CASE STUDY · REDUCED SHIPPING ERRORS
How a Steel Fabricator Replaced Manual Production Sheets
and Cut Shipping Errors with STSX
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
The fabricator tracked production on paper, which caused three recurring problems:
- No real-time view of the shop. Managers could not quickly see where a piece mark was in the fabrication process.
- No reliable record of who did the work. When a quality issue came up, finding who fitted, welded, painted or inspected a piece meant digging through manual production sheets.
- Inaccurate shipping tickets. Hand-built load lists led to loading mistakes. In the worst cases, a piece the customer needed urgently was left off the truck and had to go out as a hot-shot load.
How STSX solved it
Real-time piece mark tracking. Each piece mark gets a barcode ID label. Employees scan it as it moves through each process station, so manual production sheets are no longer needed. A production manager can open STSX and see where every piece mark is in the shop.
Automatic record of who did the work. At each station, STSX records two people: the employee who scanned the piece (such as an inspector) and the employee who did the work (such as a fitter, welder or painter). When a production issue comes up, management searches that record electronically. Searches that used to mean hours of digging through paper sheets now take minutes, with more accurate results.
Accurate electronic shipping tickets. Loading data is captured by scan instead of a handwritten list. Users can see how many pieces are on a load and its current weight in real time. They can also print a list of all loaded material for a visual check before the truck leaves.
This accuracy reduces shipment errors that on some jobs can be the difference between making a profit on the job to losing money because of the very expensive “hot shot” loads to the jobsite.
At a glance
- Industry
- Steel fabrication
- Focus
- Production tracking, labor accountability, shipping accuracy
- Solution
- STSX barcode tracking
- Stations tracked
- Fitting, welding, painting, inspection and loading
- What it replaced
- Manual production sheets and handwritten load lists
- Key result
- Production research cut from hours to minutes; loading mistakes virtually eliminated
The results
- Manual production sheets eliminated at every process station
- Production research cut from hours to minutes, with more confidence in the data
- Loading mistakes virtually eliminated
- Fewer hot-shot deliveries. On some jobs, a single hot-shot load can make the difference between profit and loss on a job.
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.