Media
As seen in Modern Metals – October 2024
Information Driven – 25 Years of questions and listening to customers.
Steel Manager III, the marquee ERP product from 4GL Solutions, provides industry-specific functionality, advanced estimating capabilities and real-time visibility to help service centers achieve speed, accuracy and efficiency throughout their operations. With user-friendly interface, seamless integration and mobile access, the software system is the result of 25 years of continuous improvement from a father-son duo.
Much of this improvement is the result of writing code to answer a customer need. After emigrating from South Africa to Canada, George Walton obtained work writing code for steel companies. He would later write a similar code for the next company. And so on. Eventually, he realized he could write code for his own business and founded 4GL Solutions in 1984. His son, also named George, joined the Toronto-based business in 1999…..
As seen in Modern Metals – September 2022
Peerless Steel, headquartered in Troy, Michigan, chooses Steel Manager III to replace their legacy system.
Modern Metals, September 2022 – Peerless Steel, which has four locations across Michigan, works with customers across Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and southern Ontario. “We have outgrown our system,” says Peerless Steel President Carl Bartells. “It was time. The last software we brought in was installed in 1999. If software lasts two decades, getting the proper system is essential. “Peerless Steel went through a thorough search for a vendor,” seeking a partner that would guarantee successful implementation, says George Walton, president of Stouffville, Ontario-based 4GL Solutions. “They looked at all developers of metals software and other ERP platforms that are not metals specific,” he says. 4GL Solutions’ Steel Manager III suite of software “checked all the boxes from a functional and technical standpoint.” Peerless sought a system that would integrate everything and work extremely well at each stage of the business: sales, purchasing, operations, accounting and logistics.
As seen in Modern Metals | September 2021
4GL Solutions is pleased to announce the Southern Steel Group, the largest privately owned steel supplier in Australia who has operated for over 60 years and employs over 1,000 staff across the breadth of Australia, has chosen Steel Manager III, our industry leading ERP software specific to the metals industry, to replace their legacy system.
Modern Metals, September 2021 – We hold a large inventory of plate, structural steel, merchant bar, pipe and rectangular hollow sections, giving us the capability to manage small- to large-scale projects and long-term supply,” says the company’s project manager, Kerrie-Anne Gatt.
“Despite its size, the Southern Steel Group is still a family business that makes excellent customer service its absolute top priority. Our agility and can-do attitude allow us to move fast to deliver accurate, just-in-time solutions to construction, engineering and manufacturing challenges,” Gatt says.
As seen in Modern Metals | August 2020
We are pleased to have been featured in Modern Metals magazine as part of the software solution/ERP issue. 4GL Solutions has released Task Manager, a product that covers the breadth of a client’s activities and connects managers with personnel from the shop floor to the top floor.
Modern Metals, August 2020 – Task Manager in Steel Manager III helps service centers enhance internal communications and manage tasks for improved business practices.
As seen in Modern Metals | August 2019
We are pleased to have been featured in Modern Metals magazine as part of the software solution/ERP for ASA Alloys (Division of Canada ULC Specialty Metals).
Modern Metals, August 2019 – Albert Einstein had three rules when it came to organization. “Out of clutter, find simplicity; from discord, find harmony; in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” The benefits of organization aren’t lost on ASA Alloys, a division of Canadian Specialty Metals ULC. In the early 1990s, the specialty metals distributor adopted 4GL Solutions’ Steel Manager III (SM3), a comprehensive business management ERP software developed for the metals industry. ASA Alloys launched the system at its Edmonton, Alberta, facility before going company-wide in 2007. This year, the company received a software update it says went without a hitch.
Headquartered outside Toronto, ASA Alloys has eight service centers encompassing 400,000 square feet. The stockrooms hold aluminum, stainless steel and aerospace alloys and other specialty metals. “Inventory control was the primary driver” for adopting an ERP system, says ASA Alloys President Gregg Cousins. “With our old system, reconciliations use to take weeks.”
As seen in Modern Metals | April 2017
We are pleased to have been featured in Modern Metals magazine as part of the software solution/ERP for Penn Stainless Products in Quakertown, Pennsylvania.
Modern Metals, April 2017 – Penn Stainless Products in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, found it had outgrown its current software platform, it sought out changes. “We looked at the new platform offerings from our provider at the time and it did not fit our needs,” says General Manager Dave Harris. “The software was too rigid. We were locked in a box and we found that in order to adjust to their software, we would have to move in a direction that wasn’t built for us.” The programming was more suited to a metals production facility rather than for a full-line stainless steel distributor, he says.
Instead of battling what Harris anticipated would become “tremendous implementation issues,” Penn Stainless hired a consultant to review and sort out its best software options. “We started with 45 to 50 companies and weeded it down to half a dozen,” recalls Harris. 4GL was invited to come give a presentation. “Other systems we had looked at were so rigid you couldn’t get around anything,” Harris continues. “When 4GL did their demonstration, they showed us they could give us what we needed.”
