CASE STUDY · JOB-SITE RECEIVING
How STSX Scan Data Found “Missing” Steel at an Industrial Job Site
STSX is production tracking software for structural and industrial steel fabricators. It tracks every piece mark from the shop floor to the job site. Barcode ID labels are scanned at each process station, at loading and at job-site receiving, so each scan builds a time-stamped record of where a piece is, who worked on it and when it shipped.
Terms used on this page: A piece mark is the unique ID given to each fabricated steel member. A hot-shot load is an urgent, single-item delivery, usually at premium cost. A laydown yard is the staging area at a construction site where delivered steel is stored until erection.
The Challenge
Piece marks can get “lost” at a job site even after they’re delivered. Once steel is unloaded into a large laydown yard, it is hard to prove what arrived and where it was placed. When a customer reports missing pieces, the fabricator often has to take their word for it. That can mean re-fabricating material, shipping a hot-shot load or sending someone to the site.
How STSX solved it
The fabricator used STSX to load and ship piece marks from its Gulf Coast shop to an industrial construction site in Southeast Texas. At the site, the customer’s crew used a mobile device to scan each piece mark’s barcode as it was unloaded and placed in the laydown yard. Each scan updated the fabricator’s STSX database in real time and confirmed receipt.
After unloading, the customer called the fabricator to report that some piece marks were missing from the load.
The loading scans showed the pieces were shipped. The fabricator checked the “missing” barcode IDs and confirmed each one had been scanned onto the truck. The time stamps put them in the middle of the loading sequence, not first or last, which gave the fabricator confidence that they had been loaded.
The receiving scans showed the pieces arrived. Each “missing” piece mark had a received date and time, also in the middle of the sequence. The gaps between scans were often minutes long, which meant someone had walked the laydown yard scanning each piece. If the crew had only scanned the paperwork, the scans would have been one or two seconds apart.
The audit trail settled it. Over three to four hours, the job site called the fabricator three times. Each time, the fabricator pointed to the scan data and said the steel was there. By the third call, the fabricator was preparing to fly someone to the site. Then the site team found every “missing” piece mark in the laydown yard.
“I guess this stuff really works.”
– Site superintendent
At a glance
- Industry
- Steel fabrication (Gulf Coast)
- Focus
- Job-site delivery verification, industrial project in Southeast Texas
- Solution
- STSX barcode tracking
- STSX features used
- Barcode loading and shipping, mobile job-site receiving, time-stamped scan history
- Key result
- Time-stamped scans proved the material had been delivered, avoiding an emergency trip to the site
The results
- Delivery proven with time-stamped scans at both loading and job-site receiving
- Emergency trip avoided. No flight, travel costs or staff time spent searching a job site for material that was already there
- No re-shipment needed for material that was already on site
- Issue resolved the same day, in about 3-4 hours
- A customer won over by seeing the data hold up
Related Case Studies
Track Every Piece Mark, from the Shop to the Job Site
Whether you’re losing time to paper production sheets, fighting shipping errors or chasing “missing” steel at the job site, STSX gives you a time-stamped record of every piece mark. You can see where it is, who worked on it and when it shipped and arrived.