure will stop a report, but it’s cumbersome. The Eagle
system will permit reports to be aborted. Be careful of what you send to the
printer. Recover from this disaster by using an earlier RSO and deleting the
unwanted order quantities in MPO. The problem: Outrageous subtotals.
Solution: Look for bad costs, retails, and new order quantites. Fix these in
IMU and re-run the report. The problem: New order quantities do not
appear. Solutions: Perhaps the RFL for NEWENTER was not run, so run it. Maybe
the sku was outside of the from/to range, for example COT is not in the
primary vendor field, so check the LOD screen information. Does the sku have
the discontinued flag set to Y? Change it to N. Someone transposed a number
on the paper want card or the sku isn’t in the system. Get the right skus or
load them in the system. The problem: Somebody is fooling around in
IMU. Skus are disappearing. New order quantities are appearing where not
desired. Counts are being changed arbitrarily. Solution: Secure the system
NOW. The next person who learns how to change counts on an "open"
system may hit you for big bucks. Set up users in the system and create
security authorizations by terminal. Nobody should be able to change in IMU
or LOD without an audit trail. See the Triad Physical Inventory Subsystem and
the Security Subsystem manuals. 19. Saving time on the programmable VDT keyboard The VDT keyboard can be programmed to
execute dozens of keystrokes which you use all the time. Hold the CONTROL key
down while depressing a programmed function key to make it work. Refer to
your Triad VDT manual for instructions on how to do this programming. Suggested VDT programmed keys for the
electronic want card:
20. Cautions Security must be set up if only to prevent
accidental deletions. Use function MSE to remove all the delete information
bits. Create a user in MUR called DELETE. Give this user all the delete bits
for inventory and A/R. Lock the SYSTEM access user out by giving it a
password known only to management. Learn how to use the security subsystem.
It creates audit trails to link criminals to their crimes and produces
evidence that will stand up in court. Use it. Although you may need it next
year in that 20,000 square-foot store you are building, you definately need
it now. Be very careful when working in IMU. Any
information you type over will be changed once you hit the CHANGE key. Lots
of damage can be done by the careless operator. Triple check any VDT keyboard
instruction programs to make sure they do precisely what you want. Your RSO’s will always be run with select
option S for the Electronic Want Card. If you forget to insert this option,
your RSO will present every sku within the from and to ranges with a QOH less
than the order point. You’ll tie up a printer for hours. Use function QUE to
change report status to "A" to abort it, providing it is not an
Option F report. See Troubleshooting. You can only change QOO (quantity on order)
through MPO, not through function IMU. Although the system will allow a
superficial change to the QOO field in IMU, it will not be reflected in MPO
or on your purchase order. Using descriptive skus. If you sell your
12/2 romex wire under sku 12/2NM, you use descriptive skus. You must enter
the Cotter IBM along with the your sku in function MAP. The system will then
grab the Cotter IBM number from this file whenever you order a descriptive
sku from Cotter. This works quite well for key blanks, pipe, rope, nails,
lumber, and bagged goods. Under no circumstances should you enter a
zero (0) in the IMU new order quantity field because it will prevent a sku
from coming up on an RSO. It’s a program "Bug" which has been in
the last two software releases. 21. Using QOH when not quantifying inventory Quantity-on-hand’s will be meaningful only
if you are using the Triad receiving functions. If you do not use these,
create a Que to clean up the QOH field every Saturday night. This Que would
contain two RICU reports; one to change the "Keep Stock info"
question to N, and the other to change it back to Y. This will destroy all
IMU screen S inventory information linked to quantity-on-hand, on order,
future order quantity, sale, receipt, and physical dates. Delete the purchase order one day after transmission. Set up a Que to run RPP at least once per
week along with AUDITO and AUDITQ. This will clean up QOO and committed
quantity inventory information. 22. Where do you go from here? Key into physical inventory control. Turn on the physical inventory subsystem. Key into the system to generate new order
quantities automatically. CONCLUSIONS The RSO, when used for order point
purchasing on a quantified inventory, is a QOH dependent report. We are, with
the Electronic Want Card procedure, forcing the RSO to select skus with a new
selection criteria, thus bypassing order points and quantity-on-hand. Without
dependable QOH information, you cannot ask your employees questions such as
"Where are these items? What happended to these items? Do we need these
items on your order?" The RSO provides a procedure to link physical
inventory with purchasing. By all means, run RPA reports if you don’t
do so now. These can be run for each department. Some people run them for the
entire store, which seems to work for regular hardware stores, but not lumber
yards. Other people run them by their "stategic business units." Debates will rage at the Manchester user’s
meeting about RPAs run by units or by dollars sold. This report can be run
repeatedly and provide even the newest user with useful information. The RSO
report shows this field as well as the order indicator, seasonal code, the
promotion code and user codes. Past issues of Hardgoods Confidential have
presented some strategies for running RPA reports. I also strongly suggest that you set up
order point Queues even if you do not use them to generate an order.
They can be real handy to compare against your order quantity.
Several schemes offer widely differing views on order points. The
simplest approach is to set up Queues for weeks 1, 2, 3, and 4 and run
them for each week of the month in succession. On the average,
they’ll be fine for beginning and intermediate EWC users. Refer to
articles in previous issues of Hardgoods Confidential for
discussiions of weekly order point strategies. |
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