Foy's EPICS Events

Extrusion Production Information and Control Systems

January 6, 2004 ** Volume 8, Issue 1

In this issue

Annual EPICS User Conference Approaches

The Foy Forum: New EPICS Discussion Board Now Open

Press Scrap Posting Added

New “HOLD” feature added to EPICS

More Wishlist features added to EPICS

Other Enhancements in EPICS 2000.16 Update

New EPICS Users

Foy at ET ‘04

EPICS Customers

Annual EPICS User Conference Approaches

The EPICS User Conference is scheduled for April 21-21, 2004. As usual, this will be a great opportunity for you to meet with the architects and designers of EPICS, as well as with EPICS users from 20 or 30 extrusion plants.

At the 2004 conference, we will review all of the great new features that have been added to EPICS over the last year, as well as the enhancements that will be released at the conference. And we will have a special session on the RFID technology that will one day allow EPICS to automatically track material through the plant. More details on conference topics will be sent out next month.

This year’s conference will be held in Key West, Florida, at the Pier House Hotel. I visited this great hotel a few months ago, and I can promise that you will enjoy your time there. The Pier House sits at the southeast tip of Key West, where Duval Street meets the Gulf of Mexico. By scheduling the conference after Easter, we were able to negotiate a rate of $179 at this beautiful site.

You can fly to Key West via Miami or Atlanta, or you can rent a car in Miami for the 150 mile drive down the Keys.

For those of you who want to plan early, the Pier House is accepting room reservations at 1-800-327-8340. Be sure to tell them you are with the Foy EPICS conference. A limited number of conference-rate rooms have also been blocked for the weekend, for those who would like to stay over.

The Foy Forum: New EPICS Discussion Board now open

There is now another support tool available for EPICS users. The Foy Forum, a web-based discussion board, is online at the Foy web site. Just click on Support, then Foy Forum.

After you have registered, you will be able to participate in the ongoing discussions regarding problems you may be having, and about proposed new features. For example, in the Design Workshop section, discussions are currently underway on Electronic Billet Receipts, Rack Tracking, and Tax improvements.

The Foy Forum is a much-improved replacement of the blog that we introduced this Fall.

Press Scrap Posting Added

The number 2 item on this year’s EPICS Wishlist was the ability to post press scrap. Until now, the difference between billet weight and net sawed weight was identified as scrap, but there was no way to identify how much might be table damage, die lines, speed tears, etc.

The Press Data Collection screen now includes a Scrap button. Clicking this button enables you to post scrap pieces or weight, and a scrap code. (Tip: Enter zero for Length and Pieces if you want to just post Weight.)

New “HOLD” feature added to EPICS

Another Top Twenty Wishlist item is the addition of a new HOLD category. EPICS has always had a Credit Hold feature, allowing setting various Holds for printing acknowledgements, workorders, tickets, and manifests. But utilizing these Holds required access to the Credit Release screen.

The current EPICS release includes a Plant Hold feature. The operation is virtually identical to setting a Production Hold from the Credit Hold screen, but the new Plant Hold can be done from a new set of screens, with their own user permission settings.

You will first need to create your own Plant Hold Codes, such as DIE, QC, etc. Then you can assign permissions to those who should place items on Plant Hold.

More Wishlist features added to EPICS

Item #5 on the current wishlist is the ability to automatically turn the “Email Copy” box on or off when printing acknowledgements, manifests, and invoices. There are now three configuration settings to set the default action for each of these three documents.

Item #6 on the wishlist is to allow changing the routing on all items of a sales order in one step. That is now possible. If you change the routing of any item, you are now asked if you want EPICS to change all other items that have that same routing.

Other Enhancements in EPICS 2000.16 Update

In addition to the four new features described above, numerous other enhancements have been made to EPICS in the .16 update:

• Accounting-related improvements include
• When creating a credit memo for a sales order, you are notified if a credit memo has previously been created. This can help eliminate duplicate credits being issued in error.
• A warning is displayed if an invoice as a negative total or if a credit memo has a positive total.
• Credit Holds and Releases are now both recorded in the SOChangeLog.
• The QBE Items screen now has “right-click lookups” for downtime, scrap, and GL codes.
• Improvements to the Enhanced Shipping Module include:
• all unscanned tickets can be removed from a picklist with one click.
• one sales order can be split among multiple picklists.
• truck load sequences can now be assigned
• The Racktag.txt file for BarTender now includes SOItem.RowID. This provides a method of linking to the SOItem table.
• The Print Packing Ticket screen now includes:
• The ability to send pieces to rework
• Right-clicking on the SONum brings up the Order Summary
• The Post Other Production screen now correctly handles fab items where the finish length is in mm but the roughcut length is in feet and inches (or vice-versa.)
• The Configuration screen now loads faster
• All SOItem ReqDt and ProdDt fields now have time values of 00:00:00

The EPICS 2000.16 Update will be posted on the Foy web site later this week. All EPICS System Administrators will be receiving emailed notifications as soon as it is posted.

New EPICS User

Extruded Solutions, in Lumber Bridge, North Carolina, has joined the family of EPICS users. They purchased the old Croft Metals plant, and are running two presses and a paint line. They have installed Microsoft Small Business Server, and will be using SQL Server for their database.

Foy at ET ‘04

As usual, Foy Inc will be exhibiting at ET04, the quadrennial event that brings together almost 2000 aluminum extrusion industry leaders. This Extrusion Technology session will be held May 18-21, 2004 at the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. Come visit us at Booth 401.

epics customers

On any given day

EPICS is helping more than 10,000 people

at over 60 extrusion plants around the world.

Aacoa Extrusions - Niles, Michigan

AAEO (Albex). - Canton, Ohio

Aerolite Extrusion - Youngstown, Ohio

Alcoa - Warren, Ohio

Almag Aluminum Inc. - Brampton, Ontario

Altec (Custom) - Connersville, Indiana

Altec (Alumnitec). - Jeffersonville, Indiana

Aluminio Del Caribe- San Juan, Puerto Rico

Aluminum Extrusions Inc - Senatobia, Miss.

APEL Extrusions Ltd. - Calgary, Alberta

Arch Aluminum – Miami, Florida

Astro Shapes - Struthers, Ohio

Benada Aluminum - Medley, Florida

Briteline Extrusions - Summerville, S. Carolina

CanArt - Brampton, Ontario

CanArt – Tecumseh, Ontario

Central Aluminum - Columbus, Ohio

D.W. Aluminum - Cassopolis, Michigan

Extruded Solutions – Lumber Bridge, N. Carolina

Extrudex - Weston, Ontario

Extrudex - Berniéres, Quebec

Extrudex - North Jackson, Ohio

FISA - Guayaquil, Ecuador

Frontier Aluminum - Corona, California

Hulett-Hydro Alum. - Pietermaritzburg, South Africa

Hulett-Hydro Alum. - Capetown, South Africa

Hulett-Hydro Alum. - Olifantsfontein, South Africa

Indalex West Inc- Watsonville, California

International Extrusion - Alhambra, California

International Extrusion - Waxahachie, Texas

International Extrusions - Garden City, Michigan

Keymark Corporation - Fonda, New York

Keymark Corporation - Lakeland, Florida

MI Metals, Inc (Better Built), Smyrna, Tennessee

MI Metals, Inc - Millersburg, Pennsylvania

MI Metals, Inc - Oldsmar, Florida

MI Metals, Inc - Millen, Georgia

Mid-America Extrusions - Indianapolis, Indiana

Patrick Metals - Mishawaka, Indiana

Pennex - Wellsville, Pennsylvania

Perfiles de Aluminio.- San Juan, Puerto Rico

PT Alumindo Perkasa - Jakarta, Indonesia

PT Indal - Surabaya, Indonesia

Profile Extrusions - Coldwater, Michigan

Profile Extrusions - Rome, Georgia

Profile (RJS Precision Ext.) - Phoenix, Arizona

Selaco Aluminium - Johar, Malaysia

Service Center Metals – Glen Allen, Virginia

Sierra Aluminum - Fontana, California

Sierra Aluminum - Riverside, California

Spectra Aluminum - Woodbridge, Notario

Star Extruded Shapes, Canfield, Ohio

Sun Valley Extrusions - Los Angeles, California

Taber Extrusions - Gulfport, Mississippi

Taber Extrusions - Russellville, Arkansas

Tri-City Extrusion - Bristol, Tennessee

Temroc Metals - Hamel, Minnesota

Tubelite – Reed City, Michigan

Vista Wall Arch. Products – Midway, Tennessee

Vista Wall Arch. Products – Terrell, Texas

Vitex - Franklin, New Hampshire

Wakefield Engineering. - Pelham, New Hampshire

Western Extrusion - Carrolton, Texas

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Foy Inc

100 McKinney St

Farmersville, TX 75442

Phone: 972-782-7282

Fax: 972-782-7130

Website: http://www.foyinc.com

Jim Foy	jim@foyinc.com
John Stenger	john@foyinc.,com
Scott Wilson	scott@foyinc.com
Stacy Coleman-Foley	stacy@foyinc.com
General mail	info@foyinc.com
Help	help@foyinc.com