Choosing ERP for a metal business starts with the work itself: how material arrives, how it moves through production and how an order becomes an invoice. A feature list can begin the conversation, but a walkthrough of your own process makes the evaluation more useful.
1 How does material keep its history
Choose one coil, bundle or finished item and follow it through the demonstration. Ask which lot or serial details stay with it as it moves between receiving, storage and production. Then ask the presenter to retrieve that history from the finished order. Record what is available as standard, what depends on setup and what would require additional work.
2 How will the team find available inventory
Start with the quantities and units your team actually uses. Ask to see how the system represents material, its bin location and its cost. Include an inventory adjustment in the walkthrough. If partially used material is important to your operation, make that a specific demonstration requirement rather than assuming a general inventory feature covers it.
3 How are pricing rules applied to a quote
Bring a representative quote and explain the rules behind it. Ask how the system handles customer or group pricing, quantity breaks and changes to the underlying cost. Check which values update automatically and which require a person to review them. A useful demonstration should make those decisions visible to the people who prepare and approve quotes.
4 How does production progress reach the office
Map an order through your actual stations. Ask to see how routings and work orders represent that sequence, how the floor records progress and what the office sees afterward. Include an exception, such as a delayed operation or a change in priority. Ask what equipment, configuration and training the proposed workflow would need.
5 Which costs are included in the job
Select a completed job and list the costs you expect to review. Ask where material, labor and other charges originate, when they appear and how corrections are handled. Look at the comparison between the estimate and recorded costs. Confirm the scope of the report before using its totals to evaluate a margin.
6 What changes when work spans locations
If your business operates across sites, include that in the evaluation. Ask how users identify inventory by location, handle a transfer and see work at another facility. Discuss permissions, responsibilities and reporting. Separate capabilities shown in the demonstration from anything that still needs configuration, integration or confirmation.
Bring your questions to METALCON
ABIS develops Adjutant for metal businesses. Meet the team at METALCON Booth 625, October 7–9, 2026, at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando. Bring one workflow and the questions your team needs answered. Request a demo to start the conversation.
