Provides all the functions to enter, maintain and follow the progress of demand. Demand can be customer orders, stock orders, reservations or trials. All demand is handled in the same way, thereby allowing downstream aggregation and optimised trimming & scheduling. Orders can be fully or partially satisfied from stock. ascman employs a multi-level model of customer / product buying habits and automatically populates order entry fields with customer / product buying instructions and preferences. This speeds up order entry and helps eliminate mistakes. Previous orders can be copied and amended. ATP & CTP checks are carried out by referring to the Block Plan during order entry. ascman automatically channels demand into predefined making cycles. This enhances the accuracy of delivery promises and scheduling efficiency while still allowing priority orders to be inserted anywhere. Customer Care Provides powerful query tools to track and interrogate the status of any order on the system. Enquiries can be quickly addressed on- line, giving rapid feedback on order progress throughout your operation. Top-level enquiry functions allow you to home into the specific orders. From the Customer name, the system will provide all orders relating to various categories (Current, Complete, etc.), allowing you to drill down to the correct item. Alternatively, if the Customer can supply either an Order Number or their Reference Number, the system can home in directly to the line required. ascman also handles Customer Complaints and returned goods. The relevant quality results and genealogy of the items are automatically available for detailed analysis of the complaint.