Hardware is a discrete-based, supplemented by the manufacturing process, the production process is metal processing and assembly parts. Hardware manufacturers are: rough casting, stamping manufacturing, machining, processing, including casting, forging, heat treatment, raw materials division, wire bending, cars, milling, planing, grinding or forming such as sheet metal processing. A wide range of hardware products, different specifications. Materials market is currently operated by a total of metal products more than a dozen types of products. Include: lock type, handle type, type of metal doors and windows, household decorative hardware category, type of plumbing hardware, architectural hardware categories, tools, bathroom hardware, kitchen hardware. "Due to a wide variety of materials, different sizes, different colors, with different specifications to the material caused some difficulties in management.

　　Features as a discrete industry a strong, hardware manufacturers in their daily operations, all sectors are often encountered under the management of the traditional bottlenecks in hand. First of all, market competition, the ever-changing user demand, many hardware companies principally engaged in single-piece and small batch and volume production, product design and manufacturing process and often the needs of its customers are constantly changing, therefore the need for good hardware business plan to enhance the production production flexibility, to adapt to changing markets. The author believes that: the general hardware products are enterprise-order (contract) to the production, the complexity of product structure, components and more outside the Association, made both and rely on traditional manual management to optimize the scheduling and reasonable, the work of production managers extremely heavy volume, together with the various departments of information and data can not be a good share of uniform standards and interfaces, it is bound to control the delivery of science can not affect the performance of the rate orders.

　　Secondly, hardware manufacturers and more pieces of the outer Association, involved more than manufacturers outside the Association, managed in the traditional manner, how the Association‘s product quality manufacturers, such as price and reputation tracking control, procurement departments well in advance how to control stock volume to ensure that neither the production nor caused by misuse of inventories to ensure that the most reasonable capital occupied by the "degree" is a headache most of the hardware business problems.

　　Furthermore, the metal product manufacturing cycle length, multi-process, multi-anomaly (related to rework, scrap, split, batch replace, buffer materials, etc.), input, and need to track the production process and cost analysis . Add in the production process, the customer at any time may change according to market a single temporary plug, which is hardware manufacturers can not predict. Then rely on the artificial management, definitely can not meet the ever-changing requirements of customer orders, only orders in the determination before the beginning of the inclusion of management, sometimes the status of orders has been changed, did not immediately respond to, so often confused. Clearly, to proceed with the construction of information has become the place in the hardware business decision-makers first and foremost task before. (Source: China Building Materials Procurement Network)